Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Vijay Kanabar; Virginia Greiman; Jim Cormier

Communication and Collaboration in an Online Masters Degree Vijay Kanabar, Associate Professor, Boston University Virginia Greiman, Assistant Professor, Boston University Jim Cormier, Lecturer, Boston UniversityAbstract Communicating with students and encouraging collaboration poses a major challenge in distanceeducation. In this paper, the authors present lessons learned from an online master’s degree program; eachhad successfully developed courses to teach engineers and managers project management at a distance.The first section introduces online learning and illustrates the tools and interactive technologies used tocommunicate with students. The second

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

John Adams

” course fornon science majors. This cross disciplinary course is based in the EE department withsignificant input from the Biology department. A Kill-O-Watt meter serves as the“textbook” purchase, with required student real-world projects in energy usageassessment, and in evaluating effectiveness of remedial actions. This collaborationbetween EE and Biology is an initial effort towards greater collaboration between the twodepartments.The Civil Engineering department piloted the senior elective “Environmental Design” inFall 2009, with student teams running feasibility studies for renewable energyinstallations including Photovoltaic, SHW and Wind. The next iteration of this coursewill incorporate participation of EE and business students.Background

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

John W. Duggan P.E.

both on and off-site. Such opportunities include use of soil as gradingmaterial, re-use of stone aggregate as a raw material for concrete and re-use of crushed concretematerial as sub-base material for roadways and parking lots. Recycling and re-use rather thanoff-site disposal of these materials saves on transportation expenses and tipping charges.Reducing the need to bring virgin soil and stone on-site protects natural resources, lowerstransportation costs and reduces air emissions. These practices may also provide creditopportunities for projects seeking LEED certification. Despite the growth in recycling and re-use of on-site soil materials, the topic is rarely addressed in any detail in standard sustainableconstruction texts. This paper

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Andrzej Zarzycki

ways to codify theirexperiences. In their first ever project done during architectural education, students are asked todevelop a cantilevered structure made of toothpicks and glue that would be able to support abrick. Interestingly, there are hardly any questions asked regarding the project in the initial stagesof assignment. Students feel it is self-explanatory and expect it to be an easy assignment untilthey start working on it. This seemingly simple project exposes students to a wide range of issuesranging from basic modeling techniques to understanding of structural behavior and materialcharacteristics. Some students start the project by immediately building study models and follow thedesigning-while-doing approach. Others

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Rathika Rajaravivarma

Embedding LEGO Mindstorms in the Electromechanical Engineering Technology Curriculum Dr . Rathika Rajar avivar ma Depar tment of Computer Engineer ing Technology New Yor k City College of Technology Br ooklyn, NY 11201 Session: First year experience Abstract: The innovative use of LEGO as a tool for learning and exploring has leaped many boundaries. The use of LEGO is projected as a fun learning tool, while keeping the mind and the hands of the user engaged in creative activities. The degree of the diverse level of users captured by LEGO is practically boundless. The LEGO mindstorms is a fun learning tool for

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Alan Seelan; Jeongkyu Lee

needs of Developers and DBA’s are highlyintegrated with the concept of providing one possible solution but they are accessible in differentvariations. Though there are a lot of functions that are included in much software not everythingis being used in the real world so this project includes functions that are primarily used by theusers. So the major goal or objective of this project is to implement software that isstandardized with the functionalities of both the developer and also the DBA’s with therestriction of certain instances on the developers and also provides GUI for easy access offunctionalities with also the inclusion of editor to hard code your own query and subprograms. An Illustration of the individual user are

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Andrew C. Foley; Eben H. Phillips

Science etc) the nature of the courses becomes more‘demonstrative’. Culmination of the sequences is the two semester Capstone coursewhere students undertake their own unique projects, creating specifications, generatingalternatives and developing chosen solutions. Foley (2007) discusses the design processused at the Academy in more detail. This paper however discusses a particular methodology of ‘rapid fire’ theory tohardware realization in a unique sophomore design course. The outcomes were ambitiousand initially a little open ended, but once correctly indentified were seen to have beenachieved. DESIGN PROGRESSION Sophomore Junior Introduction to Mechanical

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Marie Planchard

Sustainability MethodologyWPI Sustainability Poster CompetitionAs part of WPI's 2010 Earth Day Celebration, the WPI Task Force on Sustainability[3] and theEnvironmental Studies Program will be sponsoring a sustainability-themed poster contest. Byproviding judges and SolidWorks Sustainability applications, DS SolidWorks Corp. will alsoparticipate in the competition that will take place on April 21, 2010. The competition is dividedinto two categories: (1) Technological responses to a problem associated with greening orsustainability and (2) Interdisciplinary projects that focus on socio-technical dimensions of socialor environmental sustainability. According to US News and World Report[4] , sustainability isintroduced to WPI freshman in friendly dorm

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Chiara Silvestri; Adriana Hera; Malcolm H. Ray; Siamak Najafi

%(over 1000 students) of currently enrolled students (approx. 4500) attended an average of 5 hoursof training. As a result of this program and other similar activities, most of WPI studentsincorporate numerical solutions and simulations in their projects and HW assignments. Finiteelement and computational fluid dynamics analyses are included in undergraduate students majorqualifying projects (MQP) and more realistic solutions are developed.Scientific and Engineering Software Applications (SESA) Training at WPI The SESA training program started with training sessions and technical support on softwareapplications such as Matlab, ANSYS, and Fluent. At the request of students and facultymembers, over the last three years, the offer was expanded to

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Joanne Tuck

free democratic constitution to obtain the participation of technology in governmenton the basis of the number of our members.” (Jarausch 34) Engineers were underrepresented inthe Reischstag and generally were not good at organizing themselves within the political frame.Lacking leadership and influence as a group was unfortunate as the profession found itself at theindulgence and initiative of whatever government was in power. The Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was fraught with problems of all kinds- economic,social, political and image. By the mid twenties, the government had stabilized somewhat andthe economy was improving. Engineers were not committed to the Republic with great loyaltyor passion but were focused on obtaining projects and

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ali Alshubbak; Saeid Moslehpour; Eugenio Pellicer; Joaquín Catalá

employees, for that; a survey was carried out to assess how can theindustry-university-government enhance the engineering education to initiate acontinuing and evolving process to provide curriculum designers with importantinformation from industry. Schott et al [1] debate the problem of the Australianengineering education system which depends the traditional mode and the “chalk andtalk” pedagogy, they argue the importance of the development of a new mixed systemwhich considers the industry’s needs. May be there no perfect method or procedure tobe followed while designing an engineering curriculum, Dym et al [6] study the project-based learning, but they emphasize the importance of the involvement of the interest ofthe industry in the engineering

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Andrzej Zarzycki

BIM as Design Exploration Tool in Architecture Andrzej Zarzycki New Jersey Institute of TechnologySession 6 : Teaching project based courses and design courses, including senior design course.Recent developments in contemporary architecture have been significantly influenced by theemergence of digital technologies as a primary production tool allowing for new ways ofthinking. These new developments, combined with research into new materials and fabricationtechnologies, make possible to purse imaginative designs that were not possible in the past. While often criticized for its overemphasis on formal expressions and its pursuit of thespectacular

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Siben Dasgupta

board. This paper describes how Wentworth Institute of Technology provides “hands on”experience with real signals by using a “laboratory” based on MATLAB and SIMULINK running on PC’s.In addition, an innovative approach is provided in this paper for integrating DSP course in to the graduateprogram at Heritage Engineering College in Calcutta, India.Digital Signal Processing at Wentworth Institute of Technology – Course OutlineThe DSP course at Wentworth Institute of Technology is developed with an objective to help the studentsto learn DSP’s and carry out a project in stages, through gradual steps, in subjects related with signalprocessing which can be found in industry, such as digital filters, echo cancellation, audio equalizers,modems, voice

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Chitra N. Javdekar

with Northeastern University, Massachusetts and funded by NSF. The engineering designcourse is a first-semester freshman engineering 4-credit course (Engineering Design with CAD -I) thatis based on instruction in Computer Aided Design (CAD), and is transferred to a four-year institution asa 2-credit course in CAD. The course essentially involved teaching students to create 3D models ofparts, and assemblies and 2-D drawings using SolidWorks. While Engineering Graphics is a traditionalcourse, it also posed a constraint in that the students did not have time to explore “engineering design”in a meaningful way and tended to spend more time learning the software (more than 80 percent) thanin working on projects that simulated the experience of

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Andrea Baruzzi; Theresa M Calcagno

project. For thepurpose of this discussion, we will focus on how Infoguides can be used to incorporateinformation literacy skills into undergraduate courses.Infoguide Integration in IT103For some courses, library instruction is not feasible due to time or other constraints. At GMU,IT103 – Introduction to Computing is one such course. IT103 is a general educationrequirement for all students. Students can test out of it, but the vast majority (approximately1100 each Fall and Spring semester) take the class. Due to the large number of sections of IT103offered (15-17 sections during fall and spring semesters), it is not possible to conduct libraryinstruction for each.To address the information needs of IT103 students, the library developed a course

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Tyler J. Martin; Matthew S. Jolda; Christopher M. Linden; Douglas E. Dow

learning environment, but lacks instruction and advice on strategy orskillful play. These types of systems simply teach a player how to play one step at a time, asopposed to thinking several moves ahead, which is how masters develop strategy for the game.Need and Proposed SolutionNo available chess systems on the market optimally benefit both visual and kinetic learners. Asystem for chess that would provide a simple and easy way to understand using the visual andkinetic environment would help those types of learners understand and develop skill at the gameof chess. This project designed, built, and tested a prototype of such a system. The design allowsfor kinetic learners to manipulate the pieces and for visual learners to see all the places where

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Dan Brosnan; Dana Hawes; Max Nielsen; Salah Badjou

Autonomous Garbage Removal System Dan Brosnan Dana Hawes Max Nielsen Salah Badjou, Ph.D. Department of Electronics and Mechanical Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA 02115 Session Topic: Teaching project based courses and design courses, including senior design course AbstractThis paper reports on the design, construction and testing of an automated garbage removalsystem. This project was undertaken in the course of junior-level

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Peter S. Rourke

accompany them here in the US are going right with them. This is far from the truth. It isfrequently only the highly repetitive, low skill jobs that are associated with the high volume output thatgoes. What remains here is the required high level of manufacturing knowledge needed to bring thenext generation of products to the line. Often left out of the discussion is the need for increasededucation in manufacturing to insure we keep this capability. Following are some quotes taken from theBureau of Labor Statistics Overview of the 2008-18 Projections, Production Heading:From the Significant Points section:Job opportunities are expected to be good in the manufacturing sector, particularly in growing, high-technology industries. (1)From the Nature of

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Nathan Podoll; Kassim M. Tarhini P.E.; Hudson Jackson

requires coordination beyond the engineeringdepartment, for example, attempting to eliminate conflict in exam schedules of the sciencecourses students take concurrently. Once the course topics and order of coverage are finalized,the coordinator modifies the existing list of lesson objectives based on feedback from the EOCRand develops homework and project assignments for the new semester. Some of the homeworkand project assignment developments are assigned to other instructors and reviewed by all courseinstructors before adoption in the course. A common practice is to plan a two hour block to runthrough all four of the labs included in this course. This exercise allows new instructors and labtechnician opportunities to see the nuances of the

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

B. Samanta

well as engineering education are discussed. The experiences of presenting CI as acourse and summer projects are also presented. The importance of introducing the CI techniquesand their multidisciplinary applications as a senior level interdisciplinary engineering electivecourse and integrating these in research experiences for undergraduates (REU) and STEMeducation (GK-12) is discussed.I. IntroductionIn the digital generation, large volumes of data are collected in various forms in differentendeavors related to business, science, engineering and biomedicine, among others. There is aneed to make sense of the voluminous data for assessing the current status of the system anddetecting an early indication of any possible deterioration of the

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Anne Y. Boisvert; Bahaa E. Saleh; S. Hamid Nawab

basicconcepts. It would also be useful to students in later courses by providing them clearinterconnections between the new concepts and techniques they are currently acquiring and themore basic concepts they might have (or were supposed to have) acquired in earlier courses. An1 This project is funded in part by the National Science Foundation through its Division of Undergraduate Education(Award No. 0736827).2 Bahaa E. Saleh is now with The College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida. 1example of the LIVE tool’s display of convergence knowledge is shown in the “concept map” ofFigure 1 where each node represents a

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

David Potter

- defined radioFor software experimentation, a minimum of a compiler is required. To do more than simpleprograms, some sort of debugging environment is necessary. The open source movement hascreated several excellent tools to do just that. Table 5 has a brief list.The Arduino project is worth particular mention since it combines a variety of very inexpensivehardware platforms with a software environment that is exceptionally easy to use. It is alsostraightforward to develop software of significant complexity and program it into the platforms. Table 5 Language compilers and software development environmentsDescription Source URL CostC/C++ compiler

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Jeanine Lee Skorinko; Jennifer Lay; Grant McDonald; Brad Miller; Colleen Shaver; Cindy Randall; James Kevin Doyle; Michael A. Gennert; Gretar Tryggvason; James Van de Ven

positive and advanceddevelopmental outcomes (3, 4, 5, 6). And, self-esteem may be influenced by peers andactivities (7).Current Research Thus, the specific goals of the current project are to (1) investigate socialnetworking in FIRST, (2) investigate the social benefits of participating in FIRST (e.g.,increased self-esteem, social awareness, social networking, social skills, etc.), (3)evaluate the usability and effectiveness of different networking and informationrepository websites that can by used by FIRST participants to better understand whatresources FIRST participants are using and why. MethodParticipants There were a total of 417 participants (255 male; 141 female; 21 Not specified

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Charles Thomas; Loren Byrne; Jeremy Campbell

the United States (i.e., unlimitedeconomic growth reflected by an ever-increasing GDP). We also explored the sometimes subtledifference between “belief” and “knowledge.” In support of this lesson, the major courseworkcomponent was for the students to pick a sustainability-related belief that they held and write a“This I Believe” essay, modeled after the long-lived project started by Edward R. Murrow in the1950’s and continued today by National Public Radio[3]. This introductory section also includedlectures whose purpose was to present a common definition of sustainability which was referredto throughout the remainder of the semester.The Science of SustainabilityAfter defining sustainability, we examined it through the eyes of the natural

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Daniel Ruscansky; David Vecchione; Ryan Foley; Shankar Krishnan; Mansour Zenouzi

incubators extremely important devices in neonatal care athospitals. Modern incubators are very expensive making it difficult for hospitals, especiallysmall ones, to procure them especially with economic crunch and resource constraints for capitalequipment. The paper provides the details of a students’ project to design and build an efficientand cost-effective incubator to meet the clinical needs at low budget hospitals. The designinvolves controlling the temperature precisely within a small physiological range, whileconcurrently maintaining the desired humidity. The incubator is also designed to trigger alarmsin the event of failures of electromechanical nature. It is noted that the project is carried out as apart of the requirements for the

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

David H. Plantz; William M Simpson Jr. P.E.

integrating failure cases into courses. He suggests that the cases be clearly tiedinto course content, that the case history and causes of failure be described, that the problem besimplified if needed to allow students to perform calculations, and that ethical issues arising fromthe case be addressed. Delatte further suggests that teachers bring practicing engineers into theclassroom to discuss their experiences with projects and engineering failures [3]. As educatorshave developed innovative methods for incorporating case studies, they also have been workingon assessing the educational benefits of this teaching method. For example, researchers havediscussed various methods that can be used to assess changes in cognitive learning to help gaugethe

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Gautham Das; Sameer Shaik

Summary:Dr. Gautham P. DasWentworth Institute of Technology550 Huntington AvenueBoston, MA 02115Email: dasg@wit.eduTel: 617.989.4418Dr. Gautham P. Das is an Assistant Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Hisrecent projects include secondary mineral formation in coal combustion by-products, lowcost methods of treating wastewater effluents in developing countries, and geotechnicalimplications of constructing over retired ash basins. His teaching interests include, waterresources, water and waste water treatment, soil mechanics and applied fluid mechanics.He was a senior engineer at S&ME, Inc and at Parsons Corporation. His professionalactivities include membership and participation in the New England Water EnvironmentAssociation and the

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Janet Baldwin

homework assignments,a project, three exams, and a final exam.The online course is delivered as a hybrid: the lessons are conducted asynchronously, butoffice hours and exams are synchronous. I have offered the online course during twosemesters so far: I taught one section online in the winter intersession which ran for 6weeks, starting right after final exams. I also taught the online course during the regular14 week semester. This is important to note because the success of the online course hadmuch to do with when the students took it, as noted below.Overall, the online course was organized exactly like the face-to-face sections. Themajor difference was that instead of dividing the course into 28 lessons as in the twotimes per week offering, I

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ali Moazed; Richard L Roberts; Xiaobin Le P.E.; Anthony William Duva P.E.

Transfer, Thermal-Stress, and optimization.• All course material including lectures, labs, homework assignment, exams and projects are designed by faculty and are available to students through Blackboard, Wentworth’s online learning platform.IV. Course LayoutThis required (vs. elective) four credit hour course is offered in the last semester of the BMETprogram. Faculty have the option of scheduling two one hour lectures or one two hour lecture perweek. There are also two lab sessions, two hours each per week. Although the lectures and labsare designated as such, the distinction between lecture and lab at times is blurred since allstudents have laptops (Wentworth Laptop Program/Wireless Campus). The authors routinelycover lecture

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Douglas E. Dow; Stephanie Cheney

are provided a more engaging experience. Moreover,practicing engineers interact with large web-accessible databases for an increasingnumber of activities directly related to their engineering projects. Examples includedatabases related to patents, journal articles, genomic sequences, protein structure, ortables of empirically measured values. Leading students through structured experienceswith such databases develops skills essential for productive utilization and work. Wehave selected and utilized web sites to be used as part of assignments for a biomedicalengineering course in physiology. One module for this course utilized a web site thatexplained aspects of neural signaling using animations, artwork and text. Anothermodule utilized web