Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Peggy Leonowich-Graham; Katie Blue; Steven Condly

research aimed at identifying those kinds ofencouragement that might prove helpful in assisting students in choosing to majorin IT/CS. Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova UniversityBackgroundThe growing concern for the future of America and her ability to remain competitive in a highlytechnological age has prompted much research over the number of students pursuing degrees inScience, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at the undergraduate level. Theproblem is commonly referred to as the pipeline shrinkage problem where the ratio of women tomen involved in computing shrinks from early student years to working years .1 Much researchhas been conducted in an attempt to determine the reasons behind

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

David W. Dinehart; Timothy Harrington; Matthew Bandelt; Adam Beckmann

organization planned to host monthly meetings after school at St. Martin of Tours run by thefaculty advisor and students, with a minimum of four participants from NovaCANE inattendance. The time allotted for the lessons was a maximum of one hour and fifteen minutesper meeting. Each meeting included an introductory lecture in Powerpoint format on the topic ofthe month, followed by a hand-on activity. The lectures were typically 10 – 15 minutes longwhile the activities were 50 – 60 minutes long.At the initial meeting NovaCANE established the following learning outcomes for the club: 1. Learn what engineers do 2. Learn some important aspects of structural engineering 3. Use what you learn to make structures 4. Relate engineering to what

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Eunice E. Yang; Beverly W. Withiam

program. A typical lecture worksheet is shown in Figure 1. Time saved by the use ofthese worksheets was used to solve additional problems by the students as well as the instructor.These additional problems facilitated peer-to-peer instruction in small groups as well as in-classdiscussions of difficult concepts. In general, the lectures were conducted in a two-wayconversational style between the instructor and the students rather than one dimensionalinstruction from the instructor to the students. There were 32 lecture worksheets consisting onaverage of two problems solved by the instructor and one in-class problem solved by thestudents. During the time the students worked together to solve the problem, the instructor wasable to wander through the

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Leslie Guadron; Alen M. Sajan; Olivia Plante; Stanley George; Yuying Gosser

importance ofunderstanding the world around you. It may be that the student will not take any higher level Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova Universitychemistry course or that they won’t use this knowledge directly in their major. But it is importantfor them to understand chemistry because we encounter it every day. Students understand whyice floats in their drinks, or why soap can clean hair better than water alone, or that you shouldn’tmix bleach and ammonia, and why we throw salt on the roads after a snowstorm.1 These arethings that we come to have an understanding of due to our knowledge of chemistry.The same importance can be attributed to a genomics course. The Sci280 course at City Collegehopes

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Kevin Dahm

include:1) Establish specific goals and educational objectives for the degree program. Thesemust encompass 11 outcomes2 (designated “A-K”) identified by ABET as essential forall engineering programs.2) Measure the degree to which graduates of the program are attaining the goals andoutcomes3) Use the data collected in step 2 to identify opportunities for improvement, and modifythe program accordingly4) “Close the loop” by assessing whether the changes led to improved attainment ofdesired outcomes1According to Dr. Gloria Rogers3 the most difficult part of the process, and one whichmost engineering programs do not do well, is “identification of a limited number ofFall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

LeRoy Alaways

from 88 students over a two-year period were analyzed based on projecttype, gender, and team performance. Since “factors” were asked for, most students gave multipleresponses to each question. To assist in understanding these responses they were groupedtogether based on common themes and plotted on a percentage basis.1.1 Identify Factors That Inhibit The Group in its Functioning Table 1 – Inhibition Factors and Categories Category Factors Schedule Conflict Scheduling conflict school between and work. Class Work

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Pritpal Singh

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Jason T. Kirby; Talat F. Salama

but lack an accredited Master’s or Doctorial degree path.However, as detailed in the UAB / MUST agreement, this obstacle developed into a mutuallybeneficial opportunity; providing advanced courses to Middle Eastern students and aninternational education venue for UAB.Globalization of Engineering EducationUAB currently offers an international graduate program at Misr University for Science andTechnology (MUST, Figure 1) that culminates in a Master’s of Science in Civil Engineering(MSCE) degree. U.S. and Middle Eastern students enrolled in the program can complete theirdegree in as little as 14 months; instruction begins in mid-July and ends in mid-September of thefollowing year.The program is designed for online/blended instruction to

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Keith M. Gardiner

parallel concepts but perhaps with a slightlydifferent vocabulary (and spin). Adam Smith (1723-1790), the noted Scots philosopher left anexcellent trove of ideas relating to wealth creation and the societal importance of engineeringmethodologies for contributing to the quality of life. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832),1 a notedprecursor of socialist ideas under the banner of “Utilitarianism” followed with an objective oftenexpressed as the axiom “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure ofright and wrong” In 1784 Samuel Gregg (1758-1834) opened Europe‟s largest cotton mill atStyal, near Manchester. David Dale (1739-1806) ultimately assisted by Robert Owen (1771-1858) followed in 1786 with a huge mill at New Lanark in

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Ani Ural; Joseph Yost

Integration of Finite Element Modeling and Experimental Evaluation in a Freshman Project Ani Ural1 and Joseph Yost2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villanova University, Villanova, PAAbstract Engineering analysis, design and research rely on computational and experimentalevaluation. In order to prepare undergraduate students for engineering practice and graduateschool, it is necessary to build knowledge in both areas throughout the engineering curriculumstarting from the first year. The engineering curriculum mostly focuses on laboratory courses

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Edward F. Glynn; Frank E. Falcone

discusses three aspects ofprofessional practice that are embedded in the course: (1) a mentoring program;(2) leadership exercises; and (3) communications skills. Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova UniversityBackgroundDuring the 2010-2011 academic year the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering(CEE) at Villanova University began introducing a new curriculum in the civil engineeringprogram. One of the notable features of the new curriculum is a reduction in the total number ofcredits required for the BSCE degree. In order to make this reduction the faculty made aconscious effort to prioritize and consolidate material from the previous curriculum. Oneoutgrowth from that consolidation process was the

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Qinghai Gao

onlinecourses: who is doing the real course work? Especially when it comes to e-exams, onlineteaching makes it extremely difficult to deal with one serious problem: student dishonesty [1].To solve the problem many scholars [2][3][4] have proposed different methods, such as:●Design open-book exams●Use discussions, essay, and other written projects; reduce the percentage of exams●Use a large pool of questions to randomly generate exams for each student●Require students to take exams on siteIn order to reduce the possibility of e-cheating in our college, which uses Angel as the onlineteaching tools, we utilize the following measures to minimize the chance of e-cheating:●Divide a typical course into a number of modules. Inside each module we set up a

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

James C. Peyton Jones; Connor McArthur; Tyler Young

, push-buttons, ultrasound sensors, lightsensors and more. Blocks have also been developed to allow the LEGO target to communicatein real time with a host computer over USB or BlueTooth communications. An examplesystem, consisting of a closed loop dc motor speed control system is discussed. Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova University1. IntroductionThe use of mobile robotics in education has been shown to yield numerous tangible benefits.Many researchers have found that student’s motivation to learn increases significantly withhands-on robotics-based projects, [1-3]. Others have successfully used robotics as a unifyingtheme in introductory courses, [4-7], and still others have used robotics as way

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Bahar Zoghi Moghadam

quoted definition of sustainability and sustainable development. 9,11 Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova University   At the 2005 World Summit it was illustrious that this requires the bringing together ofenvironmental, social and economic demands. The "three pillars" of sustainability, 10 this viewhas been expressed as an illustration (figure 1) using three overlapping ellipses indicating that thethree pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually supporting.4 Figure 1 : The Three Pillars of Sustainable Development5As it appears in the figure 1 one of the columns is environment. Water resources belong to

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Rosalind Wynne

. Methods for creating a paradigm shift towards a natural learningcycle with emphasis on reflective learning activities such as establishing student ‘buy-in’ will bepresented.1 IntroductionReflective learning activities can help engineering students practice newly acquired analysistools as well as assist them in learning from their mistakes.1,2 The study presented in this articlewill provide the results of using reflective activities important to the learning process ofengineering students in an advanced technical and mathematically rigorous course. A briefcourse description is given to establish course expectations placed on the student as well as thepractical relevancy of the class. The teaching and learning model presented by Kolb’sExperiential

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Dean C. Millar

First Professional Degree.1 “Preparedness for Practice: Engineering deans and employer respondents were asked torate new engineers’ preparedness for practice in eight areas and then indicate the value theirorganization places on preparation in that area. Figure 1 shows the results for each area.” “With the exception of ‘Math and Science’ there appears to be a wide discrepancybetween the value expectations of the employer and the extent to which their employees are seento be well prepared. This would further appear to reflect on the mismatch between curricularemphasis and employer expectation. It must be recognized, of course, that math and science arewithout argument the key ingredients—at least in the lower division—of an

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Carol Siri Johnson

been the domain of women – reading, writing, and visual communication. Inorder to achieve this goal, both engineering programs and English departments need to recognizethe importance of teaching technical communication.Bibliography 1. Davies, Margery W. Woman’s Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982, pp. 178-9. 2. Johnson, Carol Siri. The Language of Work: Technical Communciation at Lukens Steel, 1810-1925. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, 2009, p. 54. 3. Hagley Museum and Library, Acc. 50, Box 1992. 4. “Economic Focus: IR Spending has Hollowed Out Labour Markets, to the Detriment of Middle-income Workers.” The Economist, Sept

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Gary P. Halada

-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova UniversityFall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova UniversityIntroduction:The inclusion of ethical, legal societal and other ‘broader’ issues in undergraduate engineeringdegree programs has been noted to be critical in preparing students for successful careers, notjust as engineers but also as productive and valuable members of society.1 In recent years, theemphasis for the need for engineers to develop more than just “hard engineering” skills hasgrown, especially in response to reports and studies showing the need for engineering educationto respond to trends in globalization of the engineering enterprise, professional mobility,increasing importance of

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Philip Samuel P.E.; Kathryn Jablokow

examines two of these challenges – (1) the psychological inertia of the designer, and(2) the paradox of structure in selecting and applying idea generation techniques – andprovides practical recommendations for managing both from a cognitive perspective. Inaddition, we propose a new classification scheme for idea generation techniques (bothdivergent and convergent) based on cognitive style and the level required for their mastery.1. IntroductionEngineering design faculty are familiar with the phenomenon of students jumping to specificsolutions before they have fully explored the design problem they are trying to solve. What ismore, in jumping to those solutions, students tend to focus on ideas with which they are mostfamiliar and/or which they

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

M. Nazrul Islam

involved in theclass. It investigates different teaching methodologies and concepts in drawing the attention ofthe students. The goal of the paper is to propose an efficient design of a lecture which caninvolve the students actively in the learning process.Student MotivationThe whole academic practice is focused around the students. Before we even design any learningmethodology, we need to study the students, their motivation and objectives. We wish to expectthat the students are attending the academic programs to learn a topic and get trained for real life.Unfortunately the reality is not the same as we, both the teachers and the parents, expect out ofthis group. An analysis on the student motivation yields the following observations. (1

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Dennis Silage

standard text. However, in this approach to teaching digitalcommunication systems the μ-law companding PCM system is also simulated and the speechprocessing is audible.An analysis of BER in pulse code modulation (PCM) with AWGN and a speech signal can alsobe presented with the audible performance as a tangible reminder of the effect. These audio .wavfiles as input have been shown to entice the undergraduate student and provide a memorableexperience. They now have the opportunity to go beyond the lecture course or even the digitalcommunication hardware laboratory with its traditional experiments 1.MATLAB/Simulink by The Mathworks (www.mathworks.com) provides the comprehensivedigital communication system simulation environment and a recent text 2

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Shawn P. Gross; David W. Dinehart; Aleksandra Radlinska; Joseph Robert Yost

associated with the use of overarching problems are discussed,and initial assessment results are described. Fall 2010 Mid-Atlantic ASEE Conference, October 15-16, 2010, Villanova UniversityIntroduction: curriculum restructuringAfter two years of intense committee work, discussion, and course development, the Departmentof Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Villanova University began offering itsrequired mechanics sequence in a new integrated format to sophomores beginning with the Fall2009 semester. As shown in Table 1, the classical sequence of coursework in subjects of Statics,Dynamics, Mechanics of Solids, Fluid Mechanics, and Civil Engineering Materials was replacedwith a series of three four credit courses. An overview of

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Richard Devon; Kathryn Jablokow

spending more time on problem development, and the ease with which the FEED-Solution (F-S) approach can be taught to students.1. Design Maturation. Novice designers often neglect problem development, becoming fixatedon particular solution concepts that are later found to be unsatisfactory.5 Even then, novicedesigners may continue to hold on to their early ideas and try to “design out” their flaws insteadof starting over with a new design concept and/or returning to the problem definition to makesure they have understood it correctly - as an expert designer is more likely to do.At the same time, other studies in design education have shown that a systematic approach to theearly stages of design can be helpful to students,20 as long as it is not too

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Jaime D. Alava; Keith M. Gardiner

contents of Engineering 5 in a paper at the ASEE Mid-Atlantic Section Conference during the spring of 2004.1 Figure 2 shows the mean ratings of bothprojects for each of the seven departments in the spring of 2004. Interestingly, the content ratingsfor both projects surpassed the delivery ratings for most, but not all department presentations. Sixyears later, during the spring of 2010, the same pattern appears to be true although, deliveryratings appear to be higher (Figure 3). It appears like the difference between content and deliveryis not as large. After analyzing the data, two questions arose: 1. Why are most presentations rated higher in content as opposed to delivery? 2. Are the delivery ratings in 2010 higher than in 2004? Fall 2010

Collection

2010 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Frank T. Fisher; Hong Man

other academic settings is envisioned. The goals of this effort include: 1) invigoratingthe first year engineering curriculum with dynamic and engaging real-world examples of cuttingedge research in the area of nanotechnology; 2) introducing undergraduates at the earliest stagesto the enthusiasm, creativity, and excitement of the academic research environment; and 3)developing a methodology and mechanism with which faculty can utilize multimedia technologyto further integrate their research and teaching efforts. The modules under development will formthe basis of a sustainable and scalable library of materials documenting undergraduatenanotechnology research and readily available to all students. It is hoped that exposure toacademic research at

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Robert Avanzato

interact with 3D designs, as well ascommunicate and share experiences. As a result of the internet-based, persistent andcollaborative nature, Second Life may offer advantages over traditional modeling tools.Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, have been demonstrated to be a useful educationaland research tool, and will play an important role in the future.1. IntroductionSecond Life® is an online, virtual world platform which was first released in 2003[1].Since that time, the number of universities, organizations, and corporations exploringSecond Life has steadily grown. Currently, there are many universities (estimated at over300) with a presence in Second Life. Typically, there are between 60,000 to 80,000people online at any given time in Second

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Christopher J. Lowrance

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Joshua H. Smith; David Brandes

trips, chapters must rely on non-college-affiliated professional mentors. This creates challenges in both supporting and assessingthe service learning occurring. This paper describes those difficulties and recent efforts toformalize the academic aspects of the program at Lafayette College.IntroductionEngineers Without Borders–USA (EWB–USA) was founded in 2002 by Dr. Bernard Amadei, aProfessor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at theUniversity of Colorado at Boulder. Its mission is to support “community-driven developmentprograms worldwide through the design and implementation of sustainable engineering projects,while fostering responsible leadership”.1 Since its inception, EWB–USA has grown to over12,000

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Bahar Zoghi Moghadam

purpose is to reduce thewastewater volumes discharged to these receiving bodies. The objective of water use reduction ismaximizing water efficiency within buildings to reduce the burden on municipal water supplyand wastewater systems. Based on prerequisite 1 Water Use Reduction, 20% Reduction isrequired. Credit 1.1 Water Efficient Landscaping, Reduce by 50% ,Credit 1.2 Water EfficientLandscaping, No Potable Use or No Irrigation, Credit 2 Innovative Wastewater TechnologiesCredit 3 .1 Water Use Reduction, 30% ,Credit 3 .2 Water Use Reduction, 35% and Credit 3 .3Water Use Reduction, 40% at least Credit 4 Process Water Use Reduction, 20% . The definitionof these prerequisites are as follows: Potable Water is meets or exceeds EPA’s drinking

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Qinghai Gao

steganography – Information Hiding.Biological AlphabetsHuman languages have redundancy. Shannon [1-2] estimated the entropy of written English to be0.6 to 1.3 bits per character (bpc), based on how well people can predict successive characters intext. Cover and King [3] concluded 1.25 bpc. The redundancy makes cipher using these languageseasier to attack.In biology the genetic information existing in DNA is a base 4 system. Lanctot et al. [4] reportedsome experimental results on the entropy of DNA. The first experiment was focused on thecoding and non-coding regions in E. coli to test the hypothesis that the non-coding regions havea role by showing that they may be more regular than coding regions, which would support theconjecture that non-coding