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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Keat; Ann Anderson; Richard Wilk

Session 3266A Complementary Sequence in Thermal/Fluids and Mechanical Systems for Senior Capstone Design Ann M. Anderson, William D. Keat, and Richard D. Wilk Mechanical Engineering Department Union College Schenectady, NYAbstractThe mechanical engineering program at Union College has developed two senior level designcourses, Design of Thermal/Fluid Systems (DTFS) and Design of Mechanical Systems (DMS)aimed at diversifying the senior capstone design experience. These required courses are project-based

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Mohammad Saleh Keshawarz; David Pines

Session 2615 Town Government, Industry, and University Involvement in the Capstone Design Course at the University of Hartford David S. Pines, M. Saleh Keshawarz Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of HartfordAbstractThe capstone design project at the University of Hartford requires students to work on a “real”civil engineering project that is mentored by an engineering practitioner. This format is anexcellent way in achieving many of the ABET 2000 outcomes. Finding projects that

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Cynthia Atman; Jennifer Turns

. Readings and activities meant to explore thescope of industrial engineering knowledge were followed up with a project assignment toidentify industrial engineering opportunities in a work context. Then readings and activities tounderstand specific engineering practitioner dimensions (e.g., lifelong learning, professionalism,and ethics were followed up with a second project assignment to relate these dimensions to thework context and projects identified. The remainder of the term was spent focusing on thecompletion of the projects and the preparation for the final exam.Evaluation Approach:The complementary capstone experience, “Professional Practice Issues in IndustrialEngineering,” was taught in the spring of 2000 to an enrollment of twenty-one

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Steve Beyerlein; Dan Gerbus; Edwin Odom

five years. The exercise is based on Goldratt’s theory ofconstraints and serves as a barometer of student preparation and team development in our year-long capstone design course. Results are presented in a graphical “prerequisites tree” that guidescourse sequencing. Prerequisite Trees were found to be quite similar from year to year. Items atthe bottom of the tree, requiring initial attention, are not technical and are not generally project-dependent. These items tend to be personal and inter-personal issues, including self-learningskills, well-founded self-confidence, appreciation for diverse skill sets, and strong oral/writtencommunication. The process of developing a classwide Prerequisites Tree during the first weekof class underscores

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Sundar Krishnamurty; Robert Gao; John Ritter; Donald Fisher; Janis Terpenny

Session 2325 Senior Design Projects to Aid the Disabled Janis Terpenny, Robert Gao, John Ritter, Donald Fisher, and Sundar Krishnamurty Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003-2210AbstractA new two-semester capstone senior design course sequence in the area of assistive technologyhas been developed and integrated within the established curriculum of the Department ofMechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) at the University of

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Larry Williamson; William Drake

Session 2526 NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race - Innovative Student Projects William H. Drake, Larry Williamson Southwest Missouri State University/Pittsburg State UniversityIntroductionThe Society of Manufacturing Engineers student chapter at Southwest Missouri State Universitydecided to follow the lead of another student group and build a “Moonbuggy” to race in theNASA sponsored “Great Moonbuggy Race” held annually at Marshall Space Flight Center, inHuntsville, Alabama. The first buggy was designed by a small team and constructed as a part ofa senior level capstone course. The buggy completed the preliminary

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Lovegrove; Timothy Owens; Matthew Bronkema

Session 2793 The HallWalker Robot: An Interdisciplinary Design Project William P. Lovegrove, Timothy S. Owens, Matthew S. Bronkema Bob Jones UniversityAbstractThe fall 2000 Bob Jones University capstone design project is presented as a model of a successfulinterdisciplinary design project. It directly addresses the hardware/software co-design that is anintegral part of many modern electronic devices by employing a software team of ComputerScience majors and a hardware team of Electrical Engineering majors. In order to facilitatehardware/software co-design, the software team implemented a

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

James Menart; Elizabeth Johnson; Gary Kinzel

-personal skills, and working in teams. The approachwe are using broadens the scope of a typical senior capstone design project making it into afull-year project and converts it into a product development and product realization course.While using this approach to the capstone design project usually results in a bettereducational experience for the students than if students from only one school are involved, itcannot be accomplished without an increase in resources. Compared to dealing with teamsat a single university, it is harder to coordinate teams from multiple universities, andcommunication and travel costs are obviously higher. In this paper, we discuss both thebenefits and problems associated with multi-university projects and the approaches

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Anderson; Paul Duesing; Marty Zoerner; Kevin Schmaltz

educational criteria setforth by the Senior Project Faculty Board (SPFB). In the setting suggested here, failure isnot an option, and the student team must deliver1.The authors of this paper have either coordinated and directed student teams, or haveacted as industrial contacts for one or more teams. The guiding philosophy behind ourindustry-based capstone senior design course sequence includes industry origination, abusiness setting and the teaching of non-technical (soft) skills. Industry projects demandreal solutions, as well as provide actual budgets and definite time constraints. To set abusiness tone, we provide all of the teams with a shared office space (cubicles,computers, phones, etc.), fostering a common work environment and sense

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Roger Gonzalez

Session 2209 BME Undergraduate Design Projects using Various Engineering Majors Roger V. Gonzalez LeTourneau UniversityAbstractFor the past four years, undergraduate students in Mechanical, Electrical, and ComputerEngineering at LeTourneau University have collaborated via year-long senior design sequencesto design, develop, and build an ambitious biomechanical model of an Intelligent Prosthetic Armas a stepping stone for the next generation of prosthetic limbs. While each of these engineeringdisciplines has their own senior design

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jonathan Barnett; Holly Ault

have expanded the global project program to include projects in the students'major disciplines. Several senior capstone design projects have been completed at internationalsponsors' agencies. The teams are composed of competitively selected WPI engineering studentswho work on-site to solve a key problem posed by the sponsoring agency. During the process thestudents experience hands-on application of engineering projects and learn to work astechnologists within the engineering domain of the host country. The outcome of their work is afully documented professional report containing complete results and key recommendations, asappropriate, as well as a high quality presentation of the highlights of their findings to thesponsors. This paper

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Mort Isaacson; Francis Di Bella

straightforward and rewarding exercises. It is the purpose of thispaper, to support the contention that creativity and art in an engineering problem solution canbe demonstrated to the students in a manner that then promotes creativity in the engineeringstudent. Thus, the Design Process Methodology helps to bolster the engineering student’snatural abilities and to establish a personalized technique and talent for creative problemsolving.This paper will detail an Instructor’s personal Engineering Design Project that was presentedto senior engineering students as a ‘work in progress’ ostensibly to facilitate the completion oftheir own and more significant Capstone Design Projects. The actual step-by-step engineeredsolution to the problem at hand was carried

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Marcus

recommended. This method can be used in any number of technology courses and will helpthe student prepare for problem solving and working in a team environment.Attendees willing to use this video and participate in a research survey will be given a free copyof the video.I. IntroductionThe following is a method of problem solving used by project teams in industry1. It has beentailored for use in courses taught in Engineering and Engineering Technology. This example wasused in an introductory course in Engineering Technology and was completed in about twohours. These methods could be expanded and applied to projects of various lengths of time inother courses, including a capstone design project.The project consists of the class dividing into project

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Chris Mechefske

course.IntroductionMME499 - Mechanical Engineering Design (Industrial) is the final year capstone design coursein the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the University of WesternOntario. This course offers students the opportunity to work on realistic design projects that areproposed and supervised by professional engineers and are of significant interest to localindustries. The purpose of this course is to introduce fourth-year students to the industrialenvironment in order for them to gain experience and training in the practice of engineering, anappreciation of market-driven priorities, exposure to various corporate structures, experienceinteracting with suppliers, clients and support staff as well as experience working within a groupand

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Brian West

thatconstantly seek new, innovative, electronic consumer products for development.The students are to select a project and develop a timeline. They must submit weeklystatus reports detailing their accomplishments, trouble spots and their alignment withtheir timeline. They then must prototype their project and document it fully - includingan owners’ manual with a troubleshooting section. Finally, they must deliver aPowerpoint presentation to a "selection committee" for evaluation for mass production.The skills developed in this class are major milestones toward the student’s SeniorDesign Project (Capstone requirement), giving them the necessary experience, assophomores, to succeed with oral presentations, writing formal documentation, settingand meeting

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

George Edwards

Session 2793 Senior Design Project: Converting an Analog Transceiver into a Digital one George Edwards University of DenverAbstractThe Capstone Senior Design Project that is offered to graduating seniors in engineeringprograms in the United States is a critical part of the students’ development. A goal of this courseis to give students a feel for the work environment outside, in terms of a critical analysis of adesign problem, drawing on resources to arrive at alternative solutions; and, then deciding on aparticular

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Terry Derossett; Steven Nesbit; Scott Hummel

7Summary and Recommendations The load cell project was developed as a solution to the problem of students’compartmentalizing course subject matter. The result is an activity, which not only integratessubject matter from different courses, but also the major engineering functions of design,analysis, and manufacturing. Basic analysis and design methods are supplemented with moderncomputer, software, and manufacturing tools to create and evaluate the load cell. Along withintegrating across courses and major engineering functions, the project also serves as a small-scale design and build capstone experience. Implementation of the project requires a coordinatedeffort from the instructors and students, monetary support from the Department, and

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ty Newell; Timothy Shedd

“toolbox” for easier numericalproblem formulations.Our curriculum is one in which few opportunities exist for team-based project work before the Page 6.119.9senior year when capstone design courses implement this format. A favorable by-product ofProceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright2001, American Society for Engineering Educationjunior year (or earlier) teaming is that students can have a positive response during jobinterviews when they are asked the inevitable question: “Have you ever worked in teamsituation?” As related to us by several students interviewing during

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Anant Kukreti

the participants made a presentation at their ASCE StudentChapter Meeting, and are preparing papers for presentation at student paper competitions andseminars.It is well accepted that the capstone experience needs to allow for collaborative effort wheneverappropriate to the discipline, so that undergraduate students can be better prepared forparticipation in the team projects they will encounter in professional as well as private life. Itshould be conducted under the mentorship of a seasoned scholar-teacher who understands the joysand frustrations of a major project. It should allow the student to understand their potential for Page

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

James Heidenreich; Dr. Eugene Silgalis; Nicholas Akinkuoye

conference presentation is tofocus on how engineering class projects and those required in a capstone course can beeffectively used in continuous quality program improvements, and also used to documentstudent learning, as well as used as outcome assessment tools. (Formative and SummativeAssessment)Assessing Program OutcomesAssessment starts from the standpoint of institutional goals, statement of purposes orcollege mission statements. These statements are generally stated in a broad sense toinclude such entities as: character and citizenship to be exhibited by graduates. Departmental, division goals are always a subset of the institutional missionstatements and goals. They however should be expressed in discrete quantifiable terms.Program

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Brian Huggins; Winfred K Anakwa; Gary Dempsey

program at BradleyUniversity. Use of the mini-project to increase the design content in our curriculum has been in place forten years. The results have been used successfully to implement course, laboratory, and curriculummodifications. The paper will discuss the small products developed, curriculum modifications, projectdevelopment time and costs, and how the mini-project will be used in the new Engineering Criteria2000 accreditation process.I. IntroductionThe six-week senior mini-project is a small but vital component of our Electrical and ComputerEngineering (ECE) undergraduate laboratory sequence at Bradley University. The laboratory programconsists of a five semester sequence of independent lab courses culminating in a capstone designproject

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Alok Verma

on the research and publication by the ET programs in the nation. A number ofarticles have been written on the promotion and tenure requirements 2,3,4. Most of thesepublications discuss the general requirements of promotion and tenure and the process ofobtaining tenure. This articles discusses various methods by which faculty members in anundergraduate engineering Technology Program can fulfill the requirements of research andpublication via capstone project courses.II Research Environment in ET ProgramsTraditionally, ET programs have placed a larger emphasis on teaching compared to research.This is specially true for programs that offer only undergraduate education in EngineeringTechnology. Consequently a number of faculty were hired

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Harmon; Glenn Burks; Eva Baker; Gregory Chung

Session 3530 Evaluation of a Simulation and Problem-Based Learning Design Project Using Constructed Knowledge Mapping Thomas C. Harmon, Glenn A. Burks Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UCLA Greg K.W.K. Chung, Eva L. Baker Graduate School of Education and Information Studies National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, Student Testing (CRESST) UCLA.AbstractThis work describes results from an educational evaluation of an environmental

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Leslie Pease; Edward Mastascusa; Dan Hyde; Brian Hoyt; Bill Snyder; Maurice F. Aburdene; Michael Prince; Margot Vigeant

learning skills in addition totechnical competency.Getting Started with Cooperative LearningFaculty Development The initial phase of the project has focused on two areas: faculty development and courseredesign. This focus was intended to facilitate faculty becoming well-versed in cooperativelearning techniques and then support them in bringing these techniques into the classroom inselected courses of all types - introductory courses, content courses and capstone design courses.For purposes of this work, content courses are defined as those in the middle part of thecurriculum where often the primary goal of the course is interpreted to be the transmission oftechnical content. In the summer of 2000 the Catalyst team worked on an in

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ming Huang

and apply the theory of Taguchimethod in practice. In addition, it also provides an effective framework in which students areexposed to all elements of a real-life product development process, from design, analysis,prototyping, testing, to optimization.I. IntroductionThe capstone design experience in the Mechanical Engineering program at Florida AtlanticUniversity consists of a sequence of two three credit hour courses, EML 4521C EngineeringDesign and EML 4551 Design Project. For a period spanning two semesters, typically Fall andSpring, mechanical engineering seniors working in teams, take on major projects that integrateelements of design, analysis, prototyping, and testing. While students entering the capstonesequence would already have a

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

X. Qian; A. Jalloh; Zheng-Tao Deng; Amir Mobasher; Ruben Rojas-Oviedo

integration of design and project development, a project is required ineach course. The ME program strongly encourage teamwork on a class project for courses in themajor. This allows students to develop a design portfolio starting from the freshman year [2].Project training continues through their capstone design course. The projects assigned to studentsare often combined with on-going faculty externally funded research. This aspect of programkeeps the students in touch with leading-edge technology and current research activities in thereal world. Page 6.255.2 Proceedings of the 2001American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Lucas; Catherine Latterell; Andrew Vavreck

Engineering Technology 440 (Electromechanical Project Design) take oncapstone design projects involving the vehicle. As an example of this last, students havedesigned an adaptive suspension, using magnetorheological dampers, to help control vehicle roll,and a test stand for a magnetorheological brake, with an eye toward the use of such a device in afuture four-wheel-drive vehicle. These capstone projects have become an integral part of theresearch of one of the authors.V. ResearchThe research interests of author Vavreck focus on applications of magnetorheological (MR)devices and modeling of MR fluid. MR fluid is a suspension of magnetizable particles in oil.When subjected to a magnetic field, the particles polarize and attract each other, forming

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Tomoki Abe; Richard Thurlkill; Krishna Kurpad; Jay Porter; Anthony Vaughan; Joseph Morgan

/TET) students at TexasA&M University take a series of technical courses each of which includes an integratedlaboratory experience. After receiving feedback and recommendations from industries that hireEET/TET graduates, more emphasis is being placed on laboratories where teams of students arerequired to design, implement, test, and analyze a project. The experience is concluded with thedocumentation of the results of each project in both written and oral format. This approachbegins in selected sophomore-level courses and continues through the capstone senior designproject with less and less faculty intervention and control as the students progress in theircurriculum. One of the courses that utilize this approach is a junior-level Computer

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Audeen Fentiman; Robert J. Gustafson; John Merrill; John Demel; Richard Freuler

Session 1526 Developing and Implementing Hands-on Laboratory Exercises and Design Projects for First Year Engineering Students Richard J. Freuler, Audeen W. Fentiman, John T. Demel, Robert J. Gustafson, John A. Merrill The Ohio State UniversityAbstractDuring the past ten years, The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering has moved from aseries of separate freshman courses for engineering orientation, engineering graphics, andengineering problem solving with computer programming to a dual offering of course sequencesin the Introduction to

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Timothy Wheeler; Dr. Rose Marra; Dr. Jack Mitchell; Dr. Charles Croskey

Annual Conference & Exposition Page 6.890.7 Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationhistory of the measurement techniques. In addition, they designed and built the instrumentation,making sure the data were defensible. These tasks lent themselves well to independent EEprojects, capstone projects and honors theses.b) Power and Wiring (P&W)The P&W group designed the power systems and wiring harness for the payload. The level ofengineering challenge was accessible to students new to the discipline. This is meticulous work,however, since there are many single point failures in this area. These