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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Zenaida O. Keil; Robert P. Hesketh; James A. Newell; Stephanie Farrell; C. Stewart Slater

engineering.The goal of the Young Scholars program is to introduce students entering 9th and 10th grades tothe field of engineering. The primary component of this project is a 4 week summer session inwhich the scholars interacted with departmental faculty, undergraduate students, andrepresentatives from local industry. The hands-on activities that were developed includeengineering laboratory experiments, computer workshops, and a design project. The uniqueengineering experiments stimulated the scholars interest in the field of engineering by relatingeach experiment to a process that is familiar to the student: a coffee machine. In the computerworkshops the Young Scholars worked with a state-of-the-art and user friendly computer aideddesign package. Each

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Frank E. Falcone; Edward Glynn

Session2315 CEE 2602, Civil Engineering Measurements: A “Hands On” Introduction to the Profession Frank E. Falcone, Edward F. Glynn Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Villanova University; Villanova, PA 19085AbstractThe paper describes a sophomore-level course developed by the authors to provide anintroduction to the civil engineering profession. The course uses a blend on “hands on” fieldand laboratory work, case histories and projects to provide the students with an overview of thetasks and projects they will encounter in their professional

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Roger Ruggles

three components which are lectures,laboratories and computer aided design (CAD). The components are used to develop thecapabilities of the students in a particular field of engineering through classroom lectureand laboratory work then to apply the newly developed capabilities to the design project. The final product of each block is a completed portion of the project through both thedesign and constructed phase. The final week of the semester is dedicated to theassembly, calibration and testing of the design project. Students make final oralpresentations and submit a final written report on their project including both shop andfinal assembly drawings prepared during the semester on CAD.Course evaluations conducted in part to address ABET 2000

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Nancy Peck; John E. Nydahl

Session 3420 The Use of Numerical Propagation of Error Analyses in Experimental Design John Nydahl and Nancy Peck Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of WyomingAbstractThe importance of statistics in engineering is not disputed, but how to effectively take it from ameaningless ritual to a truly interesting and integral part of a laboratory is disputed, especially atthe introductory level. The current paper describes a simplified statistical procedure that is usedin a sophomore level laboratory course that permits students to easily couple a propagation

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Mahmood Nahvi

activities, students work together in groups of two or three. Each experiment includes pre-lab, design, implementation, testing and evaluation of DSP algorithms and their application.Each design project requires effort equivalent to the completion of three or four regularexperiments.The laboratory uses Texas Instruments' DSP boards and software development tools andindustry-standard computation engines, simulation, data analysis and display packages such asDADiSP and Matlab. The laboratory is also used in conjunction with four graduate courses inDSP and image processing, individual studies, senior projects, Master’s theses, and DSPresearch. The development of the course and the lab was supported by NSF/ILI grants, as well asby Cal Poly and donations

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Francis Ting

Session 1526 Using Inexpensive Modern Equipment in Teaching Turbulence to Undergraduate Engineering Students Francis C. K. Ting South Dakota State UniversityAbstractThis paper summarizes the development of four laboratory experiments designed to enhancelearning of turbulence theory by undergraduate engineering students. The concepts taught bythese experiments included boundary-layer structure, flow separation, vortex shedding, surfacepressure distributions, Reynolds stress, and statistical description of turbulent motion. Therequired equipment included an

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Valerie L. Young

Session 2213 Using Your Unit Operations Laboratory Valerie L. Young Department of Chemical Engineering, Ohio UniversityAbstractThrough planned exposure to the unit operations laboratory, students in introductory coursesgain a deeper understanding of chemical engineering. In the "Energy Balances" course at OhioUniversity, students worked in groups to design a system to preheat the feed to the distillationcolumn in the unit operations laboratory, using waste heat from the column. In their anonymousend-of-course review, many students named this project as the one they learned the most

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

John G. Webster

Session 2309 A bioinstrumentation course for sophomore biomedical engineers John G. Webster University of WisconsinAbstractThe curriculum for the BSBME degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has a series oflecture-laboratory courses: bioinstrumentation, biomechanics, biomaterials, physiology forengineers, modeling of physiological systems, one each semester. Bioinstrumentation is taken inthe fourth semester, with prerequisites of calculus, physics, and chemistry. It builds on physics toprovide learning of electric circuits, instrumentation, and strength of materials

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

James Rehg

overcome the third problem, availability of good resource material for teachinglaboratories equipped with Allen Bradley SLC 500 PLCs. The web site provides the followingprogram development support: 1) an introduction to the SLC 500; 2) an overview of thecommand structure used in PLCs and the SLC 500 in particular; 3) discussion of the hardwareinterface for the SLC family of modules; 4) SLC 500 command reference and definitionsaccessible by symbol, name, or command group; 5) command syntax and example ladder logicprogramming applications; 6) introduction to programming; 7) introduction to development ofhuman machine interfaces; and 8) laboratory exercises. The paper describes the developmentand use of this site in teaching introductory and advanced

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard E. Pfile; Maher E. Rizkalla

Session 2533 Using a DSP Controller to Control A Three-Phase Induction Motor Richard E. Pfile, Maher Rizkalla Indiana University-Purdue University at IndianapolisAbstract A new course was developed jointly by EE and EET departments at IUPUI toteach power systems that are used in electric vehicles. The course content includes anoverview of electric vehicles and has modules that cover batteries, power electronics,motors, and three-phase induction motor control in detail. It has weekly laboratories anda required laboratory project that extends for several weeks. This paper concentrates onthe

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Sarah E. Irvine; Teresa L. Hein

paper we focuson strategies designed to improve student learning following instruction that utilizes technology-based learning tools in the introductory physics laboratory. To address this issue, we describe aninteractive laboratory experiment designed to teach the concept of momentum and impulse tointroductory physics students. The laboratory activity makes use of a collision apparatus andcomputer interface to allow students to determine relevant data. An interactive software toolallows students to perform a series of analyses of various elastic and inelastic collisions. We willlink the discussion regarding the use of these technology-based learning tools in the physicslaboratory to specific strategies that can be used to assess student

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

William E. DeWitt; William J. Hutzel; Timothy L. Skvarenina

; Control Page 4.79.1 Figure 1. Today’s facilities engineer uses several technical disciplines.Course Overview Facilities Engineering Technology is a new interdisciplinary course that begins to addressthe demand for multi-skill technical personnel. It is taught by one faculty member fromMechanical Engineering Technology and two faculty members from Electrical EngineeringTechnology. Except for having multiple instructors, the course is delivered like most technologycourses on the West Lafayette campus of Purdue University. Each week, two 50-minute lecturesare supported by one two-hour laboratory segment. The course prerequisites

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Daryl Boden

Session 2302 Satellite Artificial Intelligence Lab Daryl G. Boden, Associate Professor Department of Aerospace Engineering United States Naval AcademyAbstractThe Spacecraft Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) is a joint Navy / NASA / Industry/Academia research and development project which uses existing facilities in the Department ofAerospace Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). The goals of the project are to testand evaluate automation and machine intelligence techniques for operating space systems. TheSAIL project is

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Anthony J. A. Oxtoby; Gerard N. Foster

Session 2649 Simple Experiments Involving External Control of Algorithm Parameters for an EET Undergraduate DSP Course Anthony J. A. Oxtoby, Gerard N. Foster Purdue University, West Lafayette/KokomoAbstractThis paper presents an overview of the structure and content of an EET undergraduate course inDSP in which the implementation of application algorithms on a 16 bit fixed point processor isemphasized. Laboratory activities in the course are enhanced by the use of some simple circuitrythat interfaces 8 linear slide potentiometers to the data memory bus of the processor thusproviding

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1999 Annual Conference

Authors

James Hanson

Session 2315 Early Experimentation with Civil Engineering Materials James L. Hanson Lawrence Technological UniversityAbstractA new project-based teaching method emphasizing laboratory experimentation is being used atLawrence Technological University. It has excited and energized the students about civilengineering applications. Engineering concepts are introduced early in the students’ academiccareers using civil engineering materials. Laboratory activities related to a Civil EngineeringMaterials course are being used for outreach, recruitment, and an intensive laboratoryexperience

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Stanley J. Pisarski

Session 2548 Impact of Simulation Software in the Engineering Technology Curriculum Stanley J. Pisarski University of Pittsburgh at JohnstownAbstractThe University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (UPJ) offers the Bachelor of Science degree in Civil,Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering Technology Many of the courses offered in UPJ’sEngineering Technology Program rely on laboratory experiments to supplement the lectures.Although there is no substitute for the experience that a laboratory environment provides,various software packages allow the user

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Raymond Berg; Homayun K. Navaz; Brenda S. Henderson

Wendlandt and Harrison(8).In this study, a course in modern compressible flow, which is normally only available at thegraduate level, was taught at the mezzanine (500) level for predominantly undergraduates. Thepurpose of offering a course of this nature was to respond to industry demand forundergraduates with this experience. The objectives of the course included enabling thestudents to develop a fundamental understanding of the physical and numerical behavior of thegoverning conservation laws, and to develop the ability to run commercially availablepreprocessing, CFD, and post processing software packages. The course was divided into alecture portion and a laboratory portion. The lectures covered the behavior of the governingequations including

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Barry Jackson

studio merges the preceding teaching paradigms, building oncurrent research and the experience of the faculty. The studio establishes the premise that archi-tectural design studio and engineering laboratories (structural and mechanical) need to be or-ganized across departmental boundaries as team oriented activities. The learning modules arebeing developed initially in a multimedia format (analog video and hypertext). They will befinalized in an entirely hypertext format using digital video and browsers, allowing latitude forthe development of additional material in the future. The paper discusses the continual shiftbetween synthetic and analytic processes in the context of problem solving, methods of repre-sentation, design assignments, methods

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Kenneth Reid; Elaine Cooney

"learning communities" introductory course. Thecourse is being offered for its second year at the company’s site, and has targeted a wide varietyof employees with little or no previous technical training, including sales and marketingpersonnel, account managers, and assembly group leaders. Topics include basic electronics,PCB layout and fabrication, and electronics assembly. Each lesson is accompanied by a hands-on laboratory experience in the classroom or on the production floor. The laboratory sessionscover topics such as basic electrical measurement techniques, printed circuit board design, andhands-on manufacture and assembly of a functional, mixed technology circuit board.The course allows faculty to interact with the design and manufacturing

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

John Aspnes

voltage and currenttransformers.2. The Laboratory Exercise2.a. OverviewThe original motivation for this laboratory exercise was a very interesting and useful paper byC.A. Gross and L. Thompson [1]. That paper describes an active filter consisting of a group ofinterconnected RC operational amplifier filters. The active filter has, as inputs, an arbitrary setof three voltage phasors which drive three inverting two-winding transformers that step theinput voltages down from 120 V rms to 7.5 Vrms (16:1 ratio). Six operational amplifiers have thenon-inverting input grounded, and the inverting input connected to an input resistor andfeedback components consisting of a parallel capacitor and resistor. The values of the tworesistors and the capacitor are

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

M. R. Smith

laboratories and open-ended questions in quizzes. Many 3rd year students are uncomfortable with the freedom thisapproach provides.Another factor is the change from the structured high-level language programming taught to 1stand 2nd year classes to the more unstructured format and steep, initial learning curve associatedwith assembly language programming at the 3rd year level. Experience shows that early quizzesproduce bimodal results with class averages around C/C-. This is very frustrating for studentswho will cotton onto the material later in the class. They can’t bring themselves to believe theinstructor’s verbal reassurances during the term that their marks will pick up and the final classaverage will be B/B- or better.A final factor in my poor

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Ronald A. Lessard

Session 2532 Embedded Systems Course Focuses On Autonomous Robot Applications Ronald A. Lessard Norwich University Electrical Engineering DepartmentAbstractThe EE411 Micro-based (Embedded) Systems Course at Norwich University meets 3hours for lecture and 2 hours for laboratory each week of a 14 week semester. Thelaboratories case study a stepper motor robot design. The robot is designed to competein the IEEE Micromouse Competition. In addition, a wireless modem link was added toallow for simulation of other autonomous robot applications. After introducing thedesign from the top-down in the first laboratory, the tools and

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

R. J. Helgeson; Troy Henson

specific course in terms of design,computer usage, laboratory experience, written communication, and oral communication. Eachof these categories is further separated into qualitative levels, i.e., beginning, intermediate, andadvanced applications. The detailed content information for each course is then directly relatedto examples of student work, using color-coded indices. The tool is a valuable resource fordevelopment and enhancement of an engineering curriculum. It is useful not only to evaluateexisting programs to support, for example, accreditation reviews, but also it is an effective toolfor program assessment and continuous improvement. Description of Course MapThe course map was developed to support our

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

James A. Jacobs

Session 0564 A Workshop on Experiments in Materials Engineering and Technology From NEW:Update 98 James A. Jacobs School of Science and Technology Norfolk State UniversityThe experiments demonstrated at this workshop resulted from the National Educators’Workshop:Update 98 - Experiments in Engineering Materials, Science and Technology(NEW:Update 98). The workshop was held in New York, on November 1 - 4, 1998 and hosted byBrookhaven National Laboratory, Columbia University and University of

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael A. Kriss

Beck was built aroundthe University of Chicago’s outstanding graduate research programs in the sciences. The Centerfor Imaging Science was organized around research programs that reflected the interests ofgroups of faculty members from the traditional departments of physics and astronomy,chemistry, mathematics, radiology and computer science. Faculty from the art department andpsychology department also participated in the research projects, as did scientists from ArgonneNational Laboratory. Missing from this research-focused effort was a formal curriculumdesigned to teach, in a unified way, the underlying science and technology. The most comprehensive effort to forge a complete program in Imaging Science wasundertaken by the Rochester

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

George H. Williams; James . Kenny

Electric Fund. One result is afirst-year curriculum that includes a new common course, “The Fundamentals of Engineeringand Computer Science.” The course is being offered for the third time in the 1998-99 academicyear. The catalog description of the course is provided in Appendix A; the course (ABET 2000)objectives and performance measurements are detailed in Appendices B and C.Union College offers undergraduate degrees in Civil, Computer System, Electrical, andMechanical Engineering. Material from each of these disciplines is incorporated in the first-yearcourse. The course includes basic lecture material with extensive handouts, reading assignments(from texts listed in Appendix D), economic case studies, and laboratory exercises that

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

James Pearson

Session 2323 An Interdisciplinary Junior Level Team Design Experience in Engineering Dr. James V. Pearson Division of Engineering and Technology John Brown UniversityAbstractThe course (EN3222, Design Laboratory, two semester hours, spring semester) describedin this paper was initiated in the spring of 1992 at John Brown University to providestudents with design-cycle experience and interdisciplinary team activities. Typically theteams of this course are formed with three students of engineering and two students ofgraphic

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Roy R., Jr. Craig; Edward McConnell

course occurred that was centered around the shift to digital dataacquisition through the use of virtual instruments (VI’s) based on the LabVIEW™ software.1This paper discusses the development of the VI’s used in the course, the laboratory exercisesthat comprise the course, and the improvements in student morale and report-writing skills thathave resulted from the restructuring of the course.1. Introduction Measurements and Instrumentation (M&I) is a 3-hour, required, junior-level course inthe Aerospace Engineering curriculum at The University of Texas at Austin. A confluence ofcircumstances occurred in the early 1990’s that led to a major restructuring of the course: theearly medical retirement of the principal course instructor; the

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Z. Chambers; Terry H. Walker; M. B. Taylor; A. J. Baker

applicationof conservation principles to steady-state and unsteady conditions for one-dimensional and n-dimensional systems. The final topic in the course covers an unsteady convection-diffusionproblem of n-dimension solved with the application of varying non-uniform meshes. Theability to alter the uniformity of the solution meshes allows for greater computational speedfor demanding problems where mesh refinement may be efficiently applied. Fundamentalheat transfer phenomena is covered in great detail to introduce n-D steady and unsteadyapplications. This course was developed over several years with increasing emphasis on convertinghomework and laboratory assignments via html documentation. This led to the recentcomprehensive effort to create a

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

K. A. Korzeniowski; J. L. Rice

. IntroductionThis paper describes how an automatable platform, the Khepera robot, has been integrated into partsof the curriculum at the United States Naval Academy (USNA). The Khepera robot is a smallmicroprocessor driven device.1 The device is shown in Figure 1. It is a convenient platform forinvestigating each element of an autonomous system; namely data acquisition, signal conditioningand microprocessor control. This device is flexible enough to be used for a full range of purposes,from pre-college recruiting to laboratory design projects.This paper discusses how the Khepera robot is used in engineering recruiting and integrated intodesign projects. Code fragments are offered in this paper. The code is written primarily in Procommscript.2 This enables