Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jianyu Liang; Terri Camesano

Undergraduate Nanobiotechnology Laboratory Experience at Worcester Polytechnic Institute Jianyu Liang1 and Terri Camesano2The development of nanotechnology is driving a new wave of innovations and creatingopportunities. One of the most promising areas of nanotechnology R&D is in human health care.The merging of biotechnology and nanoscience holds great promise for large-scaleimprovement of life and society. The next logical step is to connect these disciplines ineducation of scientists and engineers.In 2011, faculty at the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Chemical Engineering atWorcester Polytechnic Institute introduced a Nanobiotechnology Laboratory Experience classfor sophomores

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

A. Ieta; R. Manseur; M. Hromalik

Active Learning by Lecture and Laboratory Integration in an Emerging Engineering Program A. Ieta1, R. Manseur1, and M. Hromalik1Abstract – The development of a new Electrical and Computer Engineering program provides an opportunity fordesigning and implementing an innovative curriculum. In terms of teaching methods, a combination of lecturing andhands-on learning is selected. Studio-style teaching is reported to enhance student learning, compared to theclassical lecture and lab formats. However, course organization is different and requires adaptation and innovation incourse design, content, and delivery. A studio lab was organized and new equipment was acquired for laboratorystations that

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Yakov Cherner; Gary Mullett

Simulation-based Customizable Virtual Laboratories for Teaching Alternative Energy, Smart Grid and Energy Conservation in Engineering & Technology Programs Yakov Cherner 1 and Gary Mullett 2Abstract – The paper presents multilayered, highly interactive, simulation-based, integrated, and adjustablevirtual laboratories for engineering and technology education in the areas of renewable energy, sensors, smart grid,and energy conservation. These labs are designed to enhance the understanding of technical concepts and underlyingfundamental principles, as well as to help students master certain performance-based skills online. The virtual labscan be

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

James A. Lee; Michael J. D'Agostino

Designing a Zero-Waste Concrete Mix Testing Lab James A. Lee1 Michael J. D’Agostino2Abstract – A zero waste laboratory to mix and test the engineering and performance properties of concrete wasdesigned and tested at Wentworth Institute of Technology. To achieve the design, recycling and reuse opportunitieswere developed for both plastic and hardened concrete used from testing as well as other residual aggregate solids.Processed water waste was minimized by the design of a settling and filtration recycling system. Both reductions inraw material consumption and economic savings realized by avoiding waste streams were measured in the study.The laboratory is used extensively by students preparing for

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Zhiyong Gu; Bridgette Budhlall; Hongwei Sun; Carol Barry; Alfred Donatelli; Jill Lohmeier

-onlaboratory exercises, demonstration experiments, and a final design project. In this presentation, we will discuss thelecture topics and eight hands-on laboratory experiments or activities that have been developed into modules tocomplement respective lectures, including fluid mechanics, heat transfer, mixing, reaction engineering,electophoresis, and manufacturing methods for micro and nanoscale devices. Figure 2 shows a lab module focusedon the thermal conductivity measurement of nanofluids. We will also show the final project designs for thenanodevices or nanosystems that have been finished by student teams at the end of the course. Finally, we willshow results of the pre-post student surveys as well as faculty interviews.This new interdisciplinary

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Carlos Luck

engineering students. The students learn thatdifferent team members have different skill sets and that their backgrounds are complementary for the goals of theproject – a practice that is commonplace in industry and is emphasized by ABET. Finally, the array of upper-division technical electives includes several courses that were designed to be attractive to both EE’s and ME’s, suchas controls, robotics, and MEMS. The options of pursuing minors and double-majors between EE and ME with arelatively low additional effort reinforce the interdisciplinary approach. An important asset to both our programs isthe delivery of laboratory-integrated courses – as opposed to theory classes, followed by separate lab classes, oftenin a different semester, which

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Basile Panoutsopoulos

Enhancing Lectures with Calculations, Simulations, and Experiments. Basile Panoutsopoulos1Technology is widely used today in all places of human endeavors. Both academia and industry use varioustechnological tools to perform calculations and simulations before the experimentation. These powerful toolseffectively assist the professional to curry on calculations is short time, and simulate virtual prototypes avoiding theexpensive and long manufacturing and testing times. Both approaches allow investigations using the “What if”approach. These tools supplement and complement the Lecture and the laboratory. In this work, an integratedapproach of all four aspects, lecture

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Lisa Shatz

students to be creative in explaining their work and their research with the ability to incorporate media into their reports and also allows them to learn from the work of other students in the class. The last month of the course is spent working in teams, on designing a laboratory exercise for another Suffolk classthat relates to the science of sustainability where the students of Sustainability at Suffolk serve as the instructors for that lab to other Suffolk students in another class. The teams develop a handout for the lab where they ask students to record and analyze their findings. The teams also give ten minute power point presentations to both theSustainability at Suffolk and the class that they teach. All the work having to

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David O. Kazmer

retention and success. Having taught the required first semester course “Introduction toEngineering I” for several years, it was believed that student success could best be improved by increasing thestudent’s self-efficacy through improved faculty instruction. Accordingly, a studio model for engineering educationwas proposed (see figure, next page) in which “lecture” and “recitations” would be taught within an “InventionFactory” providing the most common capabilities for realization of engineering concepts. The underlying goal wasto replace a significant amount of lecture content with direct student-led inquiry in the context of engineering designand analysis. The resulting proposal called for approximately 6,000 square feet of laboratories with a

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Keith M. Gardiner

graduate with a goodengineering degree without ever sketching something out and physically making it in a laboratory or workshop.After several experimental courses and much student feedback a new course was developed and finally approved asmandatory for all first year engineers. This was offered every fall and spring starting in 2003. A new feature was theincorporation of two 5-6 week ‘Engineering Practice’ lab sessions spread across the seven departments in theengineering college [14]. In fall 2011 as result of other associated curriculum changes it became possible to offerthis course in the fall semester for the whole entering class of 331 students. Several new features were able to beincorporated exploiting Project-Based Learning with ‘Virtual

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Olga Lepsky; Michael Werner

. CONCLUSIONIn the “Algorithms Design and Analysis” course, students tried modifying algorithms to achieve a betterperformance (example 2.5), to apply it to a slightly different or a more general problem (examples 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5),to improve the output (ensuring uniqueness for a particular input in example 2.2 and eliminating bias in example2.3). While easier problems were given to all the students in the homework / laboratory assignments, the morechallenging questions on modifying algorithms were given as extra credit bonuses and later discussed with thewhole class. Exams showed that the students understood and better remembered the algorithms for which possibletweaks were discussed. Students told us in their evaluations that tweaking the algorithms

Collection

2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jacob Cox; Jason Cody; Jesse Fleming; Matthew Miller

Experimental Education. Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 64-69, 1982.[8] P. Totusek and A. Staton-Spicer, "Classroom Seating Preference as a Function of Student Personality," The Journal of Experimental Education, pp. 159-163, 1982.[9] K. Neha, L. Williams, E. Wiebe, C. Miller, S. Balik and E. Gehringer, "On understanding Compatibility of Student Pair Programmers," in Proceedings of the 35th CIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '04), New York, 2004.[10] L. S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.[11] T. Sills-Briegel, "Teacher-Student Proximity and Interactions in a Computer Laboratory and Classroom