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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Deborah M. Mechtel; K.A. Korzeniowski

Session 1232 Teaching Engineering to Non-Electrical Engineering Majors K.A. Korzeniowski, D.M. Mechtel United States Naval Academy Abstract It has long been recognized in the engineering education community that is useful to conveysome core knowledge of underlying physical system components by requiring courses outside of aspecific engineering major. The Electrical Engineering Department at the United States NavalAcademy meets this challenge by teaching a core competency course in electrical engineering to allAcademy

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

James B. Stenger; Karen E. Schmahl

laboratory experience incorpo-rating student centered learning principles. An important aspect of the project was the way inwhich the project evolved. The first time I tried the approach it was disastrous. After severalchanges I now consider the approach successful. I presented my lessons learned from the at-tempts at the 1996 Lilly Conference on College Teaching-West in California and presented the(successful) approach at the 1997 ASEE National Conference in Milwaukee3.BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATIONThere are quite a number of benefits we obtained from participating in the Teaching Scholarsprogram. These range from the exposure to current work in enhancing instruction to thementoring program to the association with other tenure-track faculty in other

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Peter W. de Graaf; Michael J. Walker; Cameron Wright; Thad Welch

Session 1232 An Integrated Approach to Teaching Engineering Courses Peter W. de Graaf, Cameron H. G. Wright, Michael J. Walker Department of Electrical Engineering U.S. Air Force Academy, CO Thad B. Welch Department of Electrical Engineering U.S. Naval Academy, MDABSTRACTMany undergraduate engineering students have difficulty understanding the connections betweenthe different engineering courses they are required to take. Too many of them focus on learningjust the details of a

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert E. Zulinski; Jon A. Soper; Dennis O. Wiitanen; David Stone; Allan R. Hambley; Martha E. Sloan; Noel Schulz

Session 1526 Professional Design Laboratories: Bridging the Gap Between Classroom and Industry in the Senior Year Allan R. Hambley, Noel N. Schulz, Martha E. Sloan, Jon A. Soper, David Stone, Dennis O. Wiitanen, Robert E. Zulinski Michigan Technological University James C. Rogers California Maritime Academy This work is supported by the NSF ILI-LLD Program.The Electrical Engineering Department at Michigan Technological University is integratingsenior design projects with its elective

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Vipin Kumar; Scott Grove; Rajendra K. Bordia; John E. Weller

Session 2563 The Development of a Project-Based Introduction to Manufacturing Laboratory Involving a Stirling Engine John E. Weller (1), Vipin Kumar (1), Scott Grove(1), and Rajendra K, Bordia (2) (1) University of Washington, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Seattle, WA (2) University of Washington, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Seattle, WA AbstractMany current introduction to manufacturing courses contain a series of individual labs illustratingdifferent processes: turning, milling, polymer processing, casting, etc. Although students leave

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Gary H. McDonald; Charles V. Knight

interface in performing data acquisition, analysis, and presentation [3]. In general,engineering faculties have a problem, as many faculty members do not possess the modern skillsrequired to support such laboratory teaching and development [4]. The process of overcomingthese constraints can only be done with faculty development and curriculum revisions. Curriculum ConsiderationsThe curriculum revisions required for supporting the new laboratory concept at The University ofTennessee at Chattanooga were not accepted as imperative by some of the faculty even thoughour experienced graduates and industry representatives insisted that we move ahead with haste inbringing about the changes. Our making the revisions to the

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

John N. Berry; Thad Welch

approach to teaching severalelectrical power distribution and usage topics can also be very effective. Our course includesseveral laboratory experiments and demonstrations designed to involve the student in thelearning process. A locally designed and manufactured three-phase, low-voltage, variable-frequency power supply is used to teach parts of this Electrical Power Systems course. The three-phase low-voltage system enhances student safety while allowing for student involvement in thelearning process. Additional laboratory time also leads to numerous other learning opportunitiesfor the student. This paper discusses the utilization of the three-phase low-voltage power supplyas a teaching tool. A discussion of several laboratory experiments and

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

George F. List; Simeon Komisar

Session 3215 TOWARD A NEW PARADIGM IN TEACHING EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND ANALYSIS Simeon J. Komisar and George F. List RPI - Environmental and Energy Engr. / RPI - Civil Engr. Introduction As suggested by current and proposed ABET guidelines, numerous engineering educators, andby our own advisory committee of practitioners, an expansion of laboratory experiences in theundergraduate curriculum is needed to better prepare Civil and Environmental Engineeringstudents for professional practice. In particular for Civil and Environmental Engineers

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven E. LeBlanc

Session 2230 Some Thoughts on Teaching Problem Solving Skills to Engineering Students Steven E. LeBlanc University of Toledo Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering Toledo, OH 43606Why bother teaching problem solving skills to engineering students? They'll pick theseskills up along the way just like we did as we went through school, right? Well, maybe,then again, maybe not. Problem solving is an acquired skill much as any other skill, likeshooting baskets, throwing a baseball or riding a bike

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Karen E. Schmahl

Session 3263 TEACHING AN ADVANCED PROCESSES COURSE USING AN INDUSTRY PROJECT Karen E. Schmahl Miami UniversityA semester-long course in advanced manufacturing processes can barely scratch the surface inteaching students the many emerging technologies. An alternative approach to such a course hasthe students learning a single process very well, thus “learning what is takes to learn” a newprocess. This knowledge can then be applied to any process encountered. Senior students inMiami University’s Manufacturing Engineering program were given the opportunity

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Ratan Kumar; Bill Watt

initiated in several courses. The idea of detecting orpreventing mistakes early on lends itself not only to the laboratory classes but to some classroomlectures as well. Currently the students of mechanical engineering technology at the Universityof North Texas take about eleven technical courses that have a laboratory attached to them. Thecourse were it can be first initiated is the first manufacturing course encountered viz.Manufacturing Processes and Materials. Here the students are introduced to conventionalmanufacturing tools, equipment and processes. Many of the equipment used are equipped withpoka-yoke devices but there are many areas were mistake proofing can be further extendedspecially for teaching purposes. Similarly during the

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

William E. Cole

. However this is not the best way to teach. Many education studies have shown thatstudents retain only a small fraction of what they hear or read. The retention rate increasesdramatically when a student says or does--when there is hands on learning.1 This is especiallytrue in Engineering Technology where students learn best through observing and doing. Hencethe extensive use of laboratory experiments in the Engineering Technology Program.New tools are needed to improve the teaching of technical material. Technology students arehands-on graphic learners--their learning improves when they can see things and work with them.Hence graphics can provide an additional tool to help teach technology students. Graphics is theprimary method of communications

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

R. Pimmel; R. Borie; J. Jackson; D. Cordes; B. Dixon; A. Parrish

Session 3253 Teaching an Integrated First-Year Computing Curriculum: ‡ Lessons Learned D. Cordes, A. Parrish, B. Dixon, R. Pimmel, J. Jackson, R. Borie University of AlabamaAbstract: This paper describes an integrated first year curriculum in computing forComputer Science and Computer Engineering students at the University of Alabama.The curriculum is built around the basic thrusts of the Foundation Coalition, andprovides an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of computing for both majors.IntroductionThe University of Alabama is one of

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Susan Campbell; Carol L. Colbeck

Session Number 3530 Teaching and Assessing Engineering Design: A Review of the Research Susan Campbell Carol L. Colbeck The Pennsylvania State UniversityAccording to the National Academy of Sciences (1995), undergraduate engineering education inthe United States currently focuses on the study of engineering science at the expense of design.In a brief history of engineering design education, Eder (1991) explains that in the 1950s theengineering curricula shifted from a focus on teaching students about technology used in

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael D. Murphy; Kristen L. Wood; Kevin Otto; Joseph Bezdek; Daniel Jensen

Session 2666 Building Better Mousetrap Builders: Courses to Incrementally and Systematically Teach Design Kevin Otto Kristin Wood & Joseph Bezdek Michael Murphy & Daniel Jensen MIT The University of Texas United States Air Force Academy Dept. of Mech. Engr. Dept. of Mechanical Engr. Dept. of Engr. Mechanics Cambridge, MA 02139 Austin, TX 78712 USAF Academy, CO, 80840 knotto@mit.edu wood@mail.utexas.edu

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Rippy; Jason Dutcher; Jang Yi; Baber Raza; Herbert Hess

Page 3.607.1 Providing laboratory instruction for such distance education students poses a difficultproblem. The appropriate equipment is usually too expensive to provide each student with alaboratory setup. Supervision and safety remain problematic in a distance learning environment,even if the student has the equipment. Consequently, most on-campus courses with laboratorywork drop the requirement to perform that work when serving the distance education student.This is unfortunate because the laboratory remains the best vehicle to teach such skills astroubleshooting and circuit assembly. This project addresses that problem by using the World Wide Web interactively. Withequipment, software, and methods described in this paper, a distance

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

James Rehg; Sohail Anwar

actual industry situations. Theteaching approach used in the one credit-hour digital electronics laboratory course (EET 120)was based on student centered engineering design teams.The case-based teaching approach used in the EET 117 course was very helpful to students ingaining an insight into the industrial applications of digital systems technology. Learningthrough case studies helped engineering technology students work creatively in teams to solveengineering problems. Providing students with case study experiences can be viewed asequipping future engineers/engineering technologists with the tools they will need to effectivelyperform in industry.The traditional approach to teaching the digital electronics laboratory (EET 120) included

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

A.O. Richardson

Session 2520 The Motorola DSP56002 EVM, A Powerful Tool for Teaching Real-Time DSP A.O. Richardson California State University, ChicoAbstractA senior undergraduate/first year graduate course in real-time digital signal processing(dsp) isdescribed. The purpose of the course is to facilitate the learning of important dsp concepts and toequip students with the hardware/software tools and knowledge for designing real-time digitalsignal processing systems. Fixed and adaptive FIR digital filters are discussed and implemented.Spectral

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

David E. Clough

1313 Bringing Active Learning into the Traditional Classroom: Teaching Process Control The Right Way David E. Clough University of ColoradoAbstractSince joining the faculty of Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado in 1975, I havetaught the undergraduate course in process control 20 times. The course has always had alaboratory component, and, since 1994, this has been a full-featured 15-session laboratory. Theclassroom portion of the course was taught in a traditional lecture format until the Spring 1996semester. In the

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Yue-Chung Wong

background, the subject does become very hard for the students to grasp and for thelecturer to teach. Before the integrated approach was developed, a great deal of the time of alecture had to be used to recap or even re-teach what had been taught in previous lectures. Whatfollows is a discussion of the evolution of teaching power electronics in an integrated approachwith much higher success rate.2. Problems and solutions in the first 2 years of teaching the subjectDuring the year (1994-95) when the subject was taught for the first time, it was found out that,almost right from the beginning, the subject was difficult for most of the students judging fromtheir performance in laboratory, tutorial and lecture classes. In order to help the students

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

J. A. Murden; K. P. Brannan

Session 1253 From C++ to Mathcad: Teaching an Introductory Programming Course with a Non-Traditional Programming Language K. P. Brannan, J. A. Murden The CitadelAbstractMathcad has replaced C++ as the language of the introductory programming course taught in theCivil and Environmental Engineering Department at The Citadel. Advantages and disadvantagesassociated with the switch are discussed in the paper. A comparison is made between theMathcad-based programming course and the previous versions of the course taught usingtraditional programming languages. An

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Zbigniew Prusak

Session 3648 From Computers to Mechanisms – the Demand for Teaching Skills the ‘Reverse Way’ Zbigniew Prusak Central Connecticut State UniversityABSTRACT A growing number of students enters universities having spent considerable amount of time withcomputers and other devices that expand only visual interaction and combination skills. How do theydo with their digital understanding of a largely analog world that surrounds us? What difficulties dothey encounter learning traditional tools and machines? Analysis of usefulness of these

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Charlie P. Edmonson

Session 1547 USE OF A PHYSICAL SIMULATION TO TEACH ASSEMBLY LINE AND KAIZEN CONCEPTS CHARLIE P. EDMONSON The University of DaytonABSTRACTMany students in lower level courses are not familiar with manufacturing or assembly plants andthus have trouble understanding many of the concepts pertaining to production and operationsmanagement. Concepts such as scheduling, assembly line balancing, Just-in-time, theory ofconstraints, etc., are difficult to grasp without some physical demonstration. This paperdiscusses a simulation exercise used to aid in teaching these

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Henry W. Kraebber

Session 2247 Using the World Wide Web to Support Teaching in Manufacturing Engineering Technology Henry W. Kraebber Purdue University, Mechanical Engineering TechnologyAbstract: The Internet is a modern wonder of the computer age. The number of people usingthe Internet is doubling every few months. The growth is remarkable, unlike anything seenbefore in the computer age. It has tremendous power to provide students with a wealth ofinformation and communications opportunities. The question for engineering educators seems tobe one of how to harness the power of the Internet

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Douglas G. Schmucker

Session 1675 Innovative Teaching Methods in the Civil Engineering Curriculum at The Pennsylvania State University Douglas G. Schmucker The Pennsylvania State UniversityAbstractThis paper describes several innovative teaching methods that the author has implemented in four courses in order toincrease student involvement in the lessons. These methods include questioning techniques, physicaldemonstrations, team-oriented in-class exercises using toolkits developed by the author, and lesson presentationtechniques. The methods have been

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas G. Stanford; Donald Keating

Session 3230 AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING AND LEARNING AT THE PROFESSIONAL LEVEL FOR GRADUATE ENGINEERS IN INDUSTRY T G STANFORD and D A KEATING University of South Carolina 1. INTRODUCTIONWhile traditional engineering education and graduate outreach programs are primarily based onthe didactic approach to teaching and learning, namely the transmission and acquisition ofknowledge, it is now apparent that an educational transformation and a different approach toteaching and learning is needed at the advanced

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Mireya Fernández; Albert Lozano-Nieto; Ferran Silva

feel at least afraid of them, and especially afraid of damaging the instrument throughan error on their part. In this case, the students are afraid of the unknown. Our experience showsthat the role of the instructor should focus on an explanation of the general safety guidelines forthemselves as well for the instruments, emphasizing that it is acceptable to make an errorprovided this is not intentional. We believe that in this more relaxed atmosphere, thestudentslearn better. Furthermore, as they progress in college, they tend to remember and focuson their experiences in the first laboratory experiments that they participated in (Richards et al.,1997).2) To teach the students how to do basic measurements. A freshman laboratory course

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven W. Peretti; Richard M. Felder

, some preliminary theory, and minimal information about the types of behavior they are to observe and analyze. The groups are required to seek out relevant references, develop a rationale for their experimental design, and work out appropriate data analysis. The teaching assistants are instructed to be circumspect when faced with questioning regarding experimental design, but vigilant regarding potentially unsafe practices.2. Hands-on experimentation is augmented with process simulation. In some experiments computer simulations are used to model the experimental systems and then to explore “what-if” scenarios far more extensively than time would permit in a conventional laboratory.3. Structured cooperative

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1998 Annual Conference

Authors

James Rehg

trainerswork well in linear electronics laboratories to teach the use of operational amplifiers ininstrumentation systems. The systems have been tested at several colleges and universities withexcellent results. This paper describes the system design, construction requirements, examplelaboratory exercises, and test results. A web site that includes a complete set of drawings for thetrainer and other supporting information is available. Send e-mail to James Rehg jar14@psu.edufor the URL.IntroductionThe cost of process control has dropped as a result of the drop in solid state control devices.Manufacturers interested in improved quality have increased the number of closed loop controlsin a broad product area using continuous, repetitive, and line type

Collection

1998 Annual Conference

Authors

Salim A. Elwazani

can be obtained from interfacing the three basic teaching methods are a)lecture/design (LD), b) lecture/case study (LC), and c) lecture/design/case study (LDC). Model ApplicationThe faculty of the Architecture/ Environmental Design Studies Program at Bowling GreenState University decided in 1991 to incorporate lighting and other environmental controlsubjects into a newly developed, second-year level, two-course sequence in buildingsystems technology. Lighting, covered through lecture and laboratory sessions, wasinstituted as a segment of Building Systems Technology II (BST II), the second course inthe sequence. Chronologically, lighting succeeded the segment on building electricalsystems. In its lecture