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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

John Klegka; Robert Rabb

, there are three ways that quickly come tomind to bring the courses together: 1) an Introduction to Engineering course, 2) a Capstoneproject, and 3) an Integrated Experience course. Many institutions already use an Introduction toEngineering course, and showing the “big picture” early is a good method to generate interest inmechanical engineering. The Capstone project has the benefits already cited but may not includesome of the disciplines and allows students to work in their areas of interest. The IntegrativeExperience course may offer some benefits to all students.This last option for an integrative experience is a course that guides students along a majordesign effort and allows them to see many applications from the different courses. Such

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

J. Tim Coppinger; Carl Steidley

Controllers, Control Systems, Capstone Projects, Systems Programming,and System Analysis and Design.The Mechanical Engineering Technology students benefit from the study of mechanicalcomponents, the design of tooling and fixtures, the selection of material handling equipment,pneumatic actuators and clamps, and the relationship of material selection to the manufacturingprocess.The Control Systems Engineering Technology students study the use of sensors, data acquisition,actuators, networking of equipment, robot controllers, programmable logic controllers, and thecommunication of the cell with overall factory operations.The Computer Science students will focus on the development of controlling algorithms, cellcontrol, user interfaces, networking, and

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Kullgren; David Pape

professionals, a graduate program designed to addtechnical knowledge, leadership and management strategies to existing workplace skillswas initiated. This degree, called the Master of Science in Technological Processes,includes coursework in both technical and professional disciplines, and is targeted atindividuals with undergraduate degrees in science, engineering, computer science,mathematics, or engineering technology. The program is offered entirely on campus withevening classes and concludes with an industry-based capstone Field Project. In thispaper the first two plus years of the program are presented and analyzed. The studentpopulation, which has developed into an interesting mixture that includes a significantinternational population and a

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Mason; Arthur Western

Master’s degree program in Applied Optics. The vision was to aid Indiana industryby supplying expertise in the enabling technology of optics while at the same timeproviding M. S. students in Applied Optics with industry-based problems as thesis topics.By the 1990s, several other departments shifted the format of senior capstone designprojects to include external sponsors. The earliest adopters included Civil Engineering,Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science. In 1993 Rose-Hulman created, withsupport from the Indiana Business Modernization and Technology Cooperation, theTechnical Assistance and Services Center (TASC) as a vehicle through which additionalindustry-related projects could be made available to Rose-Hulman faculty and students.At

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Frederick Orthlieb

conferences and by participation on technical committees that develop application codesor material and process standards - an important activity in our market-driven economy. These organizationsusually have very strong industrial bases that employ many engineers, and several sponsor annual undergraduatestudent design competitions that can serve as excellent vehicles for team and/or capstone design projects thataddress challenging problems under real constraints of time and budget. A number of industry-based multidsciplinary groups that are organized around a particular class ofindustrial material or process also advertise grants to faculty for research that addresses topics of continuingconcern or that holds promise of expansion into new

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Susan Creighton; Edward Young; Jed Lyons

Session 1526 Assessing the Effectiveness of a Racecar-Based Laboratory Course Jed Lyons, Edward F. Young and Susan D. Creighton University of South CarolinaAbstractA new capstone mechanical engineering laboratory course was recently institutionalized at theUniversity of South Carolina. The course is based upon an integrated sequence of laboratoryexperiments on a Legends-class racecar, chosen because it involves many fundamentalmechanical engineering principles. It's also exciting to the students. As the students progressthrough the series of experiments, they are increasingly involved

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

David Kelso; John D. Enderle; Kristina Ropella

the efficacy and validity of design project experiences and the specific aspects ofimplementing those experiences.If biomedical engineering programs are to prepare students to solve biomedical problems thatimpact a wide range of economic, environmental, ethical, legal, and social issues, students mustbe taught how to put theory into practice and how to adapt when real-world behavior cannot beadequately described by existing theory. Every educational tool, from textbooks, to labexperiments, to homework to capstone design projects should seek to incorporate some aspect ofreal-world implementation and problem solving.BiographyKRISTINA M. ROPELLA, PH.D.Received the B.S.E. from Marquette University and the M.S. and Ph.D. from

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

David M. Beams

voltages, currents, RPM, andtorque in real time); the second is an instrument for measuring impedances similar tocommercially-available LCR bridges. Students in EENG 4409 will be brought into the designand development of both instruments.A booklet describing the available CLIs with detailed instructions for duplicating them isplanned for summer, 2002.TUNA II has been undertaken as a capstone design project for the spring semester of 2001 bysenior EE student Zinnour Soultanov. TUNA II is planned to extend the maximal usablefrequency of the instrument from 100 kHz to 1 MHz and to speed data-taking by havingselectable corner frequencies of the I-Q demodulator’s low-pass filters (allowing a cornerfrequency appropriate to the frequency of measurement

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Floersheim; Stephen Ressler; Margaret Bailey

Session 2793 Course Assessment Plan: A Tool for Integrated Curriculum Management R. Bruce Floersheim, Margaret Bailey and Stephen J. Ressler United States Military Academy at West PointAbstractAs we enter the 21st Century in engineering education, a common desire exists toimprove curriculum structure, integration and assessment. Much has been written anddiscussed in workshops and professional journals concerning the top-down process forassessing and/or revising a program curriculum. Institutions are finally realizing theycannot afford to rely solely upon the senior capstone design experience to be theintegrator of all

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Enno Koehn

understanding of various subject areas required by ABET has been enhanced bypart-time and summer work experiences. In particular, the findings suggest that bothundergraduate and graduate students believe that three areas have been greatly enhanced withengineering work. They include structural engineering, project management/scheduling andestimating, and team work. In addition, undergraduates also perceive that their understanding ofhealth and safety issues, and ethical considerations has also increased. In contrast, graduatestudents believe that their knowledge of hydraulics/hydrology/water resources, constructabilityand economic factors has been enhanced by work experiences.I. IntroductionThe American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) believes that

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Stuart Steele

. Page 6.221.5Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering EducationV. Background and Overview of CS 398 (Advanced Senior Project)The senior project represents the capstone design course of the Computer and InformationScience (CIS) curriculum. The senior project provides an opportunity for students to apply theknowledge and skills gained in other courses as they synthesize a solution to a significant,realistic problem, plan and manage a software development project and implement the solutionusing state of the art methodologies, techniques and tools. Senior projects are carried out on ateam basis (individual projects are

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Anna Phillips; Jon Fricker; Paul Palazolo; Norman Dennis

Session We Came, We Saw, We Changed Some Things: Engineering Educators Talk About Extending Oklahoma University’s "Sooner City" Program to their Own Institutions Norman Dennis, Jon Fricker, Paul Palazolo, Anna Phillips The University of Arkansas/Purdue University/The University of MemphisAbstractIn August of 1999, Oklahoma University hosted an NSF-sponsored workshop for 29 engineeringeducators to present initial findings from their interdisciplinary “Sooner City Project” and collectfeedback and ideas from the participants. The authors of this presentation represent

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Joan A. Burtner

for three years. The course, which has been designed and taught by an engineeringprofessor, is part of the College of Liberal Arts’ Senior Capstone program and is offered tostudents from any college in the university. The course structure encourages students to viewcontemporary issues from an organizational, personal and technical perspective. The presence ofboth engineering students and liberal arts students in the same class allows students to shareknowledge and break down stereotypes as they study accomplishments in the fields ofengineering and science.Introduction The practice of engineering is not conducted in a vacuum. Engineering accomplishmentsaffect society and, conversely society affects what engineers can accomplish. As

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Black; Robert Weber; Julie Dickerson; Carolina Cruz-neira

., et al., A Survey of Capstone Engineering Courses in North America. Journal of Engineering Education, 1995. 84(2): p. 165-174.2. Dutson, A.J., et al., A Review of Literature on Teaching Engineering Design Through Project-Oriented Capstone Courses. Journal of Engineering Education, 1997. 86(1): p. 17-28.3. Puthenpurackal, A., C. Cruz-Neira, and P.A. Molian. Laser Training in Virtual Environment to Improve Safety. in 17th International Conferences on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics. 1998. Orlando, Florida.4. Stefanich, L. and C. Cruz-Neira. Virtual Surgical Simulator for the Lower Limbs. in 36th Annual Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium. 1999.5. Tretter, S.A., Communication System Design Using

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Vishnu Lakdawala; Oscar Gonzalez; James Leathrum Jr.; Stephen Zahorian

Capstone I Logic Design Micro- Computer Capstone II processors Arch. Probability & Statistics Data Operating Program. Structures Systems Discrete Software Structures

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jerry Sellers; Douglas Bayley

help to provide expertise and extra funding. Challengesassociated with these courses and the associated project that the students are expected tocomplete are also discussed. How are student learning objectives and real worlddeadlines balanced? How is the problem of high student turn-around handled? Thepaper will discuss various solutions the Academy has evolved to address thesechallenges. The paper concludes with current program status and recent feedback fromstudents involved in the project.I. IntroductionThe capstone of the United States Air Force Academy’s Department of AstronauticsSmall Satellite curriculum is the FalconSAT Program. One goal of the program, housedwithin the Academy’s Small Satellite Research Center, is to give

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Watkins; John Sullivan

Astronautics(Engineering) (AAE) has joined forces with the Aeronautical Technology Section (AOT) of theUniversity’s Department of Aviation Technology (AT) on experimental basis to provide seniorlevel students with a design/build/text experience in an interdisciplinary team environment. Thepaper identifies the two types of projects (specific objective and research) used in support ofinterdisciplinary activities. It describes previous projects and discusses some of the successesand difficulties experienced in pursuit of this effort. Industry’s reaction to these interdisciplinaryteam activities is discussed, as well as, future plans for the expansion of interdisciplinarydesign/build/test team projects.IntroductionPurdue University provides a unique

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Gilbert Wedekind; Christopher Kobus

Session 1566 Optimal Design of a Thermal Recuperator Gilbert L. Wedekind, Christopher J. Kobus Department of Mechanical Engineering Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309AbstractThis paper describes the final design project for the senior level Fluid and Thermal SystemDesign course, which is a precursor to the Capstone Design Project at Oakland University. TheFluid and Thermal System Design course is geared to taking students through the entiretaxonomy of the design process; from knowledge, comprehension and application, to analysis,synthesis and

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael J Batchelder; Daniel F. Dolan

. Freshmenlearn through programming assignments to compute energy requirements. Sophomoresin introductory circuits learn about voltage and current measurements. Juniors in amechatronics course learn sensors, signal conditioning, and computer interfacing.Seniors have a capstone design project opportunity. TyhÃ8ryy TyhÃ8ryy TyhÃ8ryy Tvtà TvtÃ! TvtÃ" H 9vr H v 8yyr QrhxÃQr QrhxÃQr QrhxÃQr Uhpxrà UhpxrÃ! UhpxrÃ

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Sean DiBartolo; Linfield Brown; Chris Swan

advisors provided day-to-day participation. In addition, students couldbenefit from the experience that their advisors could apply to the problem. Most importantly,the students do not benefit from a more-regimented schedule that is usually present in aclassroom or course setting. This aspect of project management has been partially addressed inthat the last two WERC teams have used the CEE senior capstone course to obtain course creditfor participation. However, the need to adhere to this schedule of deliverables still needs to bereinforced. We (advisors) believe that the long term benefits of "student initiated" and controlledprojects far out weigh the potentially short-lived gains in placing higher (award level) in thecompetition.ConclusionsThe

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Xudong Yu; William White; Scott Smith; Keqin Gu; Jerry Weinberg; Cem Karacal; George L. Engel

Engineering: Senior ProjectsThe Senior Project courses in Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering providea type of capstone project. Robotics projects engender a full range of activities in both of thesedisciplines. To build a robot, students must analyze the type of environment that the robot will Page 6.59.6 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Educationencounter, determine what sensor inputs are necessary to recognize different conditions, decidewhat motor responses will be necessary

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Casey Preston; R. Mark Worden; Daina Briedis

Page 6.1064.3undergraduates in research is also an excellent recruiting tool for graduate school. “Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Education”Multidisciplinary Bioprocessing Laboratory—a capstone courseTwo years ago, as part of an NSF-sponsored Combined Research CurriculumDevelopment (CRCD) project, the Department of Chemical Engineering established aMultidisciplinary Bioprocessing Laboratory (MBL) course. The express purpose of thiscourse is to teach students how to work in multidisciplinary teams to solve researchproblems in biotechnology. The fact that that most industries operate withmultidisciplinary teams as

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Kimball

/Resources) (SCANS: Secretary’s Commission forAchieving the Necessary Skills), provided guiding principles for career-oriented curricula.SCANS calls for all courses to strengthen the skills the student will need as a graduate--in theworkplace. In addition to the basic skills the student will need, SCANS calls for students toacquire Thinking Skills and positive Personal Qualities. The three-part foundation is measuredby five competencies: (1) ability to use resources, (2) ability to work with others, (3) ability toacquire and use information, (4) ability to understand complex interrelationships, and (5) abilityto work with a variety of technologies.As a result of SCANS, we began to include more complex projects in mathematics courses. Theprojects

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jahan Kauser; Carlos Sun; Ralph A. Dusseau; Jess Everett; Joseph Orlins; Beena Sukumaran; Douglas Cleary

EngineeringDesign Project I and II) where the seniors in the CEE Program work in teams on an open-ended,real-world, civil engineering design problem. The capstone design sequence allows students todraw upon various aspects of their undergraduate coursework to develop a comprehensive,engineered solution to an open-ended civil engineering problem. This two-semester capstonesequence addresses a real-world problem and is coordinated with practicing engineers. Facultycoordinators serve in an advisory capacity and coordinate class meetings and presentations.Because of the required prerequisites, students have already been adequately trained in thefundamental principles of engineering analysis and in the concepts of engineering design. Thisis an opportunity for

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jessica Matson; Kenneth Hunter

exercise have been fullyaddressed, especially the application of the exercise results to the workplace. Rehearsal ofexercises and debriefing sessions by facilitators is strongly recommended.3. Program ExampleOne of the implementations of the framework at Tennessee Tech has been a workshop designedto improve teamwork skills in the capstone design course for industrial engineering students.IME 451 Engineering Design Internship is a required senior course that places student teams intoreal, unstructured design projects with industrial partners. The course was designed with a focuson teamwork, and methods for promoting teamwork had already been incorporated in the course.For example, at the beginning of the course in a traditional lecture format, the

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Dick Desautel

assessment) thatin turn supports the highest level (program assessment/enhancement). Content of the educationflows from course up to program level, and requirements for revision and improvement flowdown from program level to course level.The second basic feature is the integration of a longitudinal series of assessment data collections.The collection tools fall naturally into two categories that are distributed from (potentially)freshman through senior years and beyond into professional practice: • Traditional methods for faculty evaluation of student knowledge and skills within each course including the capstone course and senior project, e.g., course deliverables and grades. • Self-perception and external perception methods

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Narayanan Komerath

perspective early, and the Capstone Design Professor could move quicklyto more advanced topics. This would enable a large improvement in the scope of the seniorDesign course. A third benefit is expected to arise as other instructors begin to realize that theirstudents have good perspective on the field: cross-disciplinary projects would become feasible,enabling an iterative revamping of the entire curriculum.DCI ApproachWe hypothesized further that the introduction of the Conceptual Design portion of this course, atthe entering freshman level, would be highly motivating to the student. The steep learning curveneeded to do such a design with understanding and confidence was weighed against theadvantages of a motivated class. In 10-week Fall Quarter of

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jeffrey Nadel; Dan Walsh

Session 1520 Advanced Technology Laboratories: A Crucible for Technology Enhanced Learning Jeff Nadel, Dan Walsh College of Engineering California Polytechnic State UniversityAbstractA partnership among industry, academia and government has led to the construction anddevelopment of a facility which provides a capstone experience for engineering students. Thepurpose of the ATL is to provide a vehicle that enables partnerships between industry, faculty, andstudents. This partnership is designed to produce

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Salman Talahmeh; Lisa Anneberg; Ece Yaprak

capstone design projectsfor NSF’s Greenfield Coalition. She received the B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in1981 and the M.S. and Ph.D. in computer engineering from Wayne State University in 1983 and 1988, respectively.SALMAN TALAHMEHDr. Talahmeh is an associate professor of computer engineering and Dean of Science and Technology at PalestinePolytechnic University in the West Bank. Dr. Talahmeh is involved in several industrial projects in web-basedtechnology. Dr. Talahmeh received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Middle East Technical University inTurkey in 1982 and the M.S. and PhD. in computer engineering from Wayne State University in 1986 and 1996,respectively

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Joey Parker

mechanical engineering students to PLCs is described in thispaper. This module is an updated version of the material presented in an earlier paper 8.Examples of the lab setup, student exercises, and follow-on senior design projects are provided.A website is available that contains these items with additional supplemental materials 9. Keyaspects of the instrumentation course that contains this PLC module are described next.Course OrganizationThe topics covered in the first instrumentation course, ME 360 – Instrumentation and ControlComponents, are listed in Table 1. A detailed listing of course objectives can be found on the UAmechanical engineering department's website (www.me.ua.edu). This course has existed in thisform for the past three years. At