Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Maurice Walworth; Kevin Schmaltz; Ajay Mahajan; David McDonald

airplane, a model train anda wind tunnel make heavy use of data-acquisition systems, programs written and developed inLabVIEW and MATLAB, and modern communication protocols such as RS485. The entireinterface is through virtual instrumentation, and the lab is also being given the capability of remoteaccess to the students. There are other indirect advantages of this approach in terms of financialeconomy and faculty professional development. This project has been funded by the NationalScience Foundation (NSF) and has resulted in the development of the Integrated SystemsEngineering Laboratory (ISEL) that houses vertically integrated laboratory exercises for twelvecourses from three different curricula.1. IntroductionMost universities have limited

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Daniel M. Chen

the industrial technology students in CAE class had aconcentration in mechanical design and engineering graphics. CIM is an interdisciplinary majorthat requires twenty-four credit hours each from industrial technology and computer science.Since the students enroll in the CAE class have quite diversified backgrounds, it would beinteresting and beneficial to find out how well each student group has learned due to its specificbackground. The goals of this study can be fulfilled by answering the following two questions:(1) Do engineering technology students have necessary skills to perform CAE work at thecompletion of the course? and (2) How well do engineering technology students perform as agroup? The comparison is made among the groups of

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Daniel H. Linder

assignmentsto problems involving programming and CAD tools. The next section examines several of theassignments that have been successfully incorporated into our system. The remaining sections dis-cuss the Web-based implementation, the results, and possible future work.II. Personalized VHDL Homework AssignmentsFrom the student’s perspective, our VHDL programming assignments have four steps: 1. Request a personalized assignment specification 2. Create/edit VHDL code on a local computer 3. Compile and simulate code on a remote computer 4. Submit the final code for gradingStudents may repeat steps 2 and 3 many times while debugging. Steps 1, 3, and 4 are accom-plished via our Web interface.In step 1, a student requests a

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

George M. Swisher; Corinne Darvennes

digitalsystem simulation course. Simulation, employing a sophisticated computation system, lendsreality to the solution process and matches the procedures used by practicing engineers in thatME speciality.I. IntroductionOn the quarter system, the ME faculty taught a classical vibrations course emphasizing one andtwo degrees of freedom systems and their mathematical solutions. A follow-on, one-credit hourdigital simulation laboratory (requiring the vibrations class as a pre-requisite) emphasized thenumerical solutions of differential equations using such higher-level programs as SL-1(developed by Xerox in the late 1960’s), CSMP (developed by IBM in the late 1960’s), ACSL1,and now MATLAB®2; this evolution followed the introduction of each new package

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Dean R. Johnson

the winter of1998, we have been constantly modifying the on-line lab manual as a result of migrating tothe Xilinx [1] logic design development system. Because of the complexity of the Xilinxsystem, we decided to change the laboratory exercises in an incremental manner, week byweek, rather than in semester chunks. The flexibility to change procedures weekly makesgood use of time and allows us to strengthen the laboratory with creative and innovativematerials such as DV in a manner not possible before. Page 4.78.2 2EMPLOYING ADOBE'S VENERABLE PDF FORMATIn order to make the on-line lab exercise documents

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Juan Manuel Hinojosa; Alfonso Avila

: “the student is the subject and the object of the learningprocess” and cooperative learning. The active-learning strategies are dynamic and productivetechniques to facilitate the learning process by applying and incorporating knowledge. Thelearning strategies introduced to the E95-857 course are: (1) learning general concepts ofprogramming and interfacing microprocessors before learning the disposition of a specificprocessor, (2) learning to program and interface a specific processor through the “case of study”technique, (3) programming and simulating microprocessor based systems, and (4) building andsimulating actual microprocessor based systems. The discussion of the active and cooperativelearning strategies includes a description of how

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael D. Murphy; Daniel Jensen

learning activities that will proceed completely around this cycle, providingthe maximum opportunity for full comprehension. This has been used extensively to evaluateand enhance teaching in engineering 26,29,28,30. The cycle is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 – Kolb Cycle Concrete Experience Active Reflective Experimentation Observation Abstract ConceptualizationAs detailed by Jensen 14 and Otto 24, the context of redesign currently used at USAFA has beendeveloped to move completely around the Kolb cycle. Integration of a CAD course into

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Tom Gasque Smith; Deanna E. Ramey

idea that knowledge is sociallyconstructed, and a commitment to student responsibility for their learning. These prominentgoals of writing center work are consistent with at least three of ABET’s A-K criteria: d. anability to function on multi-disciplinary teams; g. an ability to communicate effectively; and i. arecognition of the need for and an ability to engage in life-long learning.This paper outlines the basic structure of the Professional Communications Center program atthe University of South Carolina College of Engineering. This structure includes 1)communications instruction in-class and in one-on-one consultation with students, 2)consultations with faculty looking for new ways to integrate communications instruction intotheir syllabi

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

William Shelnutt; Monica Lumsdaine; Edward Lumsdaine

Page 4.324.1teams and understand the global context of their work). The unique integrated approach enablesstudents to not just learn the fundamental principles and thinking skills but to apply them in thedesign process to achieve optimum solutions and, ultimately, to become innovators.This book evolved from an earlier work, Creative Problem Solving: Thinking Skills for a ChangingWorld.1 Through feedback from users and from observing trends in engineering design education,we sensed a need to explicitly show the application of creative problem solving to engineeringdesign. The creative problem solving process can be used (and has been applied) in many differentpersonal and professional areas. Engineering design has been taught—albeit

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Scott Wayne; Alfred Stiller; Kristine Craven

Session 2253 Integrating Design and Decision Making into Freshman Engineering at West Virginia University Scott Wayne, Alfred Stiller, and Kristine Craven West Virginia UniversityIntroduction West Virginia University has a long history of developing problem solving and decision-making skills in the freshman year. For more than a decade, Freshman Engineering courses atWest Virginia University have followed the Guided Design Model developed by ProfessorWales [1, 2]. In this model the instructor serves as a ‘guide on the side’ rather than a ‘sage onthe stage

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Phillip J. Cornwell; Jerry M. Fine

electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering students.II. Description of the Sophomore Engineering CurriculumA comparison of the old and new curriculums is shown in Figure 1. Parallel to the engineeringscience courses are three math courses: Applied Math I (linear algebra and some linear ordinarydifferential equations), Applied Math II (statistics) and Applied Math III (systems of differentialequations). In Fig. 1, the dashed lines are intended to illustrate a weak coupling between coursesand a solid line is a strong coupling between courses. The New Sophomore Curriculum Traditional Curriculum Fall Winter SpringApplied Math I Applied Math II Applied Math III

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

George H. Williams; James . Kenny

should stimulate the students’ disciplinary interests, providea common background experience as a prerequisite for upper-level courses, and introducestudents to critical aspects of the design process (e.g., tradeoffs among design objectives andsensitivity to design parameters) and the socioeconomic context in which design decisions aremade. From an administrative perspective, the projects should offer enough design variations toaccommodate multiple teams of students and to facilitate modification for subsequent courseofferings (at both the freshman and upper levels).Recurring Short-term Design Projects and Case Studies within Course ModulesProject 1. The Newspaper FrameThe first class meeting includes a construction competition using newspaper

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Tom Ward; Elizabeth Alford

intofreshman engineering courses is flourishing.1-5 The NSPE WWW Ethics Center provides accessto information about ethics modules used in a number of engineering colleges.2 The objectivesof these modules are to introduce students to ethical situations and questions similar to those Page 4.328.1they will encounter in professional lives and to help them examine alternative courses of action.Typically, these ethics units focus on reading and discussing cases that highlight ethicalquestions or dilemmas. Some also incorporate team presentations on recommended courses ofaction and a few include essay questions for homework or a test at the end of the unit.Few

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Mary E. Besterfield-Sacre; Larry J. Shuman; Jack McGourty

Session 2330 ABET’s Eleven Student Learning Outcomes (a-k): Have We Considered The Implications?* Jack McGourty, Mary Besterfield-Sacre, Larry Shuman, Columbia University/University of Texas – El Paso/University of PittsburghI. IntroductionThere has been a great deal of intellectual and emotional debate regarding the AccreditationBoard of Engineering and Technology’s (ABET) minimum set of eleven student learningoutcomes that are a major part of EC-2000 [1]. The issues range from serious questions as to thegenesis of these outcomes, general concern regarding validity, and

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

T. Roppel; A. Scottedward Hodel

experience is that students have a more integrated approachto design and a much better understanding of the hardware, software, and instrumentation used inelectrical engineering practice.I. Structure of the laboratory sequenceAn overview of the curriculum revision and the details of the new laboratory sequence have beenpresented previously1. In brief, the Electrical Engineering undergraduate core curriculum modelincludes a total of six 1-quarter hour (3 contact hours/week) laboratory courses during thesophomore and junior years. These courses are designated Lab I (1st quarter sophomore) throughLab VI (3rd quarter junior). The laboratory courses are not tied to a specific lecture course; ratherthey incorporate material from several topic areas within

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Shani Francis; Neal Pellis; Keith Schimmel

). The NASA rotating wall vessel bioreactor is anexample of the benefits of interdisciplinary research. While all the capabilities to design andconstruct the NASA bioreactor described below have been available for at least twenty years,and the need for such a bioreactor has been around even longer, it was not invented until morerecently because the necessary interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers had not beenput together. Page 4.329.2Tissue growth is one of the basic tools of medical research. The engineering of tissue requires atleast five critical stages of development in cell culture: 1) Assembly of cells in three dimensionalarrays

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Philip Doepker

with the product realization process (PRP). The paper will address thefollowing major issues: 1. Acquiring projects that have a basis in industry. The relationship with the Design and Manufacturing Clinic at the University of Dayton will be explored. 2. The process of forming teams will be presented. Issues taken into account in this formation include individual interests and leadership styles. 3. The concept of the “Product Realization Process” forms the guidelines within which the teams perform. The major elements of this include defining the product needs, establishing specifications, developing conceptual designs, performing the final design and writing the final report

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Mahmood Nahvi

previous experience in developing the DSP platforms wasgreatly helpful in the recent expansion. In addition to serving the undergraduate DSP course(which is the topic of the present paper) the laboratory also supports other activities in digitalsignal processing such as senior projects, individual studies, Master’s theses and research. Aprevious report presented at the 1998 ASEE conference [1] describes the objectives of thecourse, students’ background, laboratory facilities and a summary example of the experiments.An updated summary is given below.Prior to taking the DSP course, students have taken a course in discrete-time signals and systemsand are familiar with concepts and techniques such as linear time-invariant systems, convolution

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

J. Elaine Seat; Fred Weber; Daniel C. Yoder; Christopher D. Pionke; J. Roger Parsons

the program and how it could beimproved was sought from students, alumni, faculty, and industry. The resulting message wasclear. According to those polled, the Freshman Program must do the following: 1) maintain thecurrent technical content; 2) integrate the course material to enhance learning; 3) requireteamwork and an introduction to design; 4) teach communications skills; and 5) emphasizeproblem-solving skills. The program at the time consisted of five separate courses and was notmeeting the stated requirements. These courses consisted of a statics course (3 hrs), anengineering graphics course (3 hrs) and a seminar course (1 hr) taught in the first semester, anda dynamics course (3 hrs) and a computer programming course (3 hrs) taught in

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Francesco Costanzo; Gary L. Gray

activities and visualization in courses traditionally containing none of these. The approach used to implement these innovations into a sophomore level dynamics course is described. A discussion of the most significant issues and hurdles encountered during this implementation is included so as to assist other educators in designing learning environments like the one pre- sented here.1 IntroductionEngineering graduates are increasingly required to become immediately productive in the work-place without the on-the-job training that was typical of recent decades. Among other things, thisrequires the development of team skills along with a high level of computer literacy. These skillshave not only been considered more and more important

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Don Lewis Millard

, present fundamental concepts using advanced visualizationand animation techniques, and allow for interactive practice on problem-solving and open-endeddesign – some in a game oriented environment.1 Building on what was learned from that successfuleffort, Rensselaer established the Academy of Electronic Media (the Academy) two years ago to serveas a university-wide resource for the development and utilization of multimedia teaching materials. Inaddition to the federal grant, funding for the Academy has come from Rensselaer, from industrycontracts, and from New York State.The trend toward Web-based learning has a long way to go, say Alfred Bork and David R. Britton Jr. 2of the University of California, Irvine

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Arnoldo Muyshondt; Ing-Chang Jong

for agiven course or for tutoring, which an instructor provides at a web site. The WWW can have agreat impact on the teaching of high enrollment courses as well as distance learning. Increasingefforts to create on-line educational modules on the WWW clearly point to the trend of usingweb publication as an alternative mode in modern education.1-9It is the purpose of this paper to present the essential software that uses PERL and CGI script-ing10 to manipulate input data to readily create modules for interactive on-line testing andlearning. The software consists of the following eight related program files: (a) Two subject specific program files: test.html and test#.dat. (b) Six universal program files: temp.dat, cgi-lib.pl, webget.pl

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

John K. Estell

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

William E. DeWitt; William J. Hutzel; Timothy L. Skvarenina

electricalsystems.Introduction Facilities engineering is becoming an important career option for students in the PurdueSchool of Technology. The continuing boom in industrial and commercial construction, alongwith an increased emphasis on energy efficiency, has helped create a strong demand fortechnicians and engineers who manage mechanical and electrical equipment in moderncommercial buildings. In fact, the Office of Manpower Studies within the School of Technologyprojects that facilities engineering will be one of the fastest growing technical careers over thenext ten years.1 Figure 1 illustrates the technical skills needed by today’s facility engineer.2 Althoughmechanical and electrical skills are essential, the distinction between the two is

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

James Pearson

beenrequired for all engineering students. Since 1985, most of these projects have been incooperation with regional industries while the remaining ones have been JBU projects.The faculty felt that more could be accomplished in these projects if the students hadprevious experience in creative thinking, project planning, keeping a log book,searching for parts, ordering parts, meeting project schedules and in the generalfrustrations of the design process.An ABET visitor suggested that it would be desirable to have some team designexperiences in the design emphasis at JBU. In response, three things have been done:1. Added two team design experiences to the freshman course, Engineering Concepts and Design.2. Added one team design experience to the

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

John G. Nee

part of the assessment effort.Students take the exam on a voluntary basis or it can be part of a senior level requirement.Individual scores are provided only to the candidate, however, the faculty advisor will receive astatistical report that includes high/low, mean score and score distribution. Reports also includeinformation regarding the distribution of scores within the major topic areas as well. The examhas undergone revisions and modifications over the years with the last major revision completedin the fall of 1996.The seven major concept areas tested include: 1) mathematics, 2) materials, 3) design/graphics,4) manufacturing processes, 5) management/economics, 6) quality control, and 7) computerapplications. Each of these seven concept

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Tom Christensen; R. M. Seymour; Kim McKeage; Deborah Skinner; Darrell Donahue

theirdesign project from the marketing perspective.BackgroundTwo major dynamics of business and manufacturing are concurrent engineering and customer-centered product development. Customer focus is perceived by some as the most importantdeterminant of business success, and engineers must be prepared to function in the design processaccordingly.1 Concurrent engineering is a recent strategy for managing customer-centered designprocesses that has been acknowledged by many for its successes.The basic principles of concurrent engineering are 1) integrated product development; 2) inclusionof all relevant perspectives on the product during design and development; 3) global integration ofall stakeholder needs in the design process. These concepts combine

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

John Spinelli; Cherrice Traver

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Sohail Anwar; Frances Winsor

- mechanical Project Design Theory & Instrumentation mechanical Project Design 3 3 3IET 216 Production Design IET 105 Economics of EMET 321W Electrical IET 105 Economics ofLab 2 Industry 2 Machines 3 Industry 2MATH 250 Calculus & S/H/A Social Science/ HLED Health Education 1 S/H/A Social Science/Differential Equations 3 Humanities/Arts Elective 3 Humanities/Arts Elective 3MET 210W Product Design3 S/H/A Social Science/ MATH 250 Calculus & S/H/A Social Science/ Humanities

Collection

1999 Annual Conference

Authors

Sohail Anwar; Frances Winsor

of EMET 321W Electrical IET 105 Economics ofLab 2 Industry 2 Machines 3 Industry 2MATH 250 Calculus & S/H/A Social Science/ HLED Health Education 1 S/H/A Social Science/Differential Equations 3 Humanities/Arts Elective 3 Humanities/Arts Elective 3MET 210W Product Design3 S/H/A Social Science/ MATH 250 Calculus & S/H/A Social Science/ Humanities/Arts Elective 3 Differential Equations 3 Humanities/Arts Elective 3S/H/A Social Science/ ESACT Physical S/H/A Social Science/Humanities/Arts Elective 3