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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Jerry Gao; Lianbo Zhu

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0055 Professional Skill Development for Engineering Management Students Jerry Gao, Associate Professor, Dept. of Construction Engineering, North Dakota State university, jerry.gao@ndsu.edu Lianbo Zhu, Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, zhulb39@126.comAbstractThe employers in the construction engineering and management fields have very high demandsregarding students’ professional skills. However, the majority of the courses in the constructionengineering and management programs have been

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Charles McIntyre

construction engineer or manager, & have a much more challenging form of the hand on projects. Maybe with the Hotel Plaza Project all groups to design a building and then construct it. I would like to see an actual construction manager and/or engineer come in and speak about the experiences about the program at NDSU and how it prepared them for their career, and some of the tasks that they currently perform. Preferably someone who has graduated in the last 5 years. I suggest working with a model that has more complex

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Adam Kramschuster; Gregory Slupe

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0056 A Collaborative, Cross-Disciplinary Project between Engineering Courses and Programs Centered on Design for Manufacturability Adam Kramschuster and Gregory Slupe kramschustera@uwstout.edu; slupeg@uwstout.edu Department of Engineering and Technology, University of Wisconsin-Stout 807 3rd Street East, Menomonie, WI 54751, USAAbstractThis manuscript describes a collaborative, cross-disciplinary effort between the B.S. inManufacturing Engineering program and the B.S. in Plastics Engineering program at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Stout. In one course, plastics

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

J. E. Johnson; L. Stradins; S Springer; R. Asthana

the only undergraduate program in manufacturing engineering in the entire Universityof Wisconsin System. The B.S. in manufacturing engineering program at UW-Stout beganofficially in the fall of 1994. The university also offers a M.S. degree in manufacturingengineering.UW-Stout’s manufacturing engineering B.S. and M.S. degree programs are offered by theDepartment of Engineering and Technology. The department manages two endowed chairpositions: George Albert Taft Chair and Fulton and Edna Holtby Chair. The initial appointmentsto these chairs are for three years. The Taft Chair is named in honor of G.A. Taft and wasendowed by his daughter, Esther Quinn, and her husband, Robert Quinn. Taft was associatedwith the Dunn County News in Menomonie

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Naima Kaabouch; Deborah L. Worley; Jeremiah Neubert; Mohammad Khavanin

vehicles (UAVs) Portable devices: Resistors Robots for rehabilitation Diabetes and foot ulcers UAV parameterization Green energy: Greenhouse gas emissions Microscope design Wind energy Collision avoidance model Aircraft and rivetsStudents were recruited into the program during the fall 2012 and the spring 2013 semesters.The recruiting process involved a 10-minute presentation in Calculus I and Calculus II courses atthe beginning each semester. Students were told that they would: 1) use real-world engineeringexamples as homework to learn Calculus I and II concepts; and 2) work on that homework withexperienced, upper-level engineering

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Andy S. Peng; Robert Nelson; Cheng Liu; Ahmet Turkmen; Wei Shi; Jia-Ling Lin

describes the design and development of a hybrid instructional model which was usedto fulfill the curriculum requirements of a core engineering course in the computer engineeringprogram at the University of Wisconsin – Stout (UW–Stout). By using this unique hybridinstructional model, the computer engineering program was able to accommodate the demandingwork schedule of the adjunct instructor while meeting the learning needs of the students. Thisresearch study uses the term hybrid to denote the mixing of online course delivery and in-classroom interactive activities. In this hybrid instructional model, the instructional timetraditionally spent in the classroom setting is greatly reduced and replaced with online learningactivities. The majority of

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Francis Peloubet; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

our graduating seniors outside of their normal comfort zone in a structuredand supportive class environment. The course has steadily evolved to keep pace with the ever-changing science and technology and the evolving expectations of the profession and the societywe serve. In this model, carefully chosen real world projects are assigned. Faculty and guestspeakers make presentations on engineering design process; engineering project management;leadership in an engineering environment; relationship of engineering projects, business, andpublic policy; global perspective in engineering; and professional career and licensure. Studentswork together in teams while a select number of faculties act as technical consultants. Otherfaculty members act as

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Han-Way Huang

students.Engineering students usually study the syntax and semantics of low-level programminglanguages (PL) such as C or assembly in one or two semesters. They have fewer opportunities toapply the learnt programming skills compared with computer science or software engineeringstudents. It is common for engineering students to forget the syntax of C language. When a classproject involves software programming, students often spent a large amount of time indebugging syntax and semantics errors, with little time left for algorithm development andverification. Some engineering students consider writing a small program with 300 to 500 linesof code as a painful experience. And a large percentage of the junior or senior design projectsthat could not be accomplished

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cory J. Prust; Stephen M. Williams

Engineering (EE) program at the MilwaukeeSchool of Engineering (MSOE), design is strongly integrated into many courses1. These projectsare generally short-term in the context of an eleven-week term, and involve individual or two- 211student teams. The projects lead to the major capstone design experience, Senior Design, whichis a three-term course sequence: EE-407/8/9. Each term consists of an eleven week term, so threeterms is one academic year. While all EE students are required to take this course sequence,interdisciplinary projects may be undertaken, and the teams can include other engineeringstudents: computer, mechanical, software, etc. Over the 26 years of the existence of this course,it has

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Steven Buchhop; Tate Carlson; Evan Edwards; Prakash Ranganathan; Reza Fazel-Rezai

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0014 Household Energy Aware Real-Time System (HEARTS): A Capstone Project Design Steven Buchhop, Tate Carlson, Evan Edwards, Prakash Ranganathan, and Reza Fazel-Rezai University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202 prakash.ranganathan@engr.und.eduAbstract— This paper discusses a design framework and student experiences of a capstone project carried by students at theDepartment of Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota (UND). The goal of this capstone project was to provide a“Smart Home” that

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Audrey LaVallie; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0004 Impact of a Research Experience Program on North Dakota Tribal College STEM Student Retention Audrey LaVallie1, Eakalak Khan2, and G. Padmanabhan2 1 Faculty, Turtle Mountain Community College, Belcourt, North Dakota (e-mail: alavallie@tm.edu) 2 Professor of Civil Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota (e-mails: Eakalak.khan@ndsu.edu and g.padmanabhan@ndsu.edu respectively)Abstract Recent educational research shows that students who engage in research projects aremore likely to

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Scott G. Gabert; Jeff C. Kaiser; Derek J. Snyder; Prakash Ranganathan; Reza Fazel-Rezai

realizing digital computers and analog systems. On demand.EE Electives EE 421 and EE 423 Power System courses.Education Outcome 1: Ability to communicate effectively, not only with engineers but also with thecommunity at large In-depth technical competence in at least one engineering discipline. This is donevia several written and oral presentations throughout the two semesters at UND.Educational Outcome 2: Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution. Thisoutcome was accomplished by several refining process of design stages such as preliminary reviewdesign (PDR) and other successive weekly meetings with advisor.Educational Outcome 3: Ability to utilize a systems approach to design and

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Reza Fazel-Rezai; Sima Noghanian; Ahmed Rabbi

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0030 MATLAB, Mathematics, and Engineering (MAT-ME) Summer Camp for Preparing Students for Engineering Subjects Reza Fazel-Rezai, Sima Noghanian, and Ahmed Rabbi Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota reza.fazel-rezai@engr.und.edu, sima.noghanian@engr.und.edu, ahmed.rabbi@my.und.edu  AbstractProfessors in the engineering programs see many freshmen engineering students strugglewith the intensive math contents of the courses. This is mainly because the materials aremore difficult and different than the math they learned in high school. While

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bakr M. Aly Ahmed; Khaled Nassar; Mike Christenson

on situation and context.IntroductionEffective communication skills are required in all aspects of contemporary life.1 Inarchitecture/engineering/construction (AEC) fields, effective communication is not limited to theways in which constituents communicate face-to-face with others, which necessarily involvesaspects such as body and facial gestures; it also includes distance communications of work-related details and spatial relationships requiring a high degree of accuracy and clarity.Therefore, developing strong technical and practical communication skills is important for AECstudents, particularly to prepare for the professional requirements of distance communicationwith clients, government officials, managers, supervisors, and

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Annamalai Pandian

section1. The engineering students alwayschallenge the reason to go through various course works during the school years. In the senioryear, the same students realize the importance of knowing what they have learned in the past fewyears. The senior class students are required to participate in a team based project work andclassroom presentation. These team-based projects help the students to develop the leadershipskills, inter-personnel skills, time management, presentation and of course engineering problem-solving skills.This team based project work was developed to train the students on feasibility studies. Themanufacturing systems design and simulation (MFGE-440) course class was divided in to fiveteams; each team was given a different product

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Naima Kaabouch; Deborah L. Worley; Jeremiah Neubert; Mohammad Khavanin

50%depending on the institution. The dropout rate is even higher for underrepresented groups.Research studies show that the significant factors of attrition in engineering programs arequantitative skill level, student study habits, commitment to the program, and connections topeers. This paper describes an approach to address some of these factors. In this approach, wepositioned the use of peer mentors as an improved institutional effort to retain students inengineering. Results show that the engineering peer mentoring program was considered helpfulin learning calculus by the majority of Calculus I and Calculus II student participants.I IntroductionExperts predict that the total number of students graduating with STEM degrees will not

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Zhiyuan Yang; Hope L. Weiss; Matthew J. Traum

future.1 Thus, within STEM curricula, a need exists to provide practical,hands-on training in gas turbine systems. In parallel, however, a pragmatic need remains tobalance energy-focused training with classical engineering and science fundamentals whilekeeping institutional costs manageable. New energy course content and the laboratoryapparatuses used to deliver it must be carefully evaluated and integrated so as not to overburdenSTEM programs or curricula.Three approaches predominate the instruction of gas turbine systems in current engineeringcurricula. First, gas turbine system theory can simply be taught in a lecture course without anaccompanying laboratory, 2 which deprives students of hands-on experience. Second, the “virtuallaboratory

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Majura F. Selekwa

industrialsystems. As such knowledge of using microcontrollers in design and development of mechanicalsystems has become an increasingly important subject. Generally, the subject of microcontrollersis taught as Embedded Systems for electrical and computer engineering students, and mainly aspart of Mechatronics for mechanical and chemical engineering students. Students in electrical 425engineering, electronic engineering, computer engineering and computer science tend to have agreater leverage in understanding microcontrollers. There are many other subjects in their fieldsof study that help them better understand microcontrollers. On the opposite side, however, stu-dents in mechanical engineering and chemical

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cristinel Ababei; Anca M. Miron

edition of this projectand discuss some of its findings. Furthermore, we present some new ideas that we plan topursue in the future editions of this camp (the second edition will be organized in 2014). 62Description of the Summer CampThe WEE-GIRLS summer camp is designed for one week. During a typical day (9am-1pm)in this program, students attend class discussion, perform hands-on activities and projects,meet female students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, hearvarious speakers, and tour NDSU labs and local high-tech companies. Guest speakers ofthis program include members of the FORWARD (Focus on Resources for Women’sAdvancement, Recruitment/Retention, and Development

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Aurenice M. Oliveira

to the industry with the latest technologies in their fields.Most of the instructors, however, face the challenge of teaching both non-majors and majors,sometimes even in the same classroom. The aim of this article is to discuss the main challengesand to share teaching methods that the author has used to encourage active learning andengagement among major and non-major students in an Electrical Engineering Technologyprogram. The author addresses the use of technology for teaching, the use of lecture timeeffectively, the importance of well-designed laboratory experiments, and use of simulation tools.Assessment tools have indicated that the teaching methods used have been successful in meetingthe teaching goals.Keywords: engineering education

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Sousada Chidthachack; Mark A. Schulte; Forster D. Ntow; Jia-Ling Lin; Tamara J. Moore

university is inpartnership with a community college to create an entirely project-based learning (PBL) modelwhere students are expected to combine learning of technical information with the execution ofengineering design projects. The developers and proponents of the PBL strongly believe that anintegrative program (PBL) can empower students to develop technical and professionalknowledge and competencies in context of industry sponsored project-based learning and betterprepare students to face challenges in an increasingly globalized technological world.3,4 Thetraditional curriculum, on the other hand, involves classroom instruction, homework, andassessments.ABET Professional Skills For the past two decades, engineering programs and

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Dilpreet S. Bajwa; Sreekala G. Bajwa

design and manufacture high quality products at a minimum cost in a fast pacedenvironment, they are now more interested in the workforce who understands what is requiredfor the growth and profitability of the company. The present issue faced by industry andmanufacturing sector is not the number of students but well qualified and trained engineeringstudents (Deleveaux & Ruud, 1997). A few earlier studies have highlighted some of the major weakness of the engineering studentsas identified by the manufacturing industry (Hood, Sorensen, & Magleby, 1993, Trent & Todd,2012). The deficiencies include effective interpersonal and communication skills, projectplanning, time management, multi-disciplinary knowledge, teamwork, budget planning

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Gale Allen; Cameron Johnson

services for application programs 7. Case studies: RTOS in practices RTOS selection issues FreeRTOS (open source) 4. Requirement engineering (6th – 8th) CoDeSys runtime system (industry) Table 1. Course topics2.2 Course Learning OutcomesOur overall aim is to equip students with the knowledge of designing real-time systems anddeveloping real-time applications to solve engineering problems in practice. In the developmentof this course, we identify course learning outcomes that stem from this aim and extend tolearning activities. We developed twelve learning outcomes, classified into three corecomponents as shown in Figure 1.1. To demonstrate the ability of

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bakr M. Aly Ahmed; Mike Christenson; David A. Crutchfield

. As justification for theproposal, the executive summary states:“This project will benefit all NDSU students by improving their access to a specificcategory of technology which is presently grossly underrepresented at the University:technology for measuring, displaying, and predicting the energy efficiency of buildings.... students in NDSU’s professional design and engineering programs will benefit fromaccess to technology which improves their ability to design, construct, and manageenergy-efficient buildings.”The team’s proposal was partially approved in Spring 2011. Among the approved portions of theproposal were several tools and technologies related to the investigation and diagnosticevaluation of environmental conditions. The approval

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Han-Way Huang; Nannan He

projects. Second, we need to find an easy-to-use and affordable IDE software forstudents to develop and debug their program. Third, we need to find an appropriate textbook orprepare lecture notes. This paper presents our experience of teaching the ARM Cortex-M4microcontroller in our second microprocessor course of our computer engineering program.A brief history of ARMIn 1983, the British company Acorn saw the need to move beyond 8-bit CPU architecture and aproject to invent a new CPU instruction set was started. In April 1985, the first 32-bit ARMprocessor implemented in the 3 ǂm process came to life. It was a 32-bit RISC machine builtwith only 25,000 transistors. This processor was used as the processor of the Acorn’s multimediaPC. A later