Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Bradley E. Bishop

Session 2220 Design of a Cooperative Autonomous Mobile Robot System at the Undergraduate Level Bradley E. Bishop Weapons and Systems Engineering, United States Naval AcademyAbstractThis paper describes an undergraduate-level design project in a course on autonomous mobilerobot systems. The project is intended to allow a great deal of latitude in implementation and topromote teamwork and integrated design methodologies in a framework that is bothinstructional and interesting. The technical challenges of the project include limited bandwidthcommunications, cooperative multi-agent

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Roxanne Jacoby; Jean Le Mee

be given to well designed engineeringmanagement training in the undergraduate division. The practical side of solving engineeringmanagement issues, building students’ essential management skills can be emphasized throughcollaborative inter-collegiate projects that deal with up-to-date global technical, management, andfinancial issues. The Globetech International Simulation, offered free via the Internet for the pastfive years by Cooper Union, is such a project. It has widened the managerial perspective of manyengineering students here in the USA and abroad. A larger participation in this or similar projectswill ensure, at a minimal cost, that our future engineers are well prepared for the managerialchallenges that lie ahead of them.1

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Natasha Balac; Daniel M. Gaines

Session 2220 Using Mobile Robots to Teach Artificial Intelligence Research Skills Daniel M. Gaines, Natasha Balac Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department Vanderbilt UniversityAbstractSuccessful Artificial Intelligence researchers must be able to think creatively and critically,communicate effectively and evaluate the results of their work. Therefore, it is importantthat we include courses in our curriculum that develop these skills. Since one usually learnsbest by doing, we believe a project-based course, in which students receive hands

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Yi Shang; Michael Jurczyk; Hongchi Shi; Anupam Joshi

this laboratory are solely forthe purpose of instruction in computer engineering and computer science, allowing system-levelclass projects to provide students hands-on experience. Science and Engineering of WWW(CECS 383) and Parallel and Distributed Processing (CECS 486) are two of the system areacourses enhanced significantly by the laboratory. Science and Engineering of WWW introducesthe fundamental technologies and their applications on the Internet and the Web. Students takingthe course are given a sequence of projects to experiment with the technologies. They are askedto set up and configure their own Web servers, study performance and security-related issues,develop e-commerce applications supported by their Web servers. Parallel and

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Traxon Rachell; Kaori Sakaguchi-Hall; Chris Swan

projects. In the site remediation course at Tufts University, three designprojects required the development of a remediation scheme for actual brownfield sites in Boston,MA. In their designs, students had to consider both hard (limited and conflicting contaminantinformation for site soil and groundwater) and soft (the viewpoints of the various communitystakeholders) constraints.Based on student, faculty and staff feedback, the design experience carried more meaning andencouraged greater learning because it involved a real problem. Additionally, the experienceextended student learning beyond the technical aspects of site remediation as a result of workingand interfacing with people from a variety of interests and professional backgrounds

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert D. Knecht

Environmental Science (CEES) at the University of Oklahoma8 proposedcurriculum changes that would incorporate a single design project integrated throughout thecurriculum. This common design project would bring the curriculum together and integratematerial learned in early courses. A primary goal of the project is to produce graduates who areself-disciplined, responsible, computer literate, and who can communicate effectively withfellow engineers, management, and the public.Examination of the literature concerning engineering design provides diverse views of whatengineering design is. For example, the Engineer’s Council for Professional Developmentdescribed design in terms of the processes that are required to optimally “meet a statedobjective” whereas

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Ricardo Castillo Molina; Claudio da Rocha Brito; Melany Ciampi

subject gravitates. This isthe main goal of this Project to form not only Engineers but also good researchers. This isextremely important to the advancement of Science and Technology. During the program thestudents have to develop projects of Engineering since first year. The projects must beconceived, developed and applied individually. The students can also have a Professor/advisor tohelp them. They present their works in a Congress that takes place every end of school year. Thedevelopment of projects added by lab works provide them at least five projects of experiencethat means a good skill as researchers too. To increment the course the coordinating teamdecided to create the “Preliminary week ” to the beginners. The course occurs before the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Sam Wanis; Erian Armanios

Session 1602 Acoustic Shaping in Microgravity: 3 years of flight tests S. Wanis, N.M.Komerath, E. Armanios Georgia Institute of Technology, AtlantaAbstractThis paper summarizes 3 years of participation in the NASA Reduced-Gravity FlightOpportunities program. The Acoustic Shaping project was started by a team of AE sophomoresin 1996. Results from the project have demonstrated the feasibility of forming complex anduseful shapes in microgravity from pulverized material using sound waves, and correlated theshapes to mathematical predictions. In this paper, the genesis and evolution of the program

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Roman Stemprok

, designed simple memory systems, and investigated basic datacommunications. Special care was taken in organizing labs for these hands-onundergraduate and graduate courses. Students were assigned projects of increasingcomplexity from a simple control circuit to “Digital Pet” powered by the Motorolamicroprocessor (a semester project). Successful student teams demonstrated workinghardware models at the end of each semester.IntroductionThis paper describes projects and laboratory assignments for courses in the ElectronicsDivision of the Engineering Technology Department. After completion of the digitallogic introductory course students learned to utilize microcontroller technology through“hands-on” assignments. Class curricula integrated the Motorola

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Sanjiv B. Gokhale; Michael O'Dea

Effectiveness of Community Service in Enhancing Student Learning and Development Sanjiv Gokhale, Michael O’Dea Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUIAbstractSince 1996, the Department of Construction Technology, Purdue School of Engineering andTechnology, IUPUI, has been involved in a University-Community partnership, through astructured participation of students with community housing projects. In four years since it’sinception, the partnership has had a significant and lasting impact on the communities and thestudents engaged in providing service to these communities. This paper suggests that communityservice presents a powerful pedagogy for

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

John A. Kleppe; Eric L. Wang

. The lectures cover areas including: patent law, financial records, venturecapital, SBIR, product liability, ethics, product development, creative thinking, invention, andstarting your own company. Perhaps the best known of all the guest speakers is Dr. PaulMacCready from Aerovironment, developer of the human powered Gossamer Albatross5. Byproviding students with a broad experience of relevant lectures, it is hoped that the students willinfer what innovation and entrepreneurship is all about.Like many capstone courses, the lectures are supplemented with a large-scale project-basedlearning activity. In the span of 90 days each E-Team must go from concept generation toworking prototype. Along the way they work within a budget, order supplies

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

James A. Reising

were normally taken in the sophomore year.They served as the foundation courses for all of the upper-level electrical engineering courses.The former four courses for eight credit hours have been revised into just two courses (EE 210and EE 211) for seven credit hours. The new courses feature an integrated lecture/lab format.EE 210 was first offered in the fall semester of 1998, and EE 211 was first offered in the springsemester of 1999. EE 210 was repeated in the spring semester of 1999. Both courses will beoffered in the 1999-2000 academic year.The first-year results indicate that the project was successful. The primary strategy involvedcombining a lecture course and its associated laboratory into an integrated lab/lecture session.Attitudinal

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Terry L. Ballinger; Craig W. Somerton

school teacher for each academic class. The mechanical engineering class wasdivided into ten units, coinciding with the ten class periods. Each unit covered one of the basictopics of mechanical engineering. The standard format of a class period involved threecomponents. First, a relatively brief lecture was given on the topic of the day. This was doneusing a Microsoft PowerPoint slide show, which conveyed a certain level of professionalism inthe class and the use of technology. The second part of the class period involved a hands-onproject. The project tied in with the topic of the day and was of such a form that the studentscould test their projects against each other in a competition. Finally, the class period concludedwith a review of the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Douglas L. Jones; Bunny J. Tjaden

a major group design project of building a device to aid thedisabled was less than successful, from the students’ point of view. They wanted more complexand realistic projects. They also were impatient to obtain some “real engineering” experiencerather than waiting until their sophomore year [5]. When one considers that engineering studentsare generally among the most capable due to stringent entrance requirements, it seems reasonable Page 5.43.1that they are able to handle more challenging course content. The result of our evaluation of theprevious course model was a radical redesign of our course that included more hands-on, reality-based

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Patricia Davies; Leah H Jamieson; Laura A Guedelhoefer; Edward J. Coyle; James D. Jones

Session 1526 Engineering Education, Beyond the Books Laura Guedelhoefer, Jim Jones, Leah Jamieson, Ed Coyle, Patricia Davies Purdue UniversityAbstractThis paper will focus on the process and benefits students receive through practical manufacturingexperience. Included in the paper are two examples of small projects that can be completed in 1-2hours, yet still provide a valuable introduction to the machining process. The Purdue hammer project,which is produced in a sophomore introduction to mechanical design course, is a brass hammer with awood handle. Using hexagonal brass stock, the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Shahnam Navaee

Engineering in collaboration with Armstrong Atlantic State University, GeorgiaSouthern University, and Savannah State University. In the summer of 1999 with the fundsfrom Georgia Tech, the computer laboratories and teachable lecture room facilities at GeorgiaSouthern University were updated and equipped with computer projection systems, Elmo units,SMART BOARDS and other instructional technology equipment to meet the demands of theGTREP program. The paper presented discusses the methodologies currently utilized in theseimproved facilities to enhance the teaching effectiveness of the instructors and the coursecomprehension of the students.During the fall semester of 1999, these methodologies were employed to provide instructions fora total of about two

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Tirupathi R. Chandrupatla; Shreekanth A Mandayam; Anthony J. Marchese; John L. Schmalzel; John Chen; Ravi Ramachandran; Paris von Lockette; Kevin Dahm

design and development projects.The majority of these projects are funded by local industry, faculty research grants or departmentalbudgets. Clearly, projects such as these are central to developing the design, problem solving andproject management skills that are lacking in the traditional engineering coursework. Often miss-ing, however, in the industry and faculty sponsored design projects, is the spirit of invention, inno-vation and entrepreneurship. One way to promote the entrepreneurial spirit is to provide studentswith the opportunity to propose their own original enterprises. Accordingly, funding from the Na-tional Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) has created a Venture Capital Fund,specifically ear-marked for the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Raul Ordonez; Harriet Benavidez; Anthony J. Marchese; James A. Newell; John L. Schmalzel; Beena Sukumaran; Ravi Ramachandran; Julie Haynes

laboratory experiments, realworld design projects and research. The solutions of these problems require not only proficiency inthe technical principles, but, as importantly, require a mastery of written and oral communicationskills and the ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team. In the sophomore year,communication (written and oral) and design (semester long multidisciplinary design project) areintegrated. The course is team-taught by faculty from the College of Communication and theCollege of Engineering. Students pick one of two design projects. The first is to design and build aguitar effects pedal. The second involves an economic and engineering analysis of the design andoperation of a baseball stadium.Introduction In 1992

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Winston F. Erevelles

Session 3663 Design and Implementation of an Automated Cell for Injection Molding Winston F. Erevelles Robert Morris CollegeAbstractThe current paper describes a senior-level course in Robotics taught by the author at KetteringUniversity in the Spring session of 1999. The course was taught in project form and dealt withthe design and implementation of an automated manufacturing cell for molding, unloading, anddegating injection molded parts. The class had 11 students majoring in ManufacturingEngineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Applied

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Behnam Kamali

listed undercriterion III; “Program Outcomes and Assessment”. In particular, attempts are made to exposethe student to a number of important features of engineering profession in the 21 th century.Specifically, three important issues of globalization of engineering practice, the need for life-long learning, and the role of technical communications skills are addressed in this course.Moreover, the design of an engineering experiment is included in this course. In this article,following a detailed account of the structure of this course, we provide a list of several designprojects that have been selected for this course. A sample design project on fabrication andtesting of a simple AM radio receiver is described in some detail. Finally, a sample

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Molly M. Gribb; Elisabeth M. Alford

students inquire into connections between engineers andscientists. The second group of assignments allows students to demonstrate their understandingof the relationship between science and engineering through inclusion of theory, design, andexplanatory text in written and oral reports on a design project. The final exam, as earlierassignments, includes an essay focusing on the relationship between science and engineering.Focusing on the theme of science and engineering throughout the course helps studentsappreciate the heavy emphasis on science and math in the engineering curriculum, as well as theimportance of interdisciplinary collaboration in engineering projects. In addition, using acommon theme for assignments throughout the semester aids in

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

William C. Beston; Sharon B. Fellows; Richard Culver

structured learningenvironment where the instructor tells them exactly what is needed and there is no ambiguity. Inthis environment, activities to start building SDL abilities must deal with the immediate needs ofthe student. Collaboration with other students through cooperative learning, team projects, andstudy groups is an example of a basic skill required of the self-directed learner, because S4learners make effective use of colleagues and experts to meet their educational goals. For thefreshman, the social need to meet other students and the academic need for an instructionalsupport group lead naturally to building teaming capabilities.The other immediate need is to know "how am I doing?" Helping students begin to assess theirown performance and

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Ilya Grinberg; Jack Waintraub

reflected in the identification of competencies and their interrelations(scope and sequence). The next three concepts include the development of learning activitiesbased on the predetermined competencies (synthesis), practical implementation of theseactivities in a team-oriented industrial/commercial type project (testing), and demonstration ofthe results through efficient and authentic written and oral presentations (communication).II. Functional AnalysisThe study of electrical power distribution is no longer a popular topic taught in majority ofEngineering and Technology Programs, as pointed out earlier. However, the need for personnelwith a working knowledge of these systems is in demand by many industrial, commercial, andinstitutional

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Nicole DeJong; Ken Van Treuren; Don Farris; Cindy Fry

, and data collection and analysis. The students ultimately develop their confidencein problem solving and design skills using a balsa wood bridge design project. The skills, tools,and techniques developed during the semester in class and in laboratories are applied to thedesign and construction of the bridge. Students, operating in teams of three to five, also learn towork with their peers. The teams are given a Request for Proposals (RFP) and allowed toexercise creativity within the scope of the RFP. Students progress through the design process(concept, preliminary, and final phases) using both written and oral communication. The finalgrade of the design process is based on their prototype and on written and oral presentations. Atthe

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Engelken

university - administeredresearch projects. It provides experiences, incidents, and insight that can positively impact therelevance and quality of a budding professor’s classroom teaching. It provides good resumeNmaterial and reputation enhancement, the latter for the university as well as the new professor.Of course and often the touchy point with university administrators, consulting providesadditional income for the professor, and usually not the university, above and beyond his/herstandard university salary; this can be extremely valuable as the new and usually young professoris building a family, buying a house and car, starting an investment program, or paying offeducation debts, and generally results in a happier, less stressed, and ideally

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Pamela Schmaltz; Kevin Schmaltz

choices, to increase studentretention and to provide basic computer skills. Recognizing the need to integrate designinto engineering programs as early as possible, and the value of project-based, multi-disciplinary team experiences, significant changes were implemented in the course in theFall 1999 semester. Many of the one-week discipline topics were removed in order tointroduce a team-based project that the students performed over one third of the course.We have gathered anecdotal information from student surveys at the conclusion of eachsemester and analyzed student retention data to assess the success of this course as amethod of teaching design and as a student retention aid.There are two aspects to student retention: keeping the students at

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard D. Wilk; George H. Williams

assignments[Oakes, 1999], engineering economic case studies, and studio exercises that cover designmethodology and that prepare students for the culminating design project and competition.Course Organization and AdministrationThe First-Year Design course is taken by all majors in engineering (civil, computer systems,electrical, mechanical, and undecided), and majors in computer science. The course schedule isa two-hour classroom meeting and a three-hour studio/laboratory meeting each week. Thesetime periods are used for lecture, discussion, studio/laboratory time as appropriate for the coursemodulesEach offering of the First-Year Design course has involved a multidisciplinary team of faculty[acknowledged at the end of the paper] who administer, teach

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Marian S. Stachowicz; Christopher R Carroll

Duluth (UMD) in whichstudents implemented microcontroller applications using the principles of Fuzzy Logic as Page 5.312.1contained in the features of the MC68HC12 microcontroller. This workshop providedstudents with a unique opportunity to merge their academic understanding of FuzzyLogic techniques with their ability to design and implement microcontroller systems.The paper describes the MC68HC12 microcontroller features that support Fuzzy Logic,introduces Fuzzy Logic and intelligent control, and details student projects suggested inthis design workshop. The goals of these studies are: to illustrate Fuzzy Logic theory, to apply Fuzzy Logic

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert L. Armacost; Robert Hoekstra; Michael A. Mullens

paper introduces the concept of service learning, illustrates how a servicelearning strategy has been incorporated into the design project component of the course, andprovides an assessment of the impact on student motivation/commitment and attainment oflearning objectives.I. Introduction: A Challenge in Teaching Concurrent EngineeringThe Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems has offered EIN 6399Concurrent Engineering to students at the University of Central Florida since 1993. Armacostand Mullens1 describe the course, including the rationale for teaching concurrent engineering, theteaching/learning approach used in the course and a detailed syllabus. The objective of thecourse is to familiarize students with the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Charles T. Jahren

Page 5.154.1opportunities are ones that require students to demonstrate a wide variety of technical,organizational, and social skills in order to complete a significant project. Mock bidlettings provide such an opportunity for future construction professionals.Iowa State University’s Construction Engineering Curriculum has conducted three mockbid lettings in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Transportation and theAssociated General Contractors of Iowa. Students work in groups of three or four. IowaDOT provides contract documents for actual transportation construction projects andIowa State University provides classroom instruction on cost estimating. Then, with thehelp of industry mentors, students design the construction process and