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Authors

Joey Parker

test stand with several pneumatic cylinders,solenoid valves, pushbutton inputs, and other function is used for laboratory exercises in PLCprogramming. Specific examples of PLC program analysis, de-bugging, and program design Page 6.660.7have been presented. Senior design projects that use PLCs for control have also been described. Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering EducationStudent response to this material has been uniformly positive, primarily due to their recognitionthat this is useful, “real

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Mohamad Ahmadian

need to master to become truly successful in their professional Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Page 6.95.2 Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationcareers2. Throughout their undergraduate curriculum, engineering technology students will writeessays, laboratory reports, and technical reports for class projects. Some of these class projectsmay also require presentations along with the written materials. The senior seminar coursegenerally addresses job importance and student preparedness in

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Brenda Morton; Raymond Thompson

, thebenefits to the student make is a worthwhile expenditure of time. In addition, the public relationvalue and increasing industry interaction within the AT department have provided benefits to allstudents. As the program expands, the next step is to attract student and faculty participants fromother institutions. The process to accomplish this is being developed at this time.RAYMOND E. THOMPSONRaymond E. Thompson is Associate Professor of Aviation Technology at Purdue University in West Lafayette.Prof. Thompson founded the AOT Advanced Composite Laboratory and coordinates student services within thedepartment. His current research includes assessment, technology in the classroom, distance education, and aviationhuman factors.BRENDA A. MORTONBrenda A

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Marshall Coyle; Christal Keel

Computational Mechanics, http://garlic.q.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/FAQ/index.html, Yagawa Laboratory,accessed February 26, 2001.5. Finite Element Method Universal Resource, http://femur.wpi.edu/, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, accessedFebruary 26, 2001.6. Bridging the Gap between Mechanics of Materials Lectures and Homework with MDSOLIDS,http://et.nmsu.edu/~etti/spring98/mechanical/philpot/mdsolids.html Timothy A. Philpot, accessed February 26,2001.7. Finite Element People: http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~lfranca/links/fem_people.html, Leo Franca, accessedFebruary 26, 2001.MARSHALL F. COYLERegistered Professional Engineer, B.S. Civil Engineering from Virginia Military Institute, 1976, M.E. MechanicalEngineering from The University of Virginia, 1978, and Ph.D

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V. Ramachandran; Ravi Ramachandran

Theory: Analysis, Properties and Synthesis, Matrix Publishers Inc., 1981.3. A. V. Oppenheim and R. W. Schafer, Digital Signal Processing, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1975.4. J. F. Lindsay and V. Ramachandran, Modeling and Analysis of Linear Physical Systems, Weber Systems Inc., January 1991.BiographyRavi P. Ramachandran is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and ComputerEngineering at Rowan University. He received his Ph.D. from McGill University in 1990 andhas worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Rutgers University prior to joining Rowan.V. Ramachandran is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering atConcordia University. He received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science in 1965 andwas on

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John Anderson

, work, or wherever they were doing homework.The course work requirements were designed to encourage the students to refer to theequipment manuals in addition to the text. Although a complete set of manuals was availablein the laboratory they were seldom used, as it was more convenient for the students tosimply download and personalize their own copy.During the course several small design projects were assigned to allow students to exercisetheir new programming skills and to tie the theory to actual equipment and applications (seeMaterial Handling Work Cell Design Problem below). The students designed the system,specified the components, and wrote and tested the program. The programs were tested on alab trainer where inputs were simulated by

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Authors

Weining Feng; Alberto Gomez-Rivas

of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering EducationBibliography1. Russo, M. F, & Echols, M. M. Automating Science and Engineering Laboratories with Visual Basic. John Wiley & Sons (1999).2. Bradley, J. C. & Millspaugh, A. C. Advanced Programming Using Visual Basic 6. McGraw-Hill (2001).AcknowledgementThe authors would like acknowledge the work carried out by Bruce Hunter and MichelleShuck in relation to the temperature control system.ALBERTO GOMEZ-RIVASDr. Alberto Gomez-Rivas is a professor of Structural Engineering and the Chair ofDepartment of Engineering Technology, University of Houston-Downtown. Dr. Gomez

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Vincent Scotto; Peter Schuyler; Howard A. Canistraro

2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Education”employed, laboratory projects and requirements, as well as discussion of math, computer, andcommunication requirements integrated into our courses. Our advisors are asked to comment onthe relevance of the material, the desirability of certain skills, as well as suggesting futuredirections or any deficiencies they may note. This process has allowed us to have many verymeaningful exchanges regarding not only the specific content of our curriculum, but theimportance of certain skill sets for our students to function within industry. A secondaryoutcome has been that advisors have

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Authors

Tammi Robson; Tayeb Giuma

, JavaScript in a Week 4, NetObjects Fusion 4.0 5, Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML) 6, creating web-based CAI tools for engineeringeducation is both cost and time efficient.In the study of electrical engineering, it is often difficultfor students to develop a true understanding of the more complexconcepts without experimenting with appropriate electricalcircuits. While actual hardware usage is arguably the besttechnique for student investigation, the complexity and costassociated with appropriate commercial or industrial hardwaresystem make such system, in many cases, unattractive for wideuse by all the students at convenient times.The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University ofNorth Florida places strong emphasis on laboratory

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Kauser Jahan; Shreekanth Mandayam; Douglas Cleary

1996 as a result of a $100 million donation in 1992 from the RowanFoundation. The engineering faculty use innovative methods of teaching and learning to betterprepare students for entry into a rapidly changing and highly competitive marketplace1-4. Keyprogram features include: (a) creating inter- and multi-disciplinary experiences throughcollaborative laboratories and coursework; (b) stressing total quality management (TQM) as thenecessary framework for solving complex problems; (c) incorporating state-of-the-arttechnologies throughout the curricula; (d) and creating continuous opportunities for technicalwriting and communication. To best meet these objectives, the four engineering programs ofChemical, Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical

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Authors

Edward Hensel

presentation tothe rest of the teams, faculty, and project clients.The logistical hurdles of working across departmental and college boundaries are significant. Akey element to success is the concurrent scheduling of the various departmental courses at acommon time, in a laboratory scheduling format. In this manner, most students are available forproject team meetings and faculty mentor meetings during a pre-determined set of time-slots. Theyare then free to work on their individual assignments in accordance with their personal schedules.A suggested outline for the weekly tasks and topical coverage is presented in Table 1. Thisschedule may be adapted to account for scheduled breaks and holidays, or to allow increased ordecreased coverage of certain

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Kenneth Roberts; Eric A. Cheek; Joseph Monroe; Samuel Owusu-Ofori; Ajit Kelkar

, the integration of more SURE activities into year-round researchprojects, and the production of technical publications from SURE projects.Proposed new initiatives include the introduction of NASA-specific research/technologydevelopment areas to the program. These topics would possibly include a student designcontest for microgravity shuttle/space station experiments related to the SURE projects,earth science awareness activities, and modern aerospace science and technologypresentations. These NASA-related activities would be directly connected to existingNASA laboratories and connected NASA-sponsored internship programs. Newworkshop topics would include advanced professional development, resume/ mockinterviews, pre-faculty preparation and new

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John Steele

, participated in acombination of presentations, laboratory experiments, pedagogical discussions and fieldtrips to engineering companies. Post workshop evaluations and interviews establishedthat this pilot workshop was viewed as a strong success by the teachers who attended.Expansion of the program is planned for 2001. A description of the program is givenhere in hopes of aiding others in their development of similar activities.IntroductionThe objectives of the workshop were threefold: • First, we hoped to develop, among the teachers who attended a better understanding of what engineers do. • Second, we wanted to provide these teachers with an in-depth exposure to some aspects of our engineering curriculum at CSM. • Third, the workshop

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Authors

Robert Muelller

Session 2793 A Neural Network Lab Experiment Robert Lynn Mueller The Pennsylvania State University New Kensington CampusAbstractNeural networks are becoming widely used in complex control problems. Many academic exercisesapproach neural network applications using only software simulations; however, simulations alonedo not give students a full appreciation of the power and complexity of neural network-basedcontrols. This paper describes a laboratory experiment that uses a temperature and airflow processsimulator to

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Stephen Maybar; Jerome Zornesky

sinusoidal waveforms in particular.The fundamental understanding of the properties of waveforms is cemented with the introductionof the use of an oscilloscope and a digital voltmeter in a concurrent lab course. Concepts offrequency, amplitude and phase discussed in the classroom are reinforced by what studentsobserve and measure in the laboratory. Modern function generators with their DC offsetcapabilities are used to demonstrate that AC and DC voltages can be added to each other with theresultant waveform being the algebraic sum of the applied voltages. Even before understandingwhat a circuit is, the student develops a sense of what a voltage waveform, (or a currentwaveform), is and how it varies as a function of time.Having introduced the students

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Authors

Rafael Rodríguez-Solís; Lynn Carpenter; José Colom-Ustáriz; Russell Barton

Session 2632 A Novel Graphical Technique for Selection of a Robust Design Point José G. Colom*, R.R. Barton**, Lynn Carpenter**, Rafael Rodríguez Solís* *University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez/ **Penn State UniversityI. INTRODUCTIONThe concept of robust design was introduced by Genichi Taguchi, and popularized in the U.S.following his visit to Bell Laboratories in the mid-1980’s. Since this technique has becomeimportant in industry, the topic has been included in many undergraduate engineering statisticscurricula. Unfortunately, the experiment design and data analysis issues are complex

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Scott Midkiff

opportunities to IREAN Fellows. Virginia Tech, and especially the College of Business and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, currently have strong relationships with universities in Germany, France, and Switzerland that can offer interesting experiences for our students. For example, Virginia Tech graduate students have gone to France to take courses and complete internships in French research laboratories. There is also promising discussion of an international simulation experience in the policy area that would involve IREAN Fellows and other students.Table 1 indicates the relation between outcomes, as discussed in Section III, and the sixstrategies discussed above. A check mark in the table indicates that a

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William Guilford

minors at the University of Virginia are expected to have hadeither our introductory biology course (BIO 201) or high school advanced placement biology as aprerequisite to our physiology and cell biology courses. Indeed, the text used by the Departmentof Biology (Campbell et al.1) includes a relatively large amount of cell biology. However, many ofout students have much more extensive familiarity with biology, including laboratory experience.Thus many students find the “basics” (material suitable regardless of the student's background) tobe too basic. At the same time, other students enter the course strictly with the backgroundprovided by introductory biology, and need this background information.One must also consider what is meant by teaching

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Guy Johnson

with a quality pre-engineering program.. Implementing and maintaining such aprogram using the latest equipment and software requires a permanent National TechnologyTraining Center that has been established at RIT. In addition a program of developing similarcenters at affiliate universities around the country has begun to better serve schools in theirhome state.Such centers serve teachers, college professors, and high school students as a place for ongoing,year-round, classes, projects and a laboratory setting for the development and revision ofcurriculum and teaching strategies. Bringing teachers, professors and high school studentstogether in a place devoted to the encouragement of engineering studies will ensure interactionamong these groups

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Patricia L. Fox; Stephen Hundley

courses – especially those offered during times when theinstitution will otherwise be idle – will want to consider the following: What semester the courseshould be tied (for our holiday course, it was considered a spring semester course that simplymet early). What will be the faculty compensation (will there be an overload payment, or will itcount toward the regular teaching load)? What special campus resources (library, technology,laboratory, etc.) are needed for the course, and to what extent will they be available? Involvingthe campus’s registrar’s, computing services, and physical plant offices in the planning of theconcentrated courses can go a long way toward minimizing mishaps during the teaching of thecourse.As faculty prepare to launch

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Authors

Graham Walker; Henry Chaya

laboratory courses including design ofcustom hardware and software. Dr. Chaya has taught introductory programming courses for many years. Recently,He completed a term as chairman of the department. He received a BS degree from Manhattan College in 1973 anda Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1981. Dr Chaya is a member of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.Graham WalkerDr Walker is a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering at Manhattan College in Riverdale New York. Dr. Walkerworks in the area of system dynamics. His work has involved developing hardware and software that allow flexiblemanufacturing systems to operate more efficiently. In particular, he has been associated with the design of softwareto automate the selection and installation of

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William Whitaker

programbrochures are printed and updated on a regular schedule and at a very high cost. To personalizethe recruitment effort telephone calls were made both by faculty and students in the CETprogram. Although somewhat effective the phone calls were not regular and were very timeconsuming. High school visits by university faculty can take place in a variety of formats. Aclassroom or laboratory visit with a lecture or demonstration is very common. Engineeringtechnology faculty commonly target mathematics or science classes at the senior level. Thelectures and demonstrations can supplement the regular classroom instruction. Conversely,participation in “college nights” by MSU faculty has been less successful. These events areregularly scheduled and attendance

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Authors

Micheal Parten; Heath Keene

systems along withthe high frequency of transmission makes it difficult to develop undergraduate laboratories that can beused to teach the needed concepts. Some teaching systems exist but cannot be easily tied to existingcommercial systems. Equipment to test and characterize these new commercial communicationsystems is complex and expensive.To overcome some of these problems, student projects can be developed using a PC-based system forsimulation and application. The PC-based system used in this example is LabVIEW, or LaboratoryVirtual Instrument Engineering Workbench, a graphical programming language developed by NationalInstruments. It is used extensively for data acquisition, instrument control and analysis.4 In thisexample, a communications

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Robert Fithen

is an assistant professor at Arkansas Tech University. He received his B.S. in MechanicalEngineering from Louisiana Tech University, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&MUniversity, and his PhD in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech University. He spent four yearsworking at General Dynamics, Fort Worth and a total of five years working in the research division ofWright Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio. Further information may be obtained at http://mengr.atu.edu Page 6.248.8Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & ExpositionCopyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering

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Shirley Fleischmann

components which they must specify in a systemdesign. Many students also do not know where to go to find these things out. Their levelof mechanical literacy is very low, yet this is the type of information that can be easilyincorporated in a very informal way into a well designed laboratory experiment bysimply requiring that students select and install the component that is to be tested. Thiswill provide the students with the opportunity to examine the valves closely and it alsoprovides the instructor with an opportunity to discuss why loss factors might be differentbased on the valve geometry.When you provide a well balanced curriculum which recognizes the weaknesses ofstudents and provides opportunities to build the necessary schemata, the effect

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William S. Carlsen; Christine M. Cunningham; Carol B. Muller; Peg Boyle Single

; Productivity Solutions), SPIE, the Optical Society of America, LawrenceLivermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA Ames ResearchCenter, the Women in Technology Project of the Maui Economic Development Board, theEngineering Information Foundation, San José State University College of Engineering, and DeAnza College. Page 6.412.8 “Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Education”Bibliography1. Astin, A. W. (1998). The changing American college student: Thirty year trends, 1966

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Thomas Harmon; Glenn Burks; Eva Baker; Gregory Chung

-world engineeringprocesses involved in a site investigation. For example, when students requested drilling atparticular locations, the results of the drill would not be returned immediately. Rather, studentswere required to follow typical procedures—wait for the drilling to be completed, send the boresample to the laboratory for analyses, wait for the analyses to be done, and then pay for theanalyses from a fixed budget. The laboratory report was realistic in its presentation (i.e., onlydata were returned). Students needed to use the appropriate data in computations that would helpthem decide the next step in the investigation. Students engaged in a complex open-ended taskwith written and oral reports as products, which required students to use

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Authors

Carl White; Myra Curtis; Clifton Martin

and the importance offollowing through with your responsibilities. Following the information session, the students weregiven a tour of the School of Engineering Laboratories, which included hands on demonstrations.At this time, the students were shown how the field of engineering impacts their everyday lives. Page 6.1000.4 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering EducationLittle Sister DayThe goal of Little Sister Day was to introduce young women of all ages to a world with noboundaries, which includes

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William Keat; James Hedrick; Christine LaPlante; Richard Wilk; Cherrice Traver; Frank Wicks

on evaluation of student performance in several areas.Weekly homework assignments from both lecture and design studio, in-classexercises/projects, design project milestones, oral and written proposal and defense of thedesign project, a midterm and final exam covering material from lecture and designstudio. The last two items were added this year in order to ensure the students would takethe course seriously.Since the presentation of course material in both lecture and design studio was done usingtraditional methods as well as Powerpoint presentations, the classes were taught in anelectronic classroom. For certain classes throughout the term where each student neededa computer, those classes were scheduled in a computer laboratory. A web page

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Authors

Constantin Chassapis; Kishore Pochiraju; Sven Esche

Session 1566 Implementation of Assessment Procedures into the Mechanical Engineering Curriculum Sven Esche, Kishore Pochiraju, Constantin Chassapis Stevens Institute of TechnologyAbstractThe Department of Mechanical Engineering Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) is aiming atdevising a modern engineering program that reflects the recent nationwide trend towardsenhancement of traditional lecture-based courses with a design spine and a laboratory experiencethat propagates through the entire educational program. Another thread to be woven into the