Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Cristian Craciun

profitability has demanded that anyintroduction of automation must give a high level of efficiency and reliability to ensure aquick payback on investment.Automation has two purposes that are closely related: 1.) Improving customer service 2.) Ensuring the survival of the enterprise Proceedings of the 2011 ASEE Northeast Section Annual Conference University of Hartford Copyright © 2011, American Society for Engineering Education 3. AutomationIn industry, Automation can be defined as a technology concentrated with the applicationof mechanical, electronic, and computer-based systems to operate and control production.Automation can be separated into two categories:1. Automation of the

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David Kazmer

employment websites, and frequency ofengineering terms in digitized books. The data indicates that supply and demand of engineers iscurrently well matched, but also suggests strong dynamics related to the emergence and declineof specific engineering majors. IntroductionDivision of labor — the tendency of individuals to specialize in specific occupations — is animportant feature of the modern labor market [1]. The education and training of specific classesof engineers not only shapes the employability of engineering graduates at the micro scale, butalso affects the future quality of life for society on the macro scale. Unfortunately, choicesrelated to the division of labor take years to implement and have

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Alan Hadad; Akram Abu-aisheh

disciplines were divided.  Several factors mitigated such a merger. The first of these was the dramatic growth of the University’s enrollment in engineering technology during the decade of the nineties (in contrast to the dramatic decline in enrollment in engineering technology that occurred nation-wide during the same time period). Indeed, since the year 2000, the full-time undergraduate enrollment in engineering technology at the university has been roughly equal to those at the undergraduate level in engineering, a phenomenon that is rare across the United States, where there the ratio of full-time undergraduate engineering students to full-time undergraduate engineering technology students is about 6:1.  The second

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Buket D. Barkana; Nelson Ngoh; Allen Cook

The Learning and Teaching Experiences in a Graduate Level Stem Course for Teacher Educators Faculty Paper K-12 Education (Curriculum Integration) Buket D. Barkana1, Nelson Ngoh2, Allen Cook2 1 School of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering 2 School of Education University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT 06604 E-mail: {bbarkana; ngoh; acook@bridgeport.edu}Abstract: It is essential that teachers understand the

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Nese Orbey; Molly Clay

Using a Game Based Learning Tool in a Freshman Chemical Engineering Course Nese Orbey1, Molly Clay2Problems that chemical engineers face on a daily basis involve many unknowns that need to be optimized. Toinitiate this concept early on in chemical engineering curricula, a game based software (developed by ProfessorTWF Russell, University of Delaware, http://www.mht.che.udel.edu) was used as a part of an introductory freshmanclass at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The course was presented over a two week period with a lectureflowed by a lab session during each week. The students were in small groups in the lab session (instructor to studentratio 1:9) and each had an access

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Angel DeCegama

1 Video Pre- and Post-Processing Algorithms for Break through Cost-Effective Video Compression Angel DeCegama, Ph.D. Wentworth Institute of TechnologyIntroductionThe volumes and costs of video storage and transmission are soaring. This situation can only be ameliorated by mas-sive investments in infrastructure or by technological breakthroughs or both.This paper presents one such technological breakthrough that can reduce the size of any video file compressed byany existing video codec, e.g., MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, VC-1, etc., to between 25% and 10% of such compressed sizewithout loss of the video

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Wendy Otoupal-Hylton; Pete Hylton

. This article will discuss how IUPUI has used this connection to promoteSTEM growth. Introduction The number of American high school graduates entering engineering and technology careers incollege has fallen significantly in the past decade. [1] One of the major ways that colleges can reversethis trend is by outreach to minority students and females, both of whom are significantly under-represented in engineering and technology careers, and encourage them to pursue STEM plans of study.Currently, minorities and females are so underrepresented in such programs, that they comprise less than20% of the total students. [2, 3] Grose states that low income minority students can present a special setof

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

James W. Smith

had with this mode of learning was the lack of computational skillsdeveloped. That is not necessarily a given in this mode of instruction but care must be taken topick articles which have content from which computational exercises could be devised. Anotherfeature was a sense that whatever success the course had, was due partially to the maturity andsophistication of the students involved who were willing to come to grips with material whichwas not organized or presented in the way that they were used to but who, nevertheless, grappledwith material which initially they had little familiarity with. Using technical papers as theprimary text is probably best used with upper-division students.References 1. Livingston, James D. “Electronic

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Frank Caserta; Robert J. Lind; Loutfallah G. Chedid

WHY DO FRESHMAN STUDENTS AT THE WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CHOOSE THE BACHELOR OF ELECTROMECHANICAL ENGINEERING MAJOR? Frank Caserta, Jr.1, Robert J. Lind1, Loutfallah G. Chedid2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 2 Department of Electrical Engineering and Technology Wentworth Institute of Technology casertaf@wit.edu AbstractOn the 2004, 2006, and 2009 final exams for Introduction to Engineering, the students weresurveyed about the three reasons why they chose the BELM major

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Scott Grenquist

, 1 ∙ 1The introduction of acceleration is the first time that the students also encounter the mathematics of simplification of complexfractions. Although the students probably originally learned simplification of complex fractions in third or fourth grade, theirre-acquaintance with it in College, requiring them to manipulate symbols rather than numbers, seems to be quite difficult formany students originally. As can be seen from the equation above, taking the quotient of two fractions is the equivalent ofmultiplying the numerator by the reciprocal of the denominator. Usually, at this point in the presentation

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Sarah Tasneem

small scale real world problems where students acquire hands on experience through algorithmanimation. Bringing an algorithm in life through animation can help students understand logisticswhat the algorithm does and how it works. Most importantly, the course aims to help students,irrespective of their major, feel confident to write small programs accomplishing useful goals.1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND MIT Computer Scientist Seymour Papert in his seminal book (Mindstorms: Children, Computersand Powerful Ideas) mentioned that a deep understanding of programming, in particular the designactivity of successive decomposition as a mode of analysis, results in significant educational benefits inmany domains of discourse, including those

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Bhushan Dharmadhikari; Prabir Patra; Navarun Gupta; Lawrence V. Hmurcik

A SIMPLE ELECTRIC CIRCUIT MODEL TO EXPLAIN THE IMPEDANCE OF PLASTICS DOPED WITH CARBON NANOTUBES. Bhushan Dharmadhikari1, Prabir Patra2, Navarun Gupta3, Lawrence V. Hmurcik3 1. Department of Computer Engineering and Science, 2. Biomedical Engineering Department, 3. Electrical Engineering Department University of Bridgeport, CT bdharmad@bridgeport.edu, ppatra@bridgeport.edu, navarung@bridgeport.edu, hmurcik@bridgeport.eduABSTRACTWe explore the nature of the passive electrical properties of polymers in composite withadded carbon nanotube material. A simple model of 2 resistors and one capacitor issufficient to explain this

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jeremy Li

that are different from regular conventional machines [1], [2]designing procedure . Automated machining brings different problems in design area; suchas high acceleration, high declaration, unpredictable forces / moments while machine is working,more accuracy at positioning, and proper materials in high speed manufacturing processes [3], [4],[5] . This research is to design an automated assembly machine to assemble the Ø 0.5mm bronzewire into the Ø 0.5mm plastic block hole and bend it at high volume production rates. Since it isautomated machine system, all the machinery design layout and calibration must be veryaccurate otherwise it will cause significant damages to the machinery and products. The whole

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Gaetan Garcia; Matthew R. Stein

exercise remotely. The paper concludes with an analysisof the project and a discussion of future plans.IntroductionAlthough the concept of distance education is by no means new, the offering of laboratory courses hastrailed the offering of regular didactic courses due to the presence of significant technical obstacles. Asthe network infrastructure became faster and more ubiquitous, many researchers [1][2][3][4] beganimplementing remote laboratories in some form. Among the first to be developed were systemproviding remote access to laboratory equipment controlling fixed experimental apparatus. As systemsdeveloped, laboratories began to include moving apparatus with mechanical uncertainties [5][6][7][8][9] requiring video feedback. Remote laboratory

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Akram Abu-aisheh; Omar Hassan; A. Y. Al-Zoubi

RFID DESIGN, SIMULATION, AND IMPLEMENTATION Faculty Paper Multidisciplinary Research Akram Abu-aisheh1, Omar Hassan2, and A. Y. Al-Zoubi2 1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Hartford, USA 2 Department of Communication, Princes Sumaya University of Technology, Jordan abuaisheh@hartford.eduAbstractManufactures, retailers, and government agencies are tracking, securing and managingsupplies from the time they are raw materials through the entire life of the product. Theycommonly use Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) to identify pallets, containers,vehicles, tools and other