Conference Session

What's New in Statics?

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Shane Palmquist, Western Kentucky University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

project-basedlearning in the classroom. Numerous engineering projects have been incorporated into theclassroom including the egg drop catcher and the balsa wood bridge projects to name a couple1.The general purpose of these projects was to demonstrate what is learned in the classroom and toencourage creativity and teamwork. Most of the projects attempt to simulate a development,design and analysis experience. While there is value to this approach, there is a greater need toexpose students to real life engineering projects rather than a simulated project. Unfortunately,real life engineering projects are typically left to the senior capstone course2,3. However,engineering students upon entering college need exposure to real life projects to better

Conference Session

What's New in Statics?

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kevin Dong, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

Page 11.908.5environment, the topics and the related homework were geared to match problems seen in the“industry”. In order to fulfill this goal, load path problems were added into the curriculum.Students were taught how to draw and “read” a framing plan and then how to trace a load to theground. This gave the students something tangible – why are we doing this - and a directapplication to real world situations. Our “hands on approach” philosophy is epitomized by theStructures II capstone project; students build a simple two-story model, draw a floor framingplan, develop the beam and column loading diagrams, compute the shear and moment diagramsfor the beams and the axial load diagrams for the columns, calculate the internal stresses for