Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Dworzecki; Syed Masud Mahmud

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

emissions, and we still had all of the wiring from power windows, doors, and other systems.In this scenario, just as shown in Figure 1, the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) in the car wouldneed to be directly connected to all devices it would interface with. This would include analogor digital connections to every sensor it would be processing. With dedicated links betweenevery processing control center and their external devices, massive amounts of wiring wereneeded in addition to ever growing wiring harness sizes to accommodate these wires. This notonly increases the cost of the vehicle, but adds a noticeable amount of weight to the vehicle. Figure 1: Simplified control network for average automobile without CAN.CAN eschews this structure

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gisele Ragusa, University of Southern California; Michael Khoo, University of Southern California; Ellis Meng, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

the role of engineering in society1 calling for changes in the wayuniversities address the engineering profession and education. Page 13.505.2There have been many national level studies about critical issues facing the nation about thecrisis in engineering education.1 With outsourcing and offshore presence of engineering jobs,there is a growing concern about the level of interest among students choosing engineering field.While the number of engineering graduates per year has remained steady at about 70,000 in theUnited States, in the past decade the number of engineering graduates per year from China andIndia has grown at a significant rate

Conference Session

Sustainability and Environmental Issues

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Achintya Bezbaruah, North Dakota State University; Wei Lin, North Dakota State University

Tagged Divisions

Multidisciplinary Engineering

740 Environmental Management, is intended to give students an understandingof current environmental issues and tools for environmental management. The issues areexamined from the worldwide perspectives of science, engineering, business and society. At theend of the course students are expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of integratedenvironmental management with a global perspective. It is designed to help them inenvironmental decision-making from a socio-economic-environmental standpoint. Theconceptual framework used to develop the course content is shown in Figure 1. The coursecontent developed and offered in Fall of 2006 is presented in Table 1. The course objectives andgrading policy are presented in Table 2.The course had to be

Conference Session

Teaching Engineering and Public Policy

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Philip Dunn, University of Maine; Kenneth Nichols, University of Maine

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy

infrastructure, public officialsmust make continual decisions on the best courses of action. When these officials need to makedecisions beyond their training and experience, they often hire and must rely on the knowledgeand expertise of consulting engineers. Engineers assess the problems identified by the publicofficials and provide solutions for repair, replacement, and expansion. Though the technicalsolutions are accurate, the public officials must balance the political and economic impacts toreach the best answer for the given situation.1 Engineers are technically trained to examine safety, economics, and efficiency problemsfor the best solutions as they review deteriorating infrastructure from the aspect of materials,design, and standards

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Louis Plebani, Lehigh University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

provide a framework and base computer code forstudents to achieve an ease of modeling and solution for dynamic programming similar towhat has been achieved for linear programming. In so far as the teaching dynamicprogramming, this will allow educators in operations research to focus their teaching onissues relevant to dynamic programming as opposed to computer programming issues; andallow students in operations research to focus their learning on the power of dynamicprogramming, as opposed to the nuances of computer implementations.Since the formulation of Dynamic programming (DP) by Bellman,1 it has been successfullyapplied to a variety of problems, including capacity planning, equipment replacement,production planning, production control

Conference Session

Innovative K-12 Engineering Programs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gisele Ragusa, University of Southern California; Michael Khoo, University of Southern California; Ellis Meng, University of Southern California; Joseph Cocozza, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

experiences to their science classrooms providing them withopportunities to engage in BME related research aligned to curriculum standards perteacher report. This will be supported and evidenced by resulting high schools on statescience benchmark content exams and BME related concept inventories once theprogram is complete.Introduction and OverviewUrban schools are typically heavily impacted by poverty, students with limited English Page 13.517.2proficiency, and overall low academic achievement, especially in STEM subject areas.Cultural and linguistic factors are important in science learning but are rarely consideredin K-12 science classrooms 1. Poor

Conference Session

FPD10 - Freshman Engineering Introduction to Design

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Silas Bernardoni, University of Wisconsin- Madison; Amit Nimunkar, University of Wisconsin - Madison; John Murphy, University of Wisconsin- Madison; Sandra Courter, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

this course, students should have: [1] 1. An elementary knowledge of the disciplines in engineering, especially the undergraduate programs and extracurricular opportunities available at the our university; 2. A basic understanding of/and experience in the steps and techniques of engineering design; 3. Awareness of some ethical, social, political, and economic influences on and impacts of engineering design; 4. Emerging skills in written and/or oral communication related to engineering design; Page 13.1108.2 5. Introductory skills in teamwork with peers; 6. Preliminary development of habits of mind that engineering

Conference Session

Capstone Design III

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mohamed El-Sayed, Kettering University; Steven Beyerlein, University of Idaho

Tagged Divisions

Design in Engineering Education

between the students’ state at the courseentry and the desired program outcomes can be achieved. This paper addresses the naturalintegration of a capstone course with its educational program from a logical perspective. Thisperspective goes beyond providing the "finishing touch" and mere “demonstration” to activelypursue the profile of an expert in the field as the logical outcome for the course and the program.IntroductionCapstone courses and experiences are the “culminating experiences in which students synthesizesubject-matter knowledge they have acquired, integrate cross-disciplinary knowledge, andconnect theory and application in preparation for entry into a career.1 Capstone courses areusually taken last in the sequence of courses at the end

Conference Session

Interdisciplinary Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

HuiRu Shih, Jackson State University; Wei Zheng, Jackson State University; Wilbur L Walters, Jackson State University; Stevenson Paradeshi, Jackson State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

. In performing the laboratoryassignments, students use the instruments and follow the procedures outlined by the instructors.These two lab modules allow students to gain insight into the smart structures as well as tobecome knowledgeable users of the equipment. Responses and feedback from students havebeen very positive.1. Introduction A smart structure is a system containing multifunctional parts that can perform sensing,control, and actuation1,2. The entire system is integrated to perform a self-controlled smart action,similar to a living creature that can think, make judgment and take action. Smart materials (suchas piezoelectric materials) are used to construct these smart structures, which can perform bothsensing and actuation

Conference Session

Student Recruitment and Retention

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

students in an academic scholarship program going intograduate school full-time and over a 30% rate of such transfer students.I. IntroductionFor some time, there has been a growing concern about the future of the United States in terms Page 13.1287.2of new discoveries and inventions. One of the people leading this battle cry is Professor Romer,“a big-name Stanford University economist.”1 He argues that discoveries don’t simply appearwhen inspiration strikes, but reflect the effort put into innovating. The bottom line for thisconcern is that the number of undergraduate engineering degrees being earned in the UnitedStates has been declining since 1996

Conference Session

Distance Learning in ET

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Vernon Lewis, Old Dominion University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

through the use of a local mentor.This paper will outline the preparation of the laboratory guide, the qualifications of thementors, the success in locating mentors by students and a comparison of the local andmentored remote students' achievement of course objectives.IntroductionA student aspiring to enter the surveying profession today faces a difficult dilemmaregarding a four year college education. This dilemma revolves around the followingfactors1:1) There are a very limited number of universities in the United States offering a four year Bachelor of Science in a surveying curriculum;2) There is a small numbers of surveying Bachelor of Science candidates to support development of surveying programs as compared to other curriculum areas;3

Conference Session

Money and People; Resource Management for Recruitment and Retention

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

table:Acad. Total New F M Underrep- BSE/ BSE/ Total MSE/ MSE/ PhDYear Students resented BS BS On to MS MS enrolled Minority earned enrolled Grad earned enrolled School2002- 22 9 13 5 20 1 (bus.) 7 2 3 4032003- 19 12 7 6 18 0 7 4 3 0042004- 5 1 4 0 5 0 1 0 1 0052005- 10 1 9 3 6 4 3

Conference Session

Potpourri

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

transfers, and plans to attend graduate school.Before we look at the results of the study, we look at literature to understand what types ofresearch have been done on community college transfer students.II. Literature Review on Engineering and Computer Science Community College TransferStudentsIn this section we look at the literature on the case for community colleges, curriculum,articulation, resource sharing, special programming for new transfer students, challenges, andmany-faceted programs with community colleges. We then look at studies on gender issues andthe community college.The Case for Community Colleges: There are many reasons that 45% of all first-time freshmenchoose to begin their college education at a community college.1 Students

Conference Session

Recruitment and Retention

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University; Callie Ruben, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

purpose of the funding was to increase the number of underrepresented minoritystudents (African American, Hispanic, and Native American) enrolled in engineering and toincrease their retention and graduation rates to that comparable for non-minority students. Anadditional goal of the ASU Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering NACME Program is to have theNACME students go on to graduate school.There have been many targeted efforts to increase the recruitment and retention ofunderrepresented minority engineering students.1 Effective retention models for minorityfreshmen include: summer bridge programs,2 year-long bridge programs,3 minority engineeringprograms,4,5 and academic scholarship programs6. The NACME program at ASU builds on asummer bridge

Conference Session

Global Engineering in an Interconnected World

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Saeed Khan, Kansas State University-Salina; Beverlee Kissick, Kansas State University-Salina

Tagged Divisions

International

global partners like India and China. As engineers and educators,we have to ask how this impacts what we teach in the classroom. Having listened tonumerous presentations on industry needs, we believe that industry would embrace a newbreed of engineers and technologists to manage US technological and financial interestsaround the world. This is a rational approach based on ground realities. India and Chinatogether out produce the U.S. 30 to 1 in engineering graduates, and their graduates getpaid one eighth of what a U.S. graduate will need7. If we want to maintain ourtechnological and economic might, we certainly must make good use of the talent thatexists around the world. Industry seems to be taking a two pronged approach to engineersand

Conference Session

Research and Education in Radiation and Radiologic

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Shripad Revankar, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Nuclear and Radiological

undergraduate students to participate in the nuclearchemical hydrogen generation and related areas. This paper highlights some of the projects thatwere carried out by the chemical engineering and nuclear engineering undergraduate students inthe nuclear engineering school. It tries to capture studnets’ experience and possible outcomefrom such research activity at undergraduate level.Tradition Nuclear Chemical EngineeringThe reactor fuel cycle involves several chemical engineering processes. Individual operations inthe nuclear fuel cycle for light-water power reactors are shown in Figure 1.The first step in the fuel cycle is mining of uranium ore. Due to small fraction of uranium in theore (typically contains only a few kilograms of uranium per ton), it

Conference Session

Research and Education in Radiation and Radiologic

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Shripad Revankar, Purdue University; Felix Mbuga, Otto H. York Department of Chemical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology,

Tagged Divisions

Nuclear and Radiological

. The multidisciplinary undergraduate research programsinclude the followings. (1) Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education (CASPiE) :Multi-institutional collaborative effort designed to increase and improve classroom researchexperiences for younger undergraduate science students. (2) Committee on InstitutionalCooperation (CIC) Summer Research Opportunities Program: Research one-on-one with facultymentors (3) Discovery Park Undergraduate Research Internship Program (DURIP) which givesresearch opportunities during fall and spring semester. (4) MARC/AIM Summer ResearchProgram: Encourage Students Underrepresented social and economic backgrounds. (5) SummerBridge Program: This bridge program is for all qualified students, including but

Conference Session

Factors Affecting Minority Engineering Students

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sherri Frizell, Prairie View A&M University; Felecia Nave, Prairie View A&M University

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

13.83.3are undergraduate students enrolled at PVAMU and 40% (n=52) are pursuing engineering ortechnology degrees at other U.S. institutions. Fifty-one percent of the participants were males(n=66) and 49% (n=64) were females. Table 1 shows the gender distribution and enrollmentamong participants. Survey participants were from all the core engineering and technologydisciplines with the largest percentages from Chemical Engineering (16.9%) and ElectricalEngineering (16.2%). The average self reported grade point average was 3.1/4.0 (SD= 0.41) and2.9/4.0 (SD=0.39) for females and males respectively.Table 1: Survey Participants Gender Totals Males Females PVAMU 48 30

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tokunbo Ogunfunmi, Santa Clara University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) in most universities has grown rapidly over the last30 years or so. Since one of the most popular original DSP textbooks [1] was written andpublished in 1975, there has been a tremendous growth in the area measured by the number oftextbooks published in the area [2-10] plus other books and recent focus [11-12]. This growth isfueled largely by growth in the semiconductor industry which has enabled more and moretransistors to be fitted on smaller and smaller silicon chips. Another reason for the growth inDSP is the growth in application areas where this technology continues to be used such aswireless communications, networking, bio-informatics, consumer electronics, etc. As suggestedby industry watchers [13

Conference Session

Solar Power, Wind Power, and Energy System Initiatives

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Narciso Macia, Arizona State University; John-Paul Ishioye, Arizona State University; Brigid Dotson, University of Washington; Maria Macia, Veritas Preparatory Academy

Tagged Divisions

Energy Conversion and Conservation

Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright @ 2008, American Society for Engineering Educationthe cooling load. Its effect has been investigated in many cases. For example Lam investigatesthe effect of surrounding buildings on producing shade [1].This paper is also used as a teaching vehicle in the senior capstone class, in which the studentsare working on a design project that includes heat gain/losses in a small greenhouse, the use ofPV modules to charge a battery and also drive a small, centrifugal pump.Thermal modelIt is important to use a model that has the ability to handle the heat storage properties of thebuilding. For instance, if the night is particularly cold, the building model

Conference Session

Impact Student Success

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tokunbo Ogunfunmi, Santa Clara University

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

engineering, the numbers are even fewer in graduate school, typically less than 1%.The reality of low minority enrollment numbers in engineering and in electrical engineering inparticular is unacceptable. Therefore, it is important to offer minority undergraduate and graduatestudents in engineering mentoring on the issues of retention, graduation and career advancement.Recently, we began a program at our university to improve these statistics. This program is initiallyfunded by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation. The preliminary results and the impact of ourmulti-faceted grant activities are presented in this paper.IntroductionIt is a well-known problem that the number of minority students in engineering in the United Statesis very small. In [1

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jonathan Hill, University of Hartford; Akram Abu-aisheh, University of Hartford

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

multimeter andan oscilloscope. Given our use of photo diodes in the toolkit, an optical power meter is entirelyoptional.The programmable logic device (PLD) provides students new opportunities to study datacommunications. PLDs range from simple logic array devices used for glue logic and thecomplex programmable logic device (CPLD) that replaces many small chips, to the high densityfield programmable gate arrays (FPGA) capable of implementing an entire system on just onechip. We selected the Spartan-3 series FPGA4 devices Given the availability of the Spartan-3Starter board5 and the software development tools that are free or are available at little cost, thisFPGA is particularly convenient.Figure 1 is the fiber optic toolkit hardware. The Spartan-3

Conference Session

Focus on IE Principles and Techniques

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arun Nambiar, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Dale Masel, Ohio University

Tagged Divisions

Industrial Engineering

. Creating such a course would have placed a burden onfaculty to staff the course and a burden on students as well, to fit another three or four creditcourse into their schedule.The creation of a 1-credit lab-based course served as a compromise in allowing a course on leanto be offered without adding a significant burden to the faculty or students. The lab-basedstructure of the course also served the content well, since it provided students with theopportunity to see the application of the principles and not just read or hear about them.The course was designed to be taken by seniors, as it relied on the fact that students had alreadytaken courses on topics like Work Design, so that less coverage of these topics needed to be donein the workshop.One

Conference Session

Use of Summer Research Programs in Civil Engineering Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dennis Truax, Mississippi State University; Emma Seiler, Mississippi State University; Donna Reese, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Civil Engineering

. However, using teams helped keep students fromhaving to rely solely on their personal skills. For this reason, teams were designed to keep theskill levels of each team comparable. By using group activities rather than individual projectactivities, we felt that each student would be able to participate at some level and become moreengaged in the project learning process regardless of their level of academic preparation.A generalized format for the daily schedule of activities was as follows. Start and ending timeswere selected so that participants did not have to compete with other students or campus traffic attime when either can be intimidating to younger people: Table 1. Generalized MSTI Daily Itinerary Time of

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary Teams

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kevin Dong, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Multidisciplinary Engineering

topic full circle from designinception to completed project.In closing, the addition of the practitioners has been an invaluable resource. It not only gives thestudents access to recently built projects and real world feed back, but the guest speakers andreviewers always tell the students that; 1) they wished they had a course like this when they were in college 2) the collaboration the students are being exposed to now is necessary in the working world 3) they all volunteer to return next year when we hold the classThe class had 16 students in the inaugural year and this year we had 25 students. This impliesthat students are interested in courses which emphasize collaborative models, but they are alsointrigued by having classes team

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bradley Bishop, U.S. Naval Academy; Joel Esposito, U.S. Naval Academy; Jenelle Piepmeier, U.S. Naval Academy

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

walkingrobot.The projects discussed in this paper have the following set of objectives. 1) To introduce and explore methods for locomotion other than wheels and tracks. 2) To demonstrate the methodology for both structural design and gait synthesis in articulation-based locomotion. 3) To demonstrate a methodology for extrapolating biological locomotion methods to robotic systems.The metrics for success in these endeavors involve measurement of the performance of thestudents’ designs as well as evaluation of the insight generated during the exercise. As such, allprojects receive a performance grade separate from the report grade, wherein students maymitigate some of the poor performance of the system through careful exposition and

Conference Session

Innovative Instructional Strategies

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sabina Jeschke, University of Stuttgart; Akiko Kato, Technische Universitaet Berlin; Olivier Pfeiffer, Technische Universitaet Berlin; Erhard Zorn, Technische Universitaet Berlin

Tagged Divisions

Mathematics

allowing beginners to use the often unused period between“Abitur” (German high-school graduation) and beginning of studies in the winter term forattending the mathematics modules of the first semester (Linear Algebra and Calculus I) beforethe official beginning of studies. With this project, students have the in-depth mathematicalknowledge at their disposal considerably earlier. Students of engineering can reduce the durationof their education in mathematics by one semester by preponing the mathematics classes ofhigher semesters as well.1. MotivationMathematics is one of the most important foundations for engineering. From the first semesterson a sound knowledge in mathematics is necessary for being successful in the basic subjects ofengineering

Conference Session

Assessing the Efficacy of Non-traditional Programs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wayne Pferdehirt, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Jeffrey Russell, University of Wisconsin - Madison; John Nelson, U. of Wisconsin-Madison; Amy Shenot, U. of Wisconsin-Madison

Tagged Divisions

Continuing Professional Development

Engineering in Professional Practice (MEPP) program.MEPP is a two-year engineering leadership graduate program that serves as an engineering-focused alternative to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, providing mid-careerprofessionals the technical, management, computer, and communications skills for today's globalbusiness environment [1]. Only 30 students are admitted each year to the MEPP program. Togain admission, students must have earned at least a B.S. in engineering, and must have at leastfour years of applied engineering experience.The MEPP program is cohort-based; the 30 students admitted each year progress through thefixed curriculum as a stable group. This cohort-based design facilitates close relationshipsamong students [2,3

Conference Session

Laboratory Development in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Peter Mark Jansson, Rowan University; Ulrich Schwabe, Rowan University; Andrew Hak, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Conergy 1 175 watt Photovoltaic Modules 17,160 S – 175 MU UL 1703 SMA SCCB12 2 DC Combiner Boxes 130 NEMA 3R/4 3 Lightning Arrestors 130 Delta LA602 Square D 4 DC Disconnects 79 HU363RB NEMA 3R UL98

Conference Session

Computer Applications in Energy Courses

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Vincent Winstead, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Tagged Divisions

Energy Conversion and Conservation

lack of detailedknowledge of the operational characteristics of the Prius battery control unit (BCU), thestudents decided to interface the modified battery pack such that the Prius vehicle was notaware of the modification (i.e. masking the change to the BCU). There are numerous Priusconversion projects across the United States in various stages of development. A searchthrough the internet yielded a similar endeavor: The CalCARS PriusPlus project [1]. Inthis conversion the stock Nickel Metal-Hydride (Ni-MH) battery pack was replaced with aLead-Acid (Pb-Acid) chemistry pack with the same pack voltage as the stock battery pack.The BCU was sent similar fractional-pack voltage measurements from the new pack asprovided by the stock pack in an effort