Conference Session

Mobile Robotics in Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Parten, Texas Tech University; Michael Giesselmann, Texas Tech University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, students learn that their basic knowledge can be carried over to other devices andsystems. This paper describes a second semester sophomore laboratory project todesign and build an autonomous robot vehicle capable of navigating an outsidearea the size of a small parking lot by guidance from a GPS sensor. The roboticvehicles normally use the frame of remote controlled cars. The students aredivided into teams of 3 to 4 members. The teams compete at the end of thesemester. The winner is the vehicle and completes the parking lot drive in theshortest time.II. Project Laboratories The laboratory structure in the ECE department at Texas Tech University issomewhat different than most university laboratories.1-8 There are five, three hour

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Hassan Rajaei, Bowling Green State University; Mohammad Dadfar, Bowling Green State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Murat Tanyel, Geneva College

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

AC 2007-1038: COMPARING THE WALSH DOMAIN TO THE FOURIERDOMAIN WITH A LABVIEW-BASED COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS TOOLKITMurat Tanyel, Geneva College Murat Tanyel is a professor of engineering at Geneva College. He teaches upper level electrical engineering courses. Prior to Geneva College, Dr. Tanyel taught at Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA from Aug. 1995 to Aug. 2003. Prior to 1995, he was at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA where he worked for the Enhanced Educational Experience for Engineering Students (E4) project, setting up and teaching laboratory and hands-on computer experiments for engineering freshmen and sophomores. For one semester, he was also a visiting professor at the United Arab

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Frank Tuffner, University of Wyoming; Andrew Catellier, University of Wyoming; Robert Kubichek, University of Wyoming; John Pierre, University of Wyoming

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

laboratory experiments, where students get hands-on experience with a variety of signals such as BPSK, QPSK, and QAM. Any undergraduate labwith workbenches outfitted with standard PC and data acquisition equipment will be able tomake use of this novel VSA.1. IntroductionMany universities offer a laboratory component as part their introductory digital and analogcommunication course. In traditional undergraduate teaching laboratory environments, manycommunication topics are difficult to convey because of their complexity in implementation. Inthe first reference1, a framework for meaningful hands-on undergraduate communicationlaboratories was introduced using a set of LabVIEW-based exercises that interact with computer-controlled industry-standard test

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yoon Kim, Virginia State University; Shahzad Akbar

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jon Sticklen, Michigan State University; Daina Briedis, Michigan State University; Mark Urban-Lurain, Michigan State University; Timothy Hinds, Michigan State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Bell, University of Illinois-Chicago

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

benefits to thosestudents by providing them opportunities to work together with others to meet long-term goals.This paper will discuss how one such laboratory, the Virtual Reality Undergraduate ProjectLaboratory, VRUPL, serves education on two fronts by developing large-scale virtual realityeducational simulations in an undergraduate research laboratory, and distributes the resultingproducts free of charge.PEDAGOGICAL BACKGROUNDThe work presented in this paper is based upon three important pedagogical foundations: 1. Dale Edgar’s Cone of Learning: Students retain more knowledge for a longer period of time when the information is presented through multiple delivery channels, particularly when one or more of those channels involves

Conference Session

Special Session on Fixed-Point Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Anderson, Georgia Institute of Technology; Tyson Hall, Southern Adventist University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

–point and floating–point implementations. 9. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of implementing DSP systems in DSP microproces- sors and dedicated hardware (FPGAs or ASICs). Figure 1: Measurable student outcomes for ECE 4273. ECE 4273 is a senior–level technical elective in digital signal processing. It is a threesemester–hour course with two hours of lecture and a three–hour laboratory session eachweek. The lecture and laboratory material are closely coordinated such that topics coveredin lecture are reinforced in a hands–on laboratory experiment within at most a two–weektime period. Undergraduate students taking this course are expected to be familiar with Matlab,digital filter design, basic

Conference Session

Mobile Robotics in Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Austin Griffith, University of Wyoming; Steven Barrett, University of Wyoming; Daniel Pack, U.S. Air Force Academy

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Lincoln Laboratory. He co-authored two textbooks on microcontrollers and embedded systems and authored over 70 journal and conference papers. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi (faculty advisor), IEEE (senior), and ASEE. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Colorado. In 2005, Pack was named “Colorado Professor of the Year” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. His research interests include cooperative UAVs, intelligent control, automatic target recognition, and robotics. Email: daniel.pack@usafa.edu Page 12.1586.1

Conference Session

Computer Tools for Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeff Frolik, University of Vermont

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

enhance both individual and team learning in these settings from both student andfaculty perspectives. The working premise was that Tablets have added benefit, in comparisonto laptops, since much engineering content consists of equations and diagrams, entry of which iscumbersome at best with a keyboard and/or mouse. A secondary objective was to ascertain howstudents would adopt and adapt to this new computing platform. Three distinct studies arediscussed in the following pages.Study 1: A First-Year Engineering Design LaboratorySince Spring 2005, Tablets have been utilized in the laboratory section of a first-year engineeringdesign course. This course is a requirement of our electrical and mechanical engineering majors.To date, ~250 students have

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tarek El Doker, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; David Lanning, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Justin Gigliotti, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

around the senior design project. While the Aerospace Engineeringdepartment has been active in increasing design and laboratory content throughout thecurriculum, certain courses have changed little over the many years they have been taught. SolidMechanics is one of these courses.Solid Mechanics, typically taken during the second semester of the sophomore year byengineering students, has been taught to aspiring mechanical, civil, and aerospace engineers fornumerous decades, and the course content has changed little over that period of time. SolidMechanics may be considered the first course in engineering structures (perhaps this could beargued, depending on how one views the prerequisite course Statics), and involves computingthe stresses and

Conference Session

Special Session on Fixed-Point Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cameron Wright, University of Wyoming; Thad Welch, Boise State University; Michael Morrow, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Gerald Vineyard, U.S. Naval Academy

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

internalize, but demonstrations and laboratory experiences are quite helpful. This paper describes how we teach the concept of frequency shift keying by using a highly successful combination of theory, demonstrations, lab exercises, and real-time DSP experiences that incorporate M ATLAB and the Texas Instruments C67x digital signal processing starter kit.1 IntroductionWhile many communication concepts are difficult for undergraduate students to fully understand,the use of demonstrations and laboratory experiences have been shown to greatly facilitate thelearning process.1–7 This paper describes how to teach the digital communication modulation tech-nique of frequency shift keying (FSK) using a highly successful combination of

Conference Session

Issues in Computer Education-HDL

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ronald Hayne, The Citadel

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

AC 2007-372: VHDL PROJECTS TO REINFORCE COMPUTER ARCHITECTURECLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONRonald Hayne, The Citadel Ronald J. Hayne, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Citadel. His professional areas of interest are digital systems and hardware description languages. He is a retired Army officer with experience in academics and Defense laboratories. Page 12.1588.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 VHDL Projects to Reinforce Computer Architecture Classroom InstructionAbstractExploration of various

Conference Session

Embedded Computing

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sang-Hoon Lee, Polytechnic University; Anshuman Panda, Polytechnic University; Vikram Kapila, Polytechnic University; Hong Wong, Polytechnic University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

is currently pursuing a dual B.S/M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and expects to graduate in June 2007. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi. He has worked as a teaching and research assistant with responsibilities in the area of mechatronics.Vikram Kapila, Polytechnic University VIKRAM KAPILA is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY, where he directs an NSF funded Web-Enabled Mechatronics and Process Control Remote Laboratory, an NSF funded Research Experience for Teachers Site in Mechatronics that has been featured on WABC-TV and NY1 News, and an NSF funded GK-12 Fellows project. He has held visiting positions with the Air Force Research

Conference Session

Educational Software

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Harry Franz, University of Houston-Downtown; Alberto Gomez-Rivas, University of Houston-Downtown

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

thatwork in the electrical power sector of industry do have prior knowledge of electrical powerindustrial software.A virtual electrical power systems laboratory is used in the EET-3334 course in conjunction withthe theory and application of the lecture. This virtual electrical power systems laboratory allowsa variety of electrical power systems to be designed effectively with minimum cost. In addition,the lab use of industrial software allows the students to practice using a tool that typically isrequired later when they work in industry. The students in the virtual electrical power systemslab first learn basic theory power theory using the Electronics Workbench / Multisim software.The students then learn to program some small projects by using

Conference Session

Educational Software

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Norman Chonacky, Yale University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, atmospheric physics, applied computer science, sensor engineering, instrumentation, and environmental engineering. He has been associated with, among other institutions: the Southern Connecticut State and Columbia universities; Bates, Bowdoin, and The Evergreen State colleges; the Rome Air Development Center of the U.S. Air Force; and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In addition to the ASEE, he is a currently a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Physical Society, the IEEE-Computer Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1967

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Phil Rawles, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

being reviewed in addition to a numeric score. This approach can beuseful in helping the students justify their scores. It is the author’s opinion that comments shouldbe required for any students that is given either bonus points or less than fifty percent of theavailable points. In this manner students learn to document exceptional and poor performanceand it provides better evidence of over and underperforming student’s work that may be useful ina grade appeal situation.The author normally uses peer evaluation in the laboratory section of upper divisionundergraduate courses. Teams of two to four students work to complete each project and itsdocumentation. In this environment the peer evaluation base is 20 points with up to 150% of thebase

Conference Session

Educational Software

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeff Joines, North Carolina State University; Stephen Roberts, North Carolina State University; Dianne Raubenheimer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

informal surveys were given by the authors to get feedback during the semester.Credit Hours, Computers, and Classroom Time Observation 10: Two, two-hour class periods is sufficient to provide a useful computer- based modeling course.Our new course is 3 hours of credit on a semester basis. Because of the in-class lab requirements(see next section), there needs to be recognition of the “laboratory” nature of the course.Traditionally, the Java and C++ course would be 2 hours of “lecture” and 3 hours of a separate“lab” to review programs. However, our course integrates the lecture and lab together since wehave computers in the classroom. Consequently there is a combined four hours of lecture/lab

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard House, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Anneliese Watt, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Julia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

LearningEnvironments grants received from Hewlett Packard Company.Bibliography[1] Miller, R.L. and B.M. Olds, "Performance Assessment of EC-2000 Student Outcomes in the UnitOperations Laboratory," Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education AnnualConference (electronic), Charlotte, North Carolina, 1999. Page 12.278.10[2] Dannels, D., C. Anson, L. Bullard and S. Peretti, "Challenges in Learning Communication Skills inChemical Engineering", Communication Education, in press (2002).[3] Ludlow, D.K., “Using Critical Evaluation and Peer-Review Writing Assignments in a Chemical ProcessSafety Course,” Proceedings of the American Society for

Conference Session

Mobile Robotics in Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Wang, University of Nevada-Reno; Jeffrey LaCombe, University of Nevada-Reno; Ann-Marie Vollstedt, University of Nevada-Reno

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

duringthe spring 2006 semester in order to assess student learning. The new hardware will beintroduced for the first time in the spring 2007 semester. The concept inventories included bothROBOLAB (graphical) and pseudo-code (text-based) questions. The pseudo-code componentwas deemed important in order to quantify the student’s ability to transfer knowledge betweendomains. The key concepts included in the inventory were: goto’s, conditionals, loops, nestedstructures, variables, functions/arguments, and subroutines/subprograms.1. BackgroundThere is a vast history of using LEGO® bricks in education. Projects that use the RCXprogrammable brick have included a wide variety of projects and courses ranging from robotcompetitions1-3 to laboratory

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Promiti Dutta, Columbia University; Alexander Haubold, Columbia University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

. Specifically, we explore the pedagogic implications ofcreating two types of portals: (1) Course Management System (CMS) for course materials in anongoing semester and (2) Project Archival Tool (PAT) for completed project materials.We apply our proposed methods in a first-year engineering design course taught toapproximately 180 students per semester. The course is project-based and focuses on teachingstudents basic engineering design principles and professional skills. Coupled with these lecturesare additional laboratory components in which students learn to use MathWorks Matlab, acomputational tool, and Alias Wavefront Maya, a 3D design package. The final team-basedproject encompasses skills learned in class applied to a design problem proposed by

Conference Session

Web-Based Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ahmed Abu-Hajar, San Francisco State University; Michael Holden, San Francisco State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

.’ Animated computer-based lectures, presented in a standardizedsetting, could facilitate this development process.Professional engineers rely on computers for various purposes (design, verification, testing, etc.). Page 12.941.3Traditional engineering classrooms, however, are technologically unequipped to teach thecomputer skills required by industry10. This is primarily a result of limited lecture time. In thetraditional classroom model, the instructor’s lecture time is limited to teaching mathematics andtheoretical concepts. It is common for students to learn computer skills on their own, or withinthe framework of a laboratory assignment outside

Conference Session

Educational Software

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Smith, U. of St. Thomas - St. Paul

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

; Sons, New York. Everett and Swain, “Whirlwind I Computer Block Diagrams,” Report R-231, MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory, 1946. Gilmore, J. T., Jr., and H. P. Peterson, “A Functional Description of the TX-0 Computer,” Memorandum 6M- 4789-1, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lincoln, MA, October 1958. On-line (retrieved 8 July 2004) at http://bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/tx-0/6M-4789-1_TX0_funcDescr.pdf Goering, Richard, “Doors 'open' to hardware,” EE Times, 6 June 2005. Hanna, K. 2002. Interactive visual functional programming. In Proceedings of the Seventh ACM SIGPLAN international Conference on Functional Programming (Pittsburgh, PA, USA, October 04 - 06, 2002). ICFP '02. ACM Press, New York, NY, 145-156. Kay, A., “Computer Software

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andreas Spanias, Arizona State University; Karthikeyan Ramamurthy, Arizona State University; Jayaraman Jayaraman, Arizona State University; Mahesh Banavar, Arizona State University; CHIH-WEI HUANG, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

between Java-DSP and the National Instruments LabVIEW tool. This interface is made possible using J-DSPMathscript capabilities and provides an effective way to utilize several functionalities across bothvisual environments. The motivation for providing this feature is to enable students to accessimportant LabVIEW modules and functions and particularly tap on powerful real-timecapabilities of LabVIEW that allow to acquire and process real-time signals. This interface hasbeen tested by students in the Digital Signal Processing laboratory.2. Generating Mathscript Code from J-DSP Simulation Mathscript is a text-based scripting language available in LabVIEW that can be executedin the Mathscript window by the LabVIEW runtime engine. A native

Conference Session

Web-Based Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Squire, Virginia Military Institute; Vonda Walsh, Virginia Military Institute; H. Francis Bush, Virginia Military Institute; Gerald Sullivan, Virginia Military Institute; Anthony English, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

AC 2007-628: RESULTS FROM A MULTI-CENTER INVESTIGATION OF THEEFFECT OF NETWORK LATENCY ON PEDAGOGIC EFFICACYJames Squire, Virginia Military Institute Dr. James Squire is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Virginia Military Institute. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY and served in the army as a Military Intelligence officer during Desert Storm. Although his PhD is in electrical engineering, he completed his doctoral work in a biomedical engineering laboratory at MIT and has interests in analog and digital instrumentation, signal processing, biomechanics, patent litigation, and cardiology. At VMI he teaches

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Raymond Jacquot, University of Wyoming; Cameron Wright, University of Wyoming; Robert Kubichek, University of Wyoming; Thomas Edgar, University of Wyoming

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

groundwater has been described using web-based graphics5 and another paperreports a virtual laboratory for teaching quasistationary electromagnetics.6 Another recent paperdiscusses the solution of groundwater problems using a spreadsheet.7 Still another paperemploys a spreadsheet to examine the topic of electromagnetic wave propagation.8 Two recentpapers reported the use of animation to clarify a variety of partial differential equationsolutions.9,10 There are a number of approaches to the animation of distributed parametersystems and one is the application of finite element software (ANSYSTM) to illustrate thevibration of beams and plates.11 A recent paper discusses the use of animation in MATLABTM toanimate the solution to a variety of electrical

Conference Session

Computer Tools for Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jianyu Dong, California State University-Los Angeles; Nancy Warter-Perez, California State University-Los Angeles

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

designs from different groups into more complex systems. After students havelearned the design process in class, they repeat the process in their collaborative term project,typically an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) designed using different modeling techniques.3) CPBL implementation in Microcomputer Programming (EE345)Due to the promising implementation results of CPBL in EE442 and EE347, we began to use itin EE345 staring from Fall 2006. Assembly language programming and microcontrollerinterfacing are often taught with a lab component or at least TA office hours. In lieu of those, wecan integrate simple hands-on exploratory and development projects into the lecture. Years ago,our microcomputer programming course was taught in a laboratory with

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christian Hipp, University of South Carolina; Veronica Addison, University of South Carolina

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

AC 2007-1176: THE EFFECTS OF PRIOR COMPUTER EXPERIENCES INCONSIDERING ENGINEERING STUDENTS' ABILITY TO SOLVE OPEN-ENDEDPROBLEMSChristian Hipp, University of South CarolinaVeronica Addison, University of South Carolina Page 12.1417.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 The effects of prior computer experiences in considering engineering students’ ability to solve open-ended problems ABSTRACTThis paper relates one part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded, exploratory researchproject in the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program (CCLI). The researchproject’s objective is to

Conference Session

Special Session on Fixed-Point Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jonathan Hill, University of Hartford; Hisham Alnajjar, University of Hartford; Saeid Moslehpour, University of Hartford

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, http://www.xilinx.com/bvdocs/appnotes/xapp467.pdf8. Alan V. Oppenheim and Ronald W. Schafer, Digital Signal Processing, copyright 1975 by Alan V. Oppenheim Page 12.574.13 and Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., published by Prentice-Hall, Inc.9. Vinay K Ingle and John G. Proakis, Digital Signal Processing using Matlab, copyright 2000 by Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Ziegler, State University of New York-Binghamton

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

disciplines.Introduction:Engineering students are typically hands-on visually oriented learners. The extraordinary valueof providing a visual component to teaching and learning is well documented. Many topics inengineering curricula rely on visual components to help convey concepts that are difficult todescribe in purely text-based form. Adding animation to visual components only serves toenhance the learning experience even further. Bringing animation to raw data plotted in acolorful three-dimensional graph brings life to otherwise static numerical information.Simulation and animation can be utilized by an instructor to illustrate concepts in a classroomsetting or by students to solve problems in a laboratory setting.The use of animation provides a method to model and