Collection

2003 ASEE North Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Richard Valentine; Keri Hornbuckle; James Stoner; Julie Jessop

Engineering Problem Solving I Richard Valentine,1 Keri Hornbuckle,1 James Stoner,1 and Julie Jessop21 Civil & Environmental Engineering, 2Chemical & Biochemical Engineering The University of Iowa valentin@engineering.uiowa.eduAbstractThis course introduces the student to a multifaceted engineering problem-solving and designparadigm. Lectures provide students with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate specificproblem-solving skills; faculty-directed project team sections provide an opportunity for thestudent to become familiar with open-ended engineering problems/design and their solutions.Course FormatThis 3-credit course consists both of a lecture and a

Conference Session

Computers in ME

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Ronald Goulet

Session: 3566 Medieval Engines of Siege Warfare and Modern Engineering Tools Ron Goulet College of Engineering and Computer Science University of Tennessee at ChattanoogaAbstractThe College of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Chattanooga offers second yearengineering students a three credit hour lecture course in Engineering Dynamics. Seeking tosupplement the traditional lecture approach, experiential problem-based learning projects areinserted. EPBL is the outcome of a ‘learner centered

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Karen High; Cynthia Mann

Session 2793 A Pilot Study for Creativity Experiences in a Freshman Introduction to Engineering Course Cynthia Mann, Karen A. High Oklahoma State UniversityAbstractA program launched at Oklahoma State University seeks to enhance the creative abilities ofengineering students. The project objectives are to: improve recruitment and retention; increasethe value of our graduates, and maximize job and lifetime satisfaction for our engineers.The motivation for this program comes from the observation that engineering students may not beenjoying their education

Conference Session

Teaching Entrepreneurship to Engineers

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Howell; Pat Shamamy; Feierfeil Greg; Chris Reidel; Tarek Rizk; Lisa Anneberg

Tech’sengineering program while maintaining the same credit hour requirements for a B.Sc degree.This is accomplished by redefining some technical electives and restructuring the traditionalengineering capstone project sequence as a student enterprise.Table 1: Entrepreneurial Program at Lawrence Technological University Fall Semester Spring Semester Credit CreditYear 1Year 2 Technical & Professional Finance for engineers Communication 3 credits 1 credit Marketing for Engineers Engineering Enterprise 1 credit 1 creditYear 3 Business

Conference Session

Capstone Design and Engineering Practice

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Marian Stachowicz; Rocio Alba-Flores

completing the ECE program at UMD can satisfythe requirement for a senior design project. The design workshop topic for the spring 2002 wasthe use of fuzzy logic to control mobile robots. In this workshop, students worked in smallgroups and were required to design, build and program a mobile robot with intelligent behaviorsusing fuzzy logic. In this workshop no formal lectures were taught, however the studentsreceived an intensive review covering the topics of the 68HC12 microcontroller, principles ofmobile robots, sensors, and fuzzy logic.IntroductionIn the last decade, the topic of mobile robots has become very attractive to engineering students.It has been shown that students working in this topic show more interest in learning digitalelectronics

Conference Session

Assessment of Entrepreneurship Programs

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Jack McGourty

University of Pittsburgh to identify new methodsto develop these important capabilities in engineering and science students. Over the past twoyears, multi-source assessment and feedback processes have been used to support students’development of specific design team skills in Columbia’s first year design course and in theUniversity of Pittsburgh's senior level product realization course. Many of these team skills arerelevant to and highly correlated with entrepreneurial behaviors. This paper addresses how theseinnovative, entrepreneurial traits were: a) identified and defined, b) integrated into the students’learning experience, and c) measured and correlated with team project outcomes.Engineering educators are focusing more on the identification

Conference Session

Learning and Teaching Issues

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Gul Okudan Kremer

StateUniversity during fall 2002 using two sections of an Introduction to Engineering Design course.The pilot study used 16 engineering design teams that completed two design projects. The firstdesign project is a guided project and the second one is an open-ended, industry-sponsoredproject. The data collection was done during the second design project, which lasts about 8weeks of the semester. Preliminary results indicate that design experience affects the performanceof design teams. In addition, despite the fact that the gender orientation of the design task is notfound to be significant—as it is quantified for this preliminary study—the increase of femalestudents in design teams result in lower design performance. However, the data set included

Conference Session

Curriculum Development in Civil ET

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Nicholas; Ted Stilgenbauer; Anthony Brizendine

TechnologyIndependent Learning Experiment at Fairmont State College - Track 3: Design. These modules,which are customized to utilize transportation and transportation structures projects, serve asenhancements to the Design Track in the CET program, specifically enhancing instructionalobjectives in Structures (CIV 290), Structural Design (CIV 440), Advanced Structural Analysis(CIV 410), Surveying II (CIV 240), and Highway Design (CIV 400). Using transportationprojects throughout the scheduling modules provides an experience integrating aspects of thetransportation, structural, and water system tracks within the program. The series is comprised ofThree modules: Module 1, Introduction to MicroStation®; Module 2, MicroStation®Applications for Bridge Design; Module

Conference Session

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Brian West

study was conducted to: • determine where it will best fit into the curricula, • specify the appropriate pre-requisites and co-requisites, • investigate ways to improve the course (including upgrading calculus content), • determine the class goals and objectives, • determine class pedagogy, and • determine assessment requirements.If, upon examination, a class was found unsuitable to be transitioned into the BSE program, it wasexamined for any content that should be retained. Two of the author’s classes, Electrical Projectand Advanced Electronic Circuits, fell into this category, and some of the content was stillneeded.In Electrical Project, the class was conducted as a first coop work assignment. The students

Conference Session

Integrating HSS into the Engineering Curriculum

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Dave Hergert; Ron Earley; Suguna Bommaraju

designcourse is embedded with these attributes so that the student graduates with a well-roundededucation.This paper describes how the engineering technology capstone course (senior design project) atMiami University has been structured to facilitate Liberal education council’s guidelines. The fourcomponents of liberal education are explained in this paper and a discussion of how each of theseattributes is enhanced in the course is presented. For example, the capstone course offers a uniqueopportunity to learn about ethics (understanding contexts attribute). Because the department doesnot have a separate ethics course, a guest speaker lecture on ethics is arranged in the senior designcourse. Students apply this concept to a hypothetical scenario

Conference Session

Innovations in the Aerospace Classroom

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Masoud Rais-Rohani

Session 2602 Experiential Learning in Aircraft Structures Masoud Rais-Rohani Mississippi State UniversityAbstractA design-build-test project is used as means of providing an academic-based, industry-focusedexperiential learning opportunity for students in a senior-level aircraft structures course taught inthe Department of Aerospace Engineering at Mississippi State University. Initiated as a paperdesign project in 1998, the project has rapidly evolved into a comprehensive learning experiencewith prototype development and testing as its two major elements

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Lynn Wang; Paul Klenk; Gary Ybarra

engineering through exposure to four engineering disciplines: civil,mechanical, electrical and computer, and biomedical engineering. For each unit, studentstypically work in groups of three to five to complete a project under the guidance of one of fiveundergraduate Pratt Engineering student teachers. A graduate student coordinates each team ofundergraduate teaching fellows. In Techtronics I, students build balsa wood bridges,programmable robots, heart monitors, and solar powered devices. In Techtronics II, returningand new students are participating in an entirely new curriculum during the 2002-2003 academicyear. Techtronics II is comprised of approximately half returning students and half new students.Though some students have been lost, the 50

Conference Session

Engineering Economy Frontiers

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

James Wilson; Kim Needy; Karen Bursic

Session 1639 Integrating Engineering Economic Analysis Across the Engineering Curriculum Karen M. Bursic, Kim LaScola Needy, James P. Wilson University of PittsburghAbstractA three-phased project is underway in the School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburghthat is aimed at integrating engineering economic analysis across the curriculum. In the firstphase, an engineering economic analysis needs assessment was done. During the second phase ofthe project, the course content for the engineering economic analysis courses is being modifiedbased on the needs

Conference Session

International Engineering Education I

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Ernest Goeres; Elisabeth Sanchez; Alejandro Lozano; Victor Mucino

the protective world of academia, something that has to do with thehuman dimension, the cultural baggage and with the need for lifelong learning skills required tomaintain competitiveness in all fronts.For the past six years, a program developed by West Virginia University in collaboration withuniversities and industry from Queretaro, Mexico has been addressing many of issues cited abovein the context of an experiential exercise. Each year, the program takes place during six weeks ofthe summer session, in which students and faculty from West Virginia travel to Mexico to join asimilar team of Mexican students, faculty plus industrial liaisons to work as a team, despitelanguage and cultural differences. A challenging industrial project (or

Conference Session

K-12 Outreach Initiatives

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Vieth; Kazem Kazerounian

Galileo Project, is an extension of the university’s already-successful da Vinci Project, now entering its fourth year. This paper describes the goals andobjectives of the program and documents progress made during the first nine months.IntroductionThe University of Connecticut School of Engineering, in partnership with the UCONN NeagSchool of Education, selected local school districts, the Greater Hartford Academy for Math andScience, and local industry, received an award from the National Science Foundation’s GraduateTeaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program1 to develop and implement an innovative,comprehensive, affordable, and accessible program to integrate engineering into the secondaryschool curriculum. This program, called the

Conference Session

Issues in Multidisciplinary Programs

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Juan Lucena; Joan Gosink; Barbara Moskal

Session 1843 Humanitarian Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines: An Example of Multidisciplinary Engineering Joan Gosink, Juan Lucena, Barbara Moskal Colorado School of Mines Golden, Colorado 80401Introduction:With the support of a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, we aredeveloping a new program in Humanitarian Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines(CSM). The goal of this project is the nurturing of a new cadre of engineers, sensitive tosocial contexts, committed and qualified to serve humanity by contributing to the

Conference Session

Electrical ET Labs

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

William Conrad; Marvin Needler

Tim King modules were used as part of a three week design project at the endof the semester. Each two-member lab group was assigned one of the five modules. Thegroup was to design the controls for the module. At the conclusion of the project, five programs were placed in a common programto run the complete system. Each group was given the operational specifications and theinput/output diagram. There was a video of each section placed on the course web site.So the groups could observe the operation of their section and of the entire system. There were design problems that resulted in burning out several motors. Themotors in the system will not tolerate being stalled. Electronic current limiting will be

Conference Session

Retention: Keeping the Women Students

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Meredith Aronson; Marie Reyes; Jeff Goldberg

Development Center (VDC) at the University of Arizona committeditself to increasing retention of women students through improving the quality of educationalexperiences. Our approach was to develop programming and coursework for cohorts of womenengineering undergraduates. We focus on opportunities both within and outside the curriculumspanning the 4 undergraduate years: in building community during the freshman year, and inbuilding commitment to engineering by focusing on community projects during the sophomore,junior, and senior years. At this point, we have implemented our junior and senior programs. Thebasic process starts with a 1-day "innovation workshop" led by facilitators from the Institute forWomen and Technology. Next we have a 1-semester

Conference Session

Teamwork & Assessment in the Classroom

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Joseph Shaeiwitz

Session 3613 Observations on Forming Teams and Assessing Teamwork Joseph A. Shaeiwitz West Virginia UniversityIntroductionThere are two, well-known, conventional wisdoms regarding team formation. One is that teamsshould be assigned rather than self selected. Another is that white males dominate all teamfunctions; therefore, women and minorities should not be in the numerical minority on any team.In the Chemical Engineering Department at West Virginia University, students have been doingdesign projects in teams of 3 or 4 each semester in the sophomore and junior

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Belle Upadhyaya

material. The development anddemonstration of the web-based teaching material is focused on one of the modules usedin the college-wide course entitled Introduction to Maintenance Engineering. Themodule incorporates interactive course material, examples, PowerPoint slides, and videoclips of rotating machinery in operation.1. IntroductionIntroduction to Maintenance Engineering is one of the courses that was developedunder a National Science Foundation Combined Research Curriculum Development (NSF-CRCD) project at The University of Tennessee. This is presented as a distance educationcourse and consists of twelve modules. The course presents the principles of variousmaintenance technologies as they are practiced by the U.S. industry. The module

Collection

2003 ASEE North Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Justin Morrill; Stephen Bostrom; Joshua Olson; Steven Hietpas

Laboratory OverviewThe concept of the new energy conversion and electric drives laboratory was birthed in the fallof 1997 with an original estimate of $275,000 to replace essentially all existing equipment. Theproposed layout for this laboratory is shown in Fig. 1. Three components were identified fordesign and fabrication through senior design and student design projects: 1) automated loadbanks (ALB), 2) power processing station, (PPS) and 3) power workstation benches (PWB).The new student laboratory was designed around the PWB, which obtains access to power andload resources located in the utility room via a PC with a National Instruments Data AcquisitionCard and LabView control interface. These resources include 208 and 240 Vac 3-phase

Conference Session

Course and Curriculum Innovations in ECE

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Brinkley Sprunt

languageprogramming, digital devices, or analog devices. As such, the first half of the course has tradition-ally been devoted to the development of assembly language programming skills and interfacingconcepts for digital and analog devices. Consequently, many of the more complex, high-level con-cepts such as polling, interrupts, state machines, and control algorithms are not introduced untillate in the course. This late introduction limits the students’ exposure to these concepts and oftenprevents the students from employing these concepts in their final term projects. This paper de-scribes changes being implemented for the next offering of this course that are intended introducethese more complex topics earlier. The motivation behind these changes is to

Conference Session

Innovative Teaching/Learning Strategies

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Mohammoad Saifi; Julie Wang

students involved, we have developed several teachingmethods for student active learning from the lectures of engineering fundamentals courses tohands-on design laboratory courses. The methods include teamwork, class/group discussion, peertutoring/teaching, and problem solving skills. In each activity, students can be a learner or can bea teacher, to lead or to be led. It creates interaction between teacher and students. The hands-onlaboratory courses reinforce the basic concepts that the students have learned from the lectures.To enhance the students’ laboratory experiences, computer-based design software has been usedin the measurement and the design process. The student design projects are interdisciplinary. Theprojects integrate the knowledge

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Annette George; Gbekeloluwa Oguntimein

strategic and successful vehicles used in achieving this goal. This paper reports on theimpact of funding through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Agreement, between theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA), a federal agency, and Morgan State University (MSU),a minority institution. Under the agreement, a grant was awarded to MSU allowing students toparticipate in research projects at various EPA facilities across the country. From 1991 to presentover one hundred and sixty (160) students have participated in the program. The execution of theprogram and outcomes of this program are presented in this paper. As a result of the success ofthe program, the grant was recently renewed to continue the program for another three (3) years,with renewable

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

John Baker; David Silverstein

actually needed to know how to apply seemingly abstract techniques toreal science and engineering problems. This shortfall in retention leads to additionalwork on the student's behalf and often a slowdown in the progress of a class to ensureadequate time is spent on a topic. While the responsibility to learn this material lies withthe student, it nonetheless impacts the quality of the student's education.This project is designed to address the problem by modifying student attitudes towardslearning calculus by presenting examples in the context of engineering and scienceproblems. The examples would be adapted from the actual sorts of problems engineersand scientists will encounter later in their course of study, but presented with all theemphasis

Conference Session

Unique Laboratory Experiments & Programs

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Theodore Dibble; Carrie Hernandez; Abbie Wells; Steven Barrett

Academy[6-8].Later that year, the co-author was notified the proposal had not been selected for funding by theNSF. The proposal had received a very thorough and fair review by the review panel. Bothpositive and negative feedback was provided on the proposal. The NSF review panel wasconcerned about the feasibility of using student design and in house fabrication of teaching aids.They considered this a risky undertaking. The co-author carefully reviewed the reviewer’scomments and incorporated them into an improved proposal. The proposal was then used toapply for internal college funds, internal university funds, and external foundation funds in aneffort to get the project started. In all cases the project was not funded. Early in 2002

Conference Session

DEED Poster Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Gul Okudan Kremer

solving responsibilities, and to foster engineering principles learning, a team-basedteaching approach is used during the Introduction to Engineering Design (ED&G 100) course atThe Pennsylvania State University. Throughout the course, four-student project teams work ontwo design projects over a 16-week semester. Design projects focus on product improvement orsolution designs.To date, several variables affecting the performance of design teams have been studied, such asteam composition, female/male ratio in the organization, and teamwork skills training, to improvethe performance of product designs. This study furthers this effort by investigating the effect ofguided external research during the concept generation phase of the development

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Blaine Lilly; John Merrill

Session 2793 A Curriculum Collaboration Model: Working with Upper Division Students to Improve a First-Year Program Blaine Lilly, John Merrill, Omer Masud, Stuart Brand, Michael Hoffmann, Anita Ahuja, Vamsi Ivaturi The Ohio State UniversityAbstractThis paper presents an overview of a quarter-long design-build project in the Fundamentals ofEngineering (FE) course sequence, which is part of the First-Year Engineering Program at TheOhio State University (OSU). The current design-build project is discussed

Conference Session

Design Through the Curriculum

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Anna Philips; John Hochstein; William Janna

semester-long design projects. Once projects are awarded,freshmen enrolled in the “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering” course are assigned to workwith the senior design teams. The senior teams function like small consulting companies thatemploy co-operative education students; e.g., the freshmen.One of the objectives of building this collaboration is a desire to increase the retention rate of thefreshmen by involving them with the seniors in some interesting design work. Additionally, theseniors benefit by gaining team leadership experience, and by developing the ability tocommunicate their ideas to a non-technical audience as their design work progresses.This project began in Fall 2001, and at the conclusion of that semester, an assessment

Conference Session

Trends in Mechanical Engineering

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Anna Philips; John Hochstein; William Janna

semester-long design projects. Once projects are awarded,freshmen enrolled in the “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering” course are assigned to workwith the senior design teams. The senior teams function like small consulting companies thatemploy co-operative education students; e.g., the freshmen.One of the objectives of building this collaboration is a desire to increase the retention rate of thefreshmen by involving them with the seniors in some interesting design work. Additionally, theseniors benefit by gaining team leadership experience, and by developing the ability tocommunicate their ideas to a non-technical audience as their design work progresses.This project began in Fall 2001, and at the conclusion of that semester, an assessment