Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 7B

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Huihui Qi, University of California, San Diego; Richard Eugene Vallejo Jr, University of California, San Diego; Changkai Chen, University of California, San Diego; Minju Kim, University of California, San Diego; Alex M. Phan, University of California, San Diego; Marko Lubarda, University of California, San Diego; Celeste Pilegard, University of California, San Diego; Curt Schurgers, University of California, San Diego

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Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

.​ Data Collection Multi-faceted data were collected: students’ demographics (gender, First-generationcollege student or not, URM or not), course assignments and assessment grades (two quizzes andfinal exam), overall course grade, learning strategies completion status, and responses to weeklyLearning Journal surveys. In addition, a Beginning-of-Quarter survey and an End-of-Quartersurvey (Appendix 1) were used to gather information on students’ familiarity with variouslearning techniques. Learning Journals then serve as a weekly reflection and planning method forstudents’ learning. In particular, the weekly learning journals asked students to indicate their timespent on learning activities in the past week and to rate the confidence level

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 7A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Timothy A Wood, The Citadel; Heath Kaufman, The Citadel

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

placing the scale,supports, and beam and then zeroing the scales. The students then place the weights for each axleload: the 5 g blue weight for the first axle load, the 20 g yellow for the second axle, and two 10 gyellow weights for the third axle load. (a) (b)Figure 5. Actual loading set up for equivalent system example (a) profile view and (b) plan view.The instructor and students can then discuss their confidence that what they have set up is anaccurate and/or precise model of the actual systems. What variations might exist in each set up,or in the accuracy of the measuring devices, etc.? If there are several models in the room (ideallya model for groups of two to four

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 6

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kapil Gangwar, Wentworth Institute of Technology; Gloria Guohua Ma, Wentworth Institute of Technology

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Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

Customized Fixtures Lab Module UTM Thermal Stress in Hot plate or Thermocouples, Dial 6 Bimetallic Strips In Process Oven Gauges Lab ModuleBased on our findings and plans to develop these lab modules for SO6 assessment, we havecreated a brief description of each module in the following sections. Instructors are encouragedto use or disregard any part of it to implement these modules at their institution.2.1.1 Stress Concentration Analysis Around a Circular Hole (In Process)Objective: To investigate the effect of stress concentration around

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 7A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Basel Alsayyed, Western Carolina University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

fromrevisiting specific lessons or accessing additional resources outside the classroom (Mayer &Moreno, 2003). With the physical models the authors are planning to video tape the use of thephysical models and make it available on the course VLEs on the LMS. A strong understandingof Statics is critical for future courses and real-world applications in engineering and documentingthe experience by the students for future use comes handy.The Need for Innovative Teaching MethodsStatics is often perceived as an abstract and difficult subject for students to comprehendparticularly because it involves complex mathematical models that are sometimes disconnectedfrom the tangible applications that students will eventually face in their careers. The challenge

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1B

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

P.L.STEPHAN Thamban, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS; Dani Fadda, The University of Texas at Dallas; Oziel Rios, University of Texas at Dallas

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

, the fixture must allow testing the concept in multiple configurations, sothe setup is interactive in a live demonstration to the class.The project component is assessed based on three deliverables namely (i) demonstrationproposal, (ii) critical design review, and (iii) project presentation and report. For the first twoteam deliverables, teams meet with the instructor/TA. Demonstration proposal is a deliverablewhere the teams present their plans along with a brief description of the statics concept that theyintend to demonstrate with their set-up. Projects are approved when the instructor/TA deems tobe within the scope, and it is not a repetition of a project by another team. During the criticaldesign review, teams present their engineering

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 2

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Phillip Cornwell, U.S. Air Force Academy; Ryan Carr, U.S. Air Force Academy; Brian P. Self, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

. There was a significant difference in whether or not studentsbelieved that the portfolio helped them improve their communication skills between the twosemesters, with 87% agreeing or strongly agreeing in the Fall of 2024 and only 50% in theSpring of 2024. The reason for this difference is still unclear. Most encouraging in these results,and one of the reasons we decided to keep this assignment in the Fall of 2024 even though wedecided not to continue using Connect, was the fact that over 50% indicated that they consideredthis activity a good use of their time and planned to keep a portfolio in their other courses. Table 1 – Results from the portfolio reflection assignment

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 4

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rosemary Yahne, Utah State University; Daniel Kane, Utah State University; Wade H Goodridge, Utah State University

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Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

Paper ID #46772Work in Progress: Assessing the Impact of Spatial Skills on Performance ina Statics CourseRosemary Yahne, Utah State University Rosemary Yahne is an undergraduate student at Utah State University. She plans to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering with a minor in geology. Her research interests include spatial ability impact on various groups in engineering.Daniel Kane, Utah State University Daniel Kane is a third-year Ph.D. student in the department of engineering education at Utah State University. His research interests include spatial ability, accessibility for students with

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 6

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Matthew J Jensen, Utah Valley University; Julian Ly Davis, University of Southern Indiana; Jiehong Liao, Florida Gulf Coast University; Anurag Purwar, Stony Brook University; Hadas Ritz, Cornell University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

dynamics course while the other was atraditional in-person lecture course. The MPP selected for this study is focused on helpingstudents understand the relationships between work, power, and efficiency and was assigned as astandalone homework assignment shortly after introducing these topics in their classes. Theinitial problem statement is provided in the appendix, while a flowchart illustrating the entiresequencies of questions that the students could follow to reach their final answer will bediscussed in the Methodology section below. A brief discussion of the initial results of this studyis included followed by the planned future work.Methodology:During a beta test of one of the new MPP problems this fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 7A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jacob Preston Moore, Pennsylvania State University, Mont Alto; Anna K. T. Howard, North Carolina State University at Raleigh

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

reported that they were not planning onusing the flipped classroom approach in the future. With a question asking if they wouldrecommend the flipped classroom approach to others, 21 of 24 instructors reported that theywould recommend the approach. Overall, the perception of the flipped classroom approachamong those using it is clearly positive.We then asked open-ended questions about the positive and negative aspects of using the flippedclassroom approach. In terms of the positive aspects, the most commonly mentioned idea wasthat the instructors got to know where the students struggled most and could directly engagethem in that moment. This idea was mentioned by 8 of the 24 instructors. Some other commonpositive aspects of using the approach

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 5

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Leslie A Brown, Utah State University; Marissa A Tsugawa, Utah State University - Engineering Education

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

, achievement, and career plans,” J. Eng. Educ., vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 319–336, Oct. 2010.[9]​ S. Deterding, R. Khaled, L. Nake, and D. Dixon, “Gamification: Toward a definition,” in gamification workshop proceedings, Vancouver, Canadá, May 2011, pp. 1–79.[10]​G. Barata, S. Gama, J. Jorge, and D. Gonçalves, “Studying student differentiation in gamified education: A long-term study,” Comput. Human Behav., vol. 71, pp. 550–585, Jun. 2017.[11]​L. Brown and M. Tsugawa, “WIP: Case study - Training STEM high school teachers to integrate engineering through gamification,” presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Conference, Utah State University, 2024.[12]​L. Brown and M. Tsugawa, “WIP: Using games and

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 4

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Simon Livingston-Jha, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Matthew M Grondin, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Kyle Ma, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee; Wensheng Hu, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Jennifer Detlor, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

Plans for the App In recognizing the stark differences in how novices and experts approach and representproblem solutions and the various stages of acquiring expertise, an assessment that tracksstudents’ emerging conceptualizations of stress transformations and Mohr’s Circle has beendeveloped to adequately assess the effectiveness of the MATLAB application on learningoutcomes [17, 18]. For the assessment, multiple choice questions using three levels ofabstraction including less-abstract, more-abstract, and fully-abstract are used to measurestudents’ level of knowledge acquisition between three stages: novice, competent, and expert[18]. The level of abstraction is defined as the degree of complexity of the concept of thought[19]. That is

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ryan Carr, U.S. Air Force Academy; Phillip Cornwell, U.S. Air Force Academy

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

to assess the performance of chatbots.The authors plan to rebuild the DCI in a JSON format to facilitate automated testing of updatedversions of ChatGPT through the API 8,9. Hopefully this will stimulate more investigation intothe utility of modern AI tools, resulting in broader studies with more data for statistical analysis.Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarilyreflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, theDepartment of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Approved for public release, USAFA-DF-2025-412: distribution unlimited.References[1] J. Qadir, “Engineering Education in the Era of ChatGPT: Promise and Pitfalls of

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Milad Rezvani Rad, University of Southern Indiana; Julian Ly Davis, University of Southern Indiana

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

unreliable11) How would you evaluate ChatGPT 4.0's explanations of mechanics problems? a. Excellent, very clear and detailed b. Good, mostly clear and detailed c. Neutral d. Poor, unclear or missing details e. Very poor, confusing or incorrect12) Would you recommend using ChatGPT 4.0 for mechanics-related problems to otherstudents? a. Yes b. No13) Do you plan to continue using ChatGPT 4.0 for learning engineering concepts in the future? a. Yes b. No14) What are your suggestions for improving the use of ChatGPT 4.0 in solving mechanicsproblems?15) What specific learning goals or objectives do you aim to achieve when using ChatGPT 4.0for engineering-related topics?16) Do you find that ChatGPT 4.0 helps you achieve a deeper

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 7A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alexander John De Rosa, University of Delaware; Teri Kristine Reed, The University of Oklahoma Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

then dividing it by thetotal area.”“I'm gonna give you a different perspective… [further discussion of mathematical concepts]…then calculus can be thought of as like the present, the past and the future.”“I was thinking about as well, like, another backup plan would be, if I had access to a PCinstead of trying to remember what this formula was, then I would like write a computer code tolike break this into little pieces. Right? And I would say, Well, if this piece is above the curve, addit. If it's below the curve, don’t. And then average all of that.”In the first comment above, the expert demonstrates their deeper understanding of themathematical underpinnings of the centroid concept and how it relates to the broader idea ofweighted averages

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 6

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Priyantha Wijesinghe, University of Vermont; Varuni A. Seneviratne, University of Vermont; Larry R Medsker, The George Washington University; Courtney D Giles, University of Vermont; Marlee Ottati, University of Vermont

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

scaffolding.These findings emphasize the need for targeted instructional strategies. For foundationalproblems, such as unit conversion and vector addition, students showed stronger performance.However, the persistent gaps in moments and static equilibrium suggest a need for deeperconceptual support, iterative practice, and improved scaffolding. Addressing these challengeswill be critical for refining the SKI and enhancing students' understanding of complexengineering concepts.XI. Future WorkFuture work will include continued use and testing of the SKI at the authors’ institution to assessknowledge transfer during the Learning Map Project. We plan to share these results and analyseswith physics, statics, and dynamics instructors during regular check-ins and

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1B

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Geoffrey Recktenwald, Michigan State University; Julian Ly Davis, University of Southern Indiana; Amie Baisley, University of Florida

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

several issues including thoserelated to teaching style. At University A, rigid body dynamics is covered quite early in thesemester so students are solving these problems earlier than the students at Universities B and C.At University B, students are given two attempts at each exam and may leave a question blankbecause they solved it on the first exam or plan on solving it on the 2nd exam. Additionally,Universities A and C made the concept problem a regular exam question while University Bmade the concept problems a bonus question.As one can expect, creating rigid study controls across several universities can be challenging.This study is designed to be exploratory in nature, thus we acknowledge that there are limitationsin the data.Exam Problems

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 5

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Anyerson Cuervo-Basurto, Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE); Hong Tran, Purdue Engineering Education; Edward J. Berger, Purdue University at West Lafayette (PWL) (COE); Fredy Rodriguez, Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

Development for adoption and adaptation of new instructional practices. In S. Linder, C. Lee, S. Stefl, & K. High (Eds.), Handbook of STEM Faculty Development (pp. 3–13). IAP.Birt, J. A., Khajeloo, M., Rega‐Brodsky, C. C., Siegel, M. A., Hancock, T. S., Cummings, K., & Nguyen, P. D. (2019). Fostering agency to overcome barriers in college science teaching: Going against the grain to enact reform‐based ideas. Science Education, 103(4), 770–798. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21519 19Estaiteyeh, M., & DeCoito, I. (2023). Planning for Differentiated Instruction: Empowering Teacher Candidates in STEM Education

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1B

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wayne L Chang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Mikayla R Hoyle, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Melany Denise Opolz, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Jean-Christophe Raymond-Bertrand, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Nikhil Chandra Admal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Thomas Golecki, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Kellie M Halloran, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Shelby Hutchens, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Callan Luetkemeyer, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Brian Mercer, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Matthew West, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Mariana Kersh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

,contributions from individual instructors can continue to be carried out by future instructors withthe coordinator’s help. The coordinator is the bridge between courses and between semesters.Students and new instructors have greatly benefited from standard course policies and consistentexpectations.Reform Project 2: Integration of computational tools in collaboration with computer science andmath prerequisite coursesThe project aimed to modernize essential undergraduate service courses by incorporatingmeaningful computational tools and exercises. While the focus was initially on Statics, the facultyparticipating in this project is the core of a broader Python Working Group initiative, with plans toimplement similar changes in other courses over time

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 6

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ibukunoluwa Eunice Salami, University of Nebraska - Lincoln; Logan Andrew Perry, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

assistants tocurrent students who are struggling in a course [40], [41]. In our future work, we plan to explorethe impact of learning assistants more comprehensively by comparing the perceptions of bothinstructors and students. This investigation aims to identify and address recurring challenges inengineering statics. By reducing the high rate of failing grades and providing actionablerecommendations for statics instructors, this work seeks to improve students' learningexperiences and manage their expectations of the course.RecommendationsThe following summarizes our recommendations on improving the challenges students face inengineering statics based on this study’s findings:Revisit Prerequisite Concepts: Instructors should allocate time to revisit

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 3

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christine F. Goble, Centre College; Martha E. Grady, University of Kentucky

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)

resources required to implement a set ofsix hands-on statics activities. It is well established that active and hands-on learning canimprove student outcomes. However, planning, resourcing, and implementation can be a barrierto their use. Our goal is to lower the implementation barrier for busy faculty that are hesitant toadopt active learning despite awareness of the research. We have created an easily accessiblerepository of the resources required to source, assemble, and implement Statics Shoebox Kits.Five criteria were considered in the development of the kits and activities. 1) Very little prep timeshould be required from the instructor. 2) The materials should be readily available, portable,inexpensive, and reusable. 3) Activity worksheets

Conference Session

Mechanics Division (MECHS) Technical Session 1A

Collection

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jacklyn Wyszynski, University of Pittsburgh; David Adam DeFrancisis, University of Pittsburgh; David Pabst, University of Pittsburgh; Lee Allen Dosse, University of Pittsburgh; Matthew M. Barry, University of Pittsburgh

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics Division (MECHS)