Design ProjectsPrototyping is often a very important phase in a capstone design project. However, in manycases, prototyping decisions are made arbitrarily by students, adversely affecting the quality ofthe final product delivered. At The University of Texas at Austin we are developing a structuredprototyping strategy tool based on a synthesis of prototyping techniques that have been shown tobe effective. Our strategy tool leads designers through the process of making decisions aboutaspects of a prototype program, such as how many concepts to prototype, the number ofprototype iterations to complete for a given concept, and whether to use scaled prototypes. In thisstudy we evaluate whether explicit discussion of these prototyping decisions affects
interests are vibrations of mechanical systems and planetary gear dynamics. Page 26.324.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 Capstone Design Assessment and Student MotivationAbstract This paper presents the ongoing development of student assessment strategies, and howthey affect student motivation and satisfaction, in a mechanical engineering capstone coursesequence. The capstone sequence discussed contains large scale projects consisting of ten totwenty students broken into smaller subgroups with specific tasks. Because the capstonesequence is a requirement for all
, FEMsimulations, solid modeling, and design.References1. Hibbeler, R. C, Mechanics of Materials, Pearson Prentice Hall, 7th edition, 2008.2. Hosford, W. F., Caddell, R. M., Metal Forming Mechanics and Metallurgy, PTR Prentice Hall, 2nd edition, 1993.3. Nasser, A., Yadav, A., Pathak, P., and Altan, T., Determination of the flow stress of five AHSS sheet materials (DP 600, DP 780, DP 780-CR, DP 780-HY and TRIP 780) using the uniaxial tensile and the biaxial Viscous Pressure Bulge (VPB) tests, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Vol. 210, No. 3, pp 429-436, 2010.4. Alan, D. J., Magleby, S. P., Sorensen, C. D., and Todd, R. H., A Review of Literature on Teaching Engineering Design Through Project-Oriented Capstone Courses, Journal of
productpresentations and discussions, participation, question asking, and question answering.A. Course ContextIn the MIT mechanical engineering capstone course, students work in product design teams topropose ideas for new products, select a few for development and testing, and ultimately chooseone, as a team, to build and test as an alpha prototype. At the end of the semester each teampresents their prototype at a large event, akin to a product launch. While the team project existsin many engineering capstone courses, one way that MIT’s course is unique is that individualstudent teams are atypically large, comprising 18-25 students. Enrollment in the course is 160-190 students every fall semester.The student teams are near autonomous and self directed
juniors), team activities typicallyinvolve only the six or seven students enrolled in the capstone project. All the HPVC studentsexpressed frustration that they were “not allowed to do anything” until they were in charge. Thenon-capstone students, and especially new members, have no input on the design or building oftheir vehicle. Often the capstone students do not even include these other team members incommunications to arrange meetings or work times. Thus, students have very little opportunityto learn anything about the vehicle design, component manufacturing, or administrative tasksbefore they are responsible for the entire project. Because of the tight affiliation with thecapstone graduation requirement, this team maintains formidable
senior capstone design projects found in mostcurricula, but rather these are typically extended homework assignments intended to engagestudents in problem definition and open-ended solution discovery. They are also intended toserve as ‘platforms’ for the relevant material in the course itself. Indeed, these types of activitiesare part of the ABET EAC Criteria 3 and 51, and the projects are found in many sophomore- andjunior-level engineering courses.Inclusion of such a design project in our junior-level vibrations course has been the norm formany years. The duration of the project is on the order of one month, and typically carries thesame percentage (e.g. 10%) of the total course grade as the entire set of homework assignments
show neutral to “strongly agree” that each project effectively teaches various elements of thedesign process. Page 26.903.9 8The results of the survey show that most students believe the design projects are helpful to learnthe design process. They have further identified several of the class projects were more helpful inbuilding specific design skills. In the case of the project in Machine Design this outcome is notsurprising since the class is designed to be taken in the Spring of the Junior year before thestudents enter the Capstone design course and focuses on the full design process.Other
plans, completedrawings and proper tolerancing.Future plans include facilitating increased student machine time in the DFM lab as well as thedevelopment of a junior level course including a more significant product development andlarger scale laboratory work focused on sustainable energy. This is expected to build on thecurrent series and feed directly into the senior capstone design course.The curriculum changes outlined in this paper had multiple goals: • Encourage innovation by challenging students with globally significant projects. • Facilitate innovation through design rigor and an iterative review process. • Develop design for manufacturing skills early in the students’ academic career to be honed with subsequent
engineeringdepartments were involved. The avenues of student participation included summer internships,independent project work, and Capstone Senior Design projects. By working on the solarfurnace project, students developed a myriad of valuable skills in such areas as projectmanagement, technical writing, communication, design, manufacturing, mechatronics, finiteelement analysis, circuit analysis, programming, and instrumentation. Additionally, 40 percentof the students who participated in the project chose to continue their engineering studies ingraduate schools around the country.1. IntroductionMultiple studies1-3 have shown the benefits of project-based learning. Students who participatein complex engineering projects develop a myriad of valuable skills
system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realisticconstraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety,manufacturability, and sustainability Page 26.52.3e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems2. Hands-on projectThe added hands-on project consists in basic laboratories to design and test an injection plasticmold. The activities will be carried out in groups of three students. Although there are severalpublications from previous ASEE Conferences related to capstone projects3 and Machine Designcourses4, this publication differs in that this work proposes a new
independent work, (c) taking more responsibility for one’s own learning, (d) intellectual growth, congruent with the lab project goals mentioned below.Lab Project Specific GoalsThe goal of the ASEPS laboratory sequence is twofold: to relate faculty research and educationand to prepare the mechanical engineering undergraduates at California State UniversityFullerton for their capstone design projects giving them knowledge such as:(1) Hands-on activity in analyzing and designing real world mechanisms;(2) Sketching and drawing, in order to communicate design ideas in team environment;(3) Kinematics, in order to understand what will work and what will not and evaluate alternativesolutions;(5) Controls, in order to be able to look and solve
gain and sharpen skills such as: understanding requirement documents, defininggoals, synthesis, design evaluation, making decision, teamwork, written communication, oralcommunication, conduct patent search, creativity, innovation, perform in-depth mechanicalanalysis, problem solving, and machine design. Since the implementation of this approach,capstone project instructors have noticed significant improvement in the ability of studentssynthesize and analyze, and most importantly, the practice of design.Results and discussionTo evaluate the effectiveness of the aforementioned pedagogical approach, a self-perceptionanonymous short survey that consisted of 13 questions was administrated online to previousstudents enrolled in this redesigned
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.Mr. Julius Omokiniovo Ejenavi, Morgan State University Julius Ejenavi Descriptive Bio: Julius Ejenavi is currently a full time graduate student at Morgan State University. Mr. Ejenavi is presently working on his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering specializing in wireless communications.He received his Undergraduate Degree with Honors in Engineering with an Electrical Engineering Specialization from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) in Decem- ber 2013. In his Senior Design Project,Mr. Ejenavi worked in a team to design a Data Acquisition System for Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) Setup.At Morgan State University, Mr. Ejenavi worked on
Page 26.518.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 Development of a Ball-and-Plate SystemAbstractThis paper presents the development of a dynamic ball-and-plate system successfully completedfor a one-semester Senior Capstone Design project. A group of five undergraduate studentsdeveloped the project concept and constructed a prototype within a semester, integrating majormechatronics engineering concepts learned in classes. The three-degree-of-freedom systemconsists of sensors, actuators, and controls to keep a free rolling ball in a desired position on aflat plate, accounting for any possible external disturbances. Due to its complexity, multiple stepswere taken to solve the
Paper ID #13329Teaching and Learning Open-Ended Problem Solving Throughout a New De-gree ProgramProf. Jenifer Blacklock, Colorado School of Mines Dr. Jenifer Blacklock is the Assistant Department Head in the Mechanical Engineering department at Col- orado School of Mines. Jenifer is active in the Undergraduate Curriculum in the Mechanical Engineering department and is an advocate of using hands-on-learning tools to help develop strong math, science and engineering foundations.Prof. Jered H Dean, Colorado School of Mines Jered is Director of the Mines College of Engineering and Computational Sciences Capstone Design Pro
a two semester capstoneproject. Two options for capstone projects are offered: SAE competition teams and industry-sponsored projects (ISPs). SAE competition teams include Baja SAE, Formula SAE, FormulaHybrid, SAE Aero Design, and SAE Supermileage. The SAE competition projects are well-known by students with prior-years’ vehicles available, strict timelines, and a year-to-yearprocess of continual improvement. This makes them attractive to students with aspirations in thetransportation industry, but can limit student learning as each student may participate in thedesign of only a small portion of the vehicle.ISPs are more varied, representing real, time-sensitive problems posed by industry partners whocommit to funding the project. For a
Paper ID #11559e-Learning Modules for Improving Lifelong Learning AbilityDr. Michele Miller, Michigan Technological University Dr. Michele Miller is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Technological University. She teaches classes on manufacturing and does research in engineering education with particular interest in hands-on ability, lifelong learning, and project-based learning.Dr. Sheryl A. Sorby, Ohio State University Dr. Sheryl Sorby is currently a Professor of STEM Education at The Ohio State University and was re- cently a Fulbright Scholar at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Dublin, Ireland. She is
and the first year of professional practice. Dr. Metzler then worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries for approximately 10 years before returning to graduate school at Washington University. Dr. Metzler com- pleted a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University in Biomedical Engineering, after which she worked in the consulting arena for the past ten years. In 2011 she began teaching Capstone Design in the mechanical engineering curriculum within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer- ing at The Ohio State University, in addition to continuing her consulting practice. In January, 2014 Dr. Metzler moved to full-time teaching responsibilities at Ohio State, where she continues to
students with more design-decision making experience to enable them to be ready to engineer upon graduation. In thisresearch, third and fourth year undergraduate mechanical engineering students were guidedthrough the process of designing learning aid prototypes to be used in general engineeringeducation. Students were encouraged to use advanced technologies such as 3D printing and virtualsimulation to realize their concepts. This project assisted students in identifying their own andtypical misconceptions and devise tools which corrected those cognitive errors. A series of self-evaluation methods were used to identify the student’s perception of their decision-making skilllevels. Over the multiple categories of design decision-making skills
Paper ID #11341Development of Student Competencies Overtime in an Authentic ImmersiveDesign ExperienceProf. Zahed Siddique, University of Oklahoma Zahed Siddique is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering of University of Oklahoma. His research interest include product family design, advanced material and engineering education. He is interested in motivation of engineering students, peer-to-peer learning, flat learning environments, technology assisted engineering education and experiential learning. He is the coordinator of the industry sponsored capstone from at his
completionof the course, students will be able to: 1. Complete a flowchart of how to solve a problem; 2. Use a computer program to solve an engineering problem; 3. Correctly and clearly plot the results of calculations; 4. Program a microprocessor; and 5. Use software to accurately represent a 3-dimensional object.Prior to this curriculum change, mechanical engineers were not all exposed to microprocessorprogramming. A number of students employed them in club, competition, or capstone projects,but this was generally a minority. Department faculty decided to seize the opportunity in thisnew course to introduce microcontrollers to all mechanical engineering students. Not only is itan engaging way of exercising and reinforcing recently
. There are a number of ways to create such a community, and no single solution is sufficient. Thebest recommendation is for the university to have a holistic approach employing multiple strategiessuch as: tutoring, mentoring, learning centers, first-year student programs, at-risk student programs ,strong academic advising, and career awareness7.Over the years, much has been done to understand and improve the retention of students8-12.Universities use problem solving recitations, and the integration of math/science/engineering intomore exciting engineering courses with more active design projects for students. Many of theseefforts have had limited success and are often overwhelmed by changes in the student bodyattending the university, changes in
Paper ID #11317Finite Element Analysis Active Learning Modules Embedded Throughout ACurriculum: Implementation and Assessment of Results Based on StudentGPAProf. Kyle A. Watson, University of the Pacific Kyle Watson earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Villanova University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University. He has been a faculty member at the University of the Pacific since 2003 and has taught undergraduate courses in thermodynamics, heat transfer, combustion, air-conditioning, dynamics, and senior capstone design.Dr. Ashland O. Brown, University of the Pacific