Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard Turton; Roger A. Schmitz; Mark J. McCready; Mark A. Stadtherr; Joan F. Brennecke; Wallace B. Whiting; Joseph A. Shaeiwitz

curriculum, the typical student hasgrasped a large set of fundamental concepts, and he or she can apply them, more or less adeptly,to the understanding, analysis, and design of processes. Increasingly, such students are madeaware that engineers must assess and be accountable for the environmental impact of theirdesigns. Nevertheless, many graduating chemical engineering students have little more than alayman’s understanding of the workings of the natural world and of the consequences ofhuman/industrial disturbances – even though the same fundamental concepts underlie both thenatural and man-made processes.The objective of this course is to give the students an appreciation, in a technical sense and froma chemical engineering perspective, for the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Eric A. Stueber; Chiang Lin; Susan M. Morgan

postings regularlydisappeared before the reports’ due dates.To solve this problem, a team of seniors in the Computer Science Department developed a web-based database, Laboratory and Database Integration (LADI), for the Department. The databaseconsists of two basic parts--the database and web page files. The database serves as a containerfor user profiles and laboratory data. The web page files serve as an interface between the usersand the data. Instead of using more expensive database server packages, Microsoft Access97was used for the database while Active Server Pages (ASP) were used as an interface betweenthe web browser and the database. The security features of the database are simple to setupindependently with web page files. Students are

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Howard A. Canistraro

overwhelmingly positive asample of which is given in Appendix C along with percentages of student responses. Studentshave especially enjoyed the use of an actual engineering system to illustrate the many conceptsthat are covered in the machine design course. They have also appreciated the invaluableexperience of technical report writing that will ultimately lead to improved performance inprofessional practice. They also have the opportunity to integrate several types of software into asingle report. A startling result has been the discovery of the conservative nature of the types ofanalyses that are presented in the typical machine design text, illustrating the “first order” natureof the material presented in the text.Conclusions and Future Plans:Given

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Tapas K. Das; Marco E. Sanjuan

level lead to the following revelations: It is required to integrate theoretical, computational, and practical issues in the design of experiments curriculum to develop not only knowledge but also abilities in the students. Computer should be a tool to support numerical calculations and plotting, but should not be used to run an automatic ANOVA generator that keeps the students from understanding the design and analysis’ internal structure. An appropriate tool for this purpose is EXCEL. Practical issues should be addressed in the curriculum, and practical projects assigned. Students should be encouraged to face the challenges of a complete experiment design, not only the numerical calculation part of it. Both plant simulations

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Nisreen Ghaddar; Nassir Sabah; Jamal Abed; Fouad T. Mrad

prepare the graduate for life-long learning and professional advancement in a broadrange of career choices. The Master’s degree programs emphasize research experience and theacquisition of specialized skills, on a full-time basis, or part-time allowing concurrentprofessional practice. The curricula adopt, whenever appropriate, an integrative,multidisciplinary, and multifunctional approach that underscores the environmental, social,economic, and management aspects. An ample selection of elective courses provides flexibilitythat accommodates particular interests of students.”“Comprehensive professional preparation is combined with a liberal education that enriches themind and spirit, broadens the outlook of students, fosters an understanding and

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Devdas M. Pai; Shih-Liang Wang; Juri Filatovs; Richard Layton

cars were used. Three channels were needed,and it was discovered that only two frequencies were used for all the toys examined.Attempts to modify the circuits or the control strategy were unsuccessful, and modelairplane components were the next candidates. These required different batteries,and were abandoned at the last instant for an umbilical cord. The students felt thatwould have won the contest, had the operator sufficient experience with the latterfeature. Throughout, students became acutely aware of the need to consider Page 5.689.6manufacturing-fabrication aspects in the integration of the design.Figure 5 Final toy-tank based design

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Paul H. Zang; Judson Singer; Dale Eddy

Session 2238 Implementing 3-D Modeling for Engineering Freshmen Paul H. Zang, Dale Eddy, Judson Singer Kettering UniversityAbstractKettering University has begun a process of replacing the existing 2-D CAD software(AutoCAD) and replacing it with an integrated set of CAE (SDRC Master Series) and PDMsoftware. The integration of a single source of data for many CAE operations allows the facultyto teach using a powerful set of tools beginning in the freshman year.Solid modeling techniques, which stress the design intent of the model, enhance the skill set offreshman engineers and excites

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Hugh Jack

components shown in Table 1. Components in the electrical column are thoroughlytaught in any electrical engineering curriculum. This means that a linear controls course for elec-trical engineering students is well positioned to build upon other electrical engineering courses.When an electrical engineering student is done a linear controls course they are ready to buildcontrols systems. The same cannot be said for mechanical systems where the mechanical compo-nents are often taught, but are rarely used in mechanical and manufacturing control courses. Theiruse is also rapidly diminishing for use in controlling actual systems.Linear and Logical control courses can be compared, as shown in table 2 below

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Mohammad A. Zahraee; Gregory P. Neff; Susan Scachitti

on assessment andcontinuing improvement in its philosophy.II. Defining Continuous ImprovementThe term “continuous improvement” is derived from the essence of the Japanese term KAIZENwhich is a systematic approach to the closing of gaps between customer expectations and thecharacteristics of process outputs. First used in the 1950’s, it has since been known by termssuch as Continuous Quality Improvement and Continuous Process Improvement as well as beingclosely tied, and almost synonymous, with the umbrella expression called Total QualityManagement (TQM).In an article in Quality Digest, Danny Langdon [1] states: Continuous Process Improvement is designed to utilize the resources of the organization to achieve a quality-driven

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Narayanan Komerath

1-12.Burton and White 14 report on a survey of models for teaching engineering design at thefreshman level. Such courses were classified into: a.Reverse Engineering, b. CreatingSomething Useful, c. Full Scale Project, d. Small Scale Project, e. Case Studies, f. Competitions,g. Non-Profit Project, h. Redesign of a Local Project. Of these, they selected ReverseEngineering as most appropriate for their needs, using a Weighted Factor Scoring Model.The choice of conceptual design as an integrative tool in our curriculum is based on theexperience of listening to Georgia Tech Aerospace Engineering students and alumni for manyyears. In the traditional curriculum, the Capstone Design course in the senior year is cited bystudents for providing

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Jeffery M. Saul; Rhett J. Allain; Duane L. Deardorff; David S. Abbott; Robert J. Beichner

, (1985). The importance of group size in the use of problem- solving skills on a microcomputer. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 1: p. 459-468.10. Felder, R., (1995). A longitudinal study of engineering student performance and retention, IV. Instructional methods and student responses to them. Journal of Engineering Education, 84(4): p. 361-367.11. Felder, R., L. Bernold, E. Burniston, J. Gastineau, & J. O'Neal. (Year). An Integrated First-Year Engineering Curriculum at North Carolina State University. in Frontiers in Education Conference. of Conference: ASEE/IEEE.12. Felder, R. and R. Brent, (1994). Cooperative Learning in Technical Courses: Procedures, Pitfalls, and Payoffs. ERIC Document

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Lisa A. Haston; James S. Fairweather; P. David Fisher; Diane Rover

requirement is concisely stated as follows ina recent addition of ABET’s Criteria for Accrediting Programs in Engineering in the UnitedStates 3: “In order to promote breadth, the curriculum must include at least one engineering course outside the major disciplinary area.”Several faculty members began to look beyond this cryptic requirement to add breadth toengineering programs and asked the following important question: “How might engineering services courses at be transformed so that they have an Page 5.435.1 important impact on the program outcomes mandated in EC2000’s Criterion 3 4?”While several engineering service courses

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Massoud S. Tavakoli

terms ofsize and number of graduates. The Mechanical Engineering curriculum is highly laboratory-based with a unique feature where at the beginning of the Junior year, the curriculum branchesinto five possible tracks called “specialties.” Approximately 12% of the total 180 credits arededicated to a more in-depth coverage of a sub-field of engineering. The current specialties areAutomotive Engineering Design, Medical Equipment Design, Manufacturing Product Design,Machine Design and Plastics Product Design. Each of these specialties culminates into acapstone design course where students are ideally expected to: 1) learn the design process as an "holistic" interdisciplinary activity, and 2) practice the "complete" design cycle from problem

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Scott White; Kirsten Lowrey; George M. Bodner; Dawn Del Carlo; Ala Samarapungavan; William C. Oakes

-year’s effort was therefore devoted to a self study.SignificanceThe significance of this study revolves around five issues.• This study provides an example of the difference between the research paradigms known as phenomenology and phenomenography.• It provides an example of how research methodologies developed for use in science education can be adapted for institutional research that provides a basis for the self-study required by accrediting agencies such as NCA (The North Central Association Commission on Institutions of Higher Education) and ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology).• It provides an example of cross-discipline curriculum reform efforts that involve not only

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Jagdish T. Gajjar

Session 2553 A Freshman Module to Teach Instrumentation Methods Jagdish Gajjar Union CollegeAbstractEvolution of modern electronic devices has reached a level where a black-box approachto designing and building systems is within the capabilities of beginning laboratoryexperiments. This facilitates the introduction of modern instrumentation methods tofreshmen in an engineering curriculum. The paper describes a freshmen moduledesigned to provide an exposure to transducers, signal conditioning, computerinterfacing and signal processing. The module consists of a coordinated set of

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Mohammad A. Zahraee; Lash Mapa; Gregory Neff; Susan Scachitti

points for benchmark assessments with continuousimprovement being the natural follow-on activity to improve ones performance. The tenureprocess works if it is (in itself) an assessment to develop competent faculty to carryout themission of the university. The evidence submitted must demonstrate a record of quality andcontinuous productivity.5A recent example at PUC of a continuous improvement effort that supported excellence inteaching was the development and initiation of a “Curriculum update form.” This form wasdeveloped by faculty of the METS department as an on-line computer form. The form allows alldepartment members access to it at any time with the intention of it being filled out at the end ofeach semester to document any improvements

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Jagannathan Sankar; Devdas M. Pai

29 BS, 27 MS and 25 Ph.D. students in the last two years. Many ofthe undergraduates were influenced by the Center not only through their coursecurricula but also through research participation fellowships at A&T, NC StateUniversity and the Center’s partnering and collaborating institutions: Oak RidgeNational Lab, the University of Florida’s Engineering Research Center, and otheruniversities including Kumamoto University of Japan.Fostering Interest in Materials Engineering CareerResearch results are being transported to the curriculum through: • incorporation of new lab experiences into related undergraduate lab courses • development and modification of both existing and new curricula based upon an integrated approach of advanced

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Susan Haag

attempt toreform engineering education, seven institutions formed the Foundation Coalition (FC) withsupport from the National Science Foundation. One method utilized by the FC member schoolswas to offer integrated freshman programs. Embedded within this curricular reform were studentlearning outcomes that were established in the FC’s strategic plan and were implemented andmeasured across selected subject areas. Student learning outcomes were defined by theFoundation Coalition as “the abilities that we must develop, continuously improve and use inorder to realize the overall mission and vision of the Coalition.”The Foundation Coalition (FC) at Arizona State University (ASU) has incorporated strategiesinto its curriculum to: a) reform engineering

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Barbara Adams; Monica Bruning; Lawrence Genalo

(women, middle school, minority students and others) and electronic communications which reinforced messages in the print medium. One example of an electronic communication is Engineers On-line. This website is maintained by current engineering students and designed for engineering students who want to learn more about the engineering profession, Iowa State engineering programs, or just general enrollment information like what residence hall should I live in.• Integrated communication plan – various communication plans were developed for specific market segments (middle school, year in high school, female, minority, out- of-state or Iowa resident). For high school juniors and seniors, the communication plan

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Mark L. Smith; Kenneth E. Rowe; Carlos R. Morales; Rick L. Homkes

able to do B, which will benefit you in C.” Using this as atemplate, I decided to approach a software company named Newtek. My primary argument was,“If you provide Purdue with lab copies of LightWave 3D, we will integrate it into our animationclasses and, when our students graduate, they will have been exposed to LightWave instead ofjust Kinetix’s 3DS Max, your major competitor’s package.” I augmented the argument byproviding details concerning the Technical Graphics curriculum to include the number ofclasses, students per class, past employment demographics of recent graduates, current hardwareand software set-up, etc. I also highlighted my professional experience using their product toanimate the current television opening for the Chicago

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Timothy N. Chang; Daphne l. Chang

graduate, Page 5.322.1from the educational institute’s perspective, should reflect the student’s ability to thrivein the industry. Standard classroom evaluation is heavily based on individual paperaccomplishments: assignments, quizzes, exams, term projects, etc. While these areeffective measures, a serious gap remains in assessing the student’s ability with respectto the abovementioned industrial criteria. Traditionally, graduate engineering educationappeals to a focused group of candidates: those who wish to pursue an R&D career.However, with the changes in technological integration, a master's degree is now almosta necessary requirement for

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert L. Shearer

Session No. 3661 The Human Community Robert L. Shearer, Ph.D. Florida Institute of TechnologyWhat is the role of humanities education in an engineering curriculum? Moreimportantly why should humanities education be integrated in such a course of study, tohave “full membership in the community of engineering educators”?Engineering itself might be characterized as the art of fitting means with ends forpractical results — results that make life much easier. Mathematical formulas,employed by the engineer, seem to draw from an abstract realm durable truths thatmanifest themselves in the reliability of

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Ron Humble; Michael Caylor

the Academy."While we would like to think this is true, it does reflect the effectiveness of the "learning spaceby doing space" approach to undergraduate engineering education.Bibliography1. Chesley, Bruce C. and Caylor, Michael J. "Developing an Integrated Curriculum for Small SatelliteEngineering," ASEE Conference, Session 2302, Charlotte, NC, 1999.2. Humble, Ronald W., Henry, Gary N., and Larson, Wiley J. Space Propulsion Analysis and Design, New York: Page 5.533.12McGraw-Hill Companies, (1995), Ch. 1.MIKE CAYLORMichael J. Caylor is the Director of Laboratories and Research and an Assistant Professor in the Department ofAstronautics

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Pete Tschumi

Arkansas atLittle Rock in response to the study.IntroductionIn recent years, those companies in the information technology in Arkansas have found itincreasingly difficult to hire enough qualified individuals to meet their needs to the extent that afew of them have found their growth limited by the lack of employees rather than a lack ofbusiness. James Hendren, founder and former CEO of ArksSys, did a survey of the five largestcompanies in the central Arkansas area for the university and found an estimated 1,300 employeeshortfall will occur in 1999, primarily in the areas of information technology. Also fewer than500 Arkansans are expected to be qualified and available to fill the job openings in high-techcompanies. In their discussions with

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Gerard N. Foster

attempts, the number good and the percentage good is displayed forproblems worked in the random-entry mode. Right and wrong bits in the student’s answer arehighlighted in green and in red, respectively. Attributes of the calculator are presented. Methodsof software development are explained and a brief account of use with students is given.Because the calculator is written in Java, new objects can be created to extend the capabilitieswhile keeping the old functionality. Also it can be integrated into other instructional software onthe web. The preliminary work on this software was funded by MIDC (Multimedia InstructionalDevelopment Center) at Purdue University.BackgroundBinary numbers and binary arithmetic emerge at various points in the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Tirupathi R. Chandrupatla; Shreekanth A Mandayam; Anthony J. Marchese; John L. Schmalzel; John Chen; Ravi Ramachandran; Paris von Lockette; Kevin Dahm

development of original inventions by multidisciplinary studentteams within the Junior and Senior Engineering Clinics. Funding of up to $2500 per student teamper semester is competitively awarded based on student-generated proposals to the Venture CapitalFund. To qualify for funding, student teams must propose, plan and implement an original, semes-ter-long product development enterprise. The product idea must be successfully designed, devel-oped and prototyped in a single semester. The latter criterion is possible given the unique rapidprototyping facilities available at Rowan University, which include a stereolithography machine, amulti-jet modeling rapid concept modeler, a rapid circuit prototyping system and multiple consumerappliance test

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Natasha Balac; Daniel M. Gaines

would allow students to apply the knowledge they learn in class while allowingfor creative solutions. We also wanted the project to be fun for the students and encourageclass discussion. Inspired by success stories with the use of mobile robots at schools such asMIT [5], Case Western Reserve University [2], and Trinity College [1], we felt that the fieldof mobile robots would be an ideal match for our objectives. Mobile robots provide achallenging and exciting arena for developing, applying and evaluating AI techniques.Situated in the world, mobile robots must deal with issues of uncertainty, reliability andreal-time response [4]. They must be capable of integrating sensing and planning toproduce an appropriate course of action and, ideally

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Pamela L. Eddy; David A. Pape

AssessmentCourse level assessment attempts to ensure that in a particular course the requiredmaterial is sufficiently well taught and understood. Program level assessment addressesthe program outcome indicators as well as assessing the content, sequence, andintegration of all courses within a program. Ressler and Lenox3 provide a programassessment model with integrated course level assessment that is being used at theirinstitution. They correctly assert that these two levels of assessment are clearly notindependent, and that “in a well integrated curriculum, course assessment can never takeplace in isolation.” For instance, the inability of students to meet a particular course

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard A. Gilbert; Mark Maughmer; Marilyn Barger, Hillsborough Community College; Renata Engel, Pennsylvania State University

materials delivery tool.(1) They also provide aneducator a means to manage the transmission of course curriculum and concepts.(2) Lecturesare adaptable but different when used in courses throughout an entire engineering program.(3)However, a critical component in the task of educating via an effective lecture is the lecturer’srecognition of the facts that difficult lectures exist and that they must be carefully dealt with.Difficult lectures are ubiquitous in all traditional 4 and 5 year undergraduate engineeringcurricula. They can be found in courses from the beginnings in calculus and college physics tothe final courses on the most advanced topics. Difficult lectures do not always deal with difficult topics. However, difficult topics are

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Patricia Backer

University. In addition, an evaluation of thesemodules, completed in the summer 1999 session, was discussed.When comparing performance on pre-test and post-test measures, this study producedinconsistent results. Based upon their performance both on the posttests and the final exam, thestudents in Group 2 consistently outperformed the students in Group 1. The effectiveness ofthe multimedia modules, as compared to classroom instruction, was not demonstratedconclusively.Bibliography1. Windschitl, M. "The WWW and Classroom Research: What Path Should We Take? Educational Researcher,1998, January-February, pp. 28-32.2. Hamilton, D. Learning More About Education: An Unfinished Curriculum. New York: Open University, 1990.3. Mandl, H. Consideration for