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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

P. B. Ravikumar

_________________________ (Abstract or concrete?)QUESTION III: In achieving goals, are you _________________________ (Cooperative or Utilitarian)?QUESTION IV: What are you most proud of about yourself? (Select ONE from the following): a. Of the degree to which you are graceful in action b. Of the degree to which you are empathic in action c. Of the degree to which you are competent in action d. Of the degree to which you are reliable in actionQUESTION V: What do you respect the most about yourself? (Select ONE from the following): a. Of the degree to which you do good deeds b. Of the degree to which you are daring c. Of the degree to which you are benevolent d. Of the degree to which you are autonomousQUESTION VI: What are you most confident of about

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

B. D. Braaten; D. A. Rogers; R. M. Nelson

ONGOING DEVELOPMENT OF A MODERN RADIO-FREQUENCY (RF) AND MICROWAVE ENGINEERING LABORATORY B. D. BRAATEN1, D. A. ROGERS1 AND R. M. NELSON2 1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering North Dakota State University Fargo, ND 2 Engineering and Technology Department University of Wisconsin Stout Menomonie, WIINTRODUCTION AND HISTORYAt North Dakota State University the RF and Applied Electromagnetics Laboratory has beensignificantly upgraded in order to give undergraduate and graduate students

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

William B. Hudson; Craige O. Thompson

affiliates, consultants, or business associates, unless: i. the information is or becomes publicly known through lawful means; ii. the information was part of my general knowledge prior to the COURSE; or iii.the information is disclosed to me without restriction by a third party who rightfully possesses the information and did not learn of it from the SPONSOR. This definition includes, but is not limited to, (A) schematics, techniques, development tools, processes, computer printouts, computer programs, design drawings and manuals, electronic codes, formulas and improvements; (B) information about costs, profits, markets, sales, customers, and

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

J. T. Anderson; M. R. Weisz; J. A. Meyer; D.L. Hanson; B. D. Braaten; D. A. Rogers

A COST-EFFECTIVE ANTENNA POSITIONING SYSTEM FOR MODERN RADIO-FREQUENCY (RF) AND MICROWAVE ANTENNA MEASUREMENTS J. T. ANDERSON, M. R. WEISZ, J. A. MEYER, D. L. HANSON, B. D. BRAATEN AND D. A. ROGERS Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering North Dakota State University Fargo, ND Contact person email: benbraaten@ieee.orgINTRODUCTIONRecently, the microwave test equipment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department(ECE) at North Dakota State University (NDSU) was significantly upgraded. A new AgilentE5071C 8.5 GHz ENA series network analyzer and an anechoic

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Frank M. Kelso

w = 2× n rad 2 /sec 2 1 b MThis simple analytical model is based on the assumption that (1) friction is insignificant, and (2)distributed quantities such as mass and compliance may be treated as lumped parameters. Theorycan be connected to the real world using a physical implementation of this SDOF pendulum.Pendulum ConstructionThe pendulum of Figures 1 and 2 is constructed from a (modified) 12-inch steel utility square(Figure 3 below). Proceedings of the 2010 ASEE North Midwest Sectional Conference 4 Figure 3

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

D. A. Rogers; O. R. Baiocchi

Midwest Sectional Conference 2STANDARDS FOR TENURETenure means different things to different institutions and faculty depending on their mission andhistory. If we model tenure in three institutional dimensions--type, location, and age wewitness a wide range of perspectives. Fundamentally, tenure can be viewed as a license to teachat a particular i i i . Wi h e e, he i c ime a he i i i i limi ed.Tenure is rooted in the belief in academic freedom. The instructor worthy of tenure will beprotected from prejudice h gh a g a a ee f j b ec i . The fe academic a dprofessional standing including professional integrity

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

AnnMarie Thomas; Amy Miller; Heather Spicuzza

future collaborative projects.INTRODUCTIONEngineering Graphics and Design (ENGR171) is a four-credit required course in the MechanicalEngineering major. It is typically taken during fall or spring semester of the freshman year andis usually the first or second course the student takes in the engineering department. The otherengineering course that electrical and mechanical engineering students take during the freshmanyear is a one-credit Introduction to Engineering course. The following is the ENGR171 coursede c a e U e S.T a c e ca a : T g ac b a f ec ures, hands-on computer lab time, and design projects, studentswill learn to read, and create, engineering drawings and use computer-aided

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Vincent Winstead

SystemsThe battery charging system for each of the four turbine installations was designed in asimilar fashion and closely resembles each other. The Skystream turbine system isunique amongst the other systems due to its standard “grid-connect configuration. Theother three systems are designed for a battery charging system interface and are able toconnect to the electric grid using alternative manufacturer/distributor supplied equipment.The configuration for these three turbine systems will be referred to as configuration A.The Skystream turbine system will be referred to as configuration B and will be describedseparately. All four turbine systems were configured using a four-battery 48V nominalbattery pack constructed of deep cycle sealed Absorbent

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Eric S. Musselman; Andrea J. Schokker

Constructing a Civil Engineering Program from the Ground Up Eric S. Musselmana, PhD, PE; Andrea J. Schokkerb, PhD, LEED AP a Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth MN 55812 b Professor and Department Head, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth MN 55812AbstractThis paper discusses the development and continuing refinement of the curriculum for the newCivil Engineering Program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Included is a discussion ofthe program objectives, curriculum development, and integration of assessment into thecurriculum.IntroductionThe University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a comprehensive regional university located inDuluth, MN. There is an active student

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Allen L. Jones

established, known as the “a” through “k” outcomes. Evaluation of outcome“b”, “a graduating student should have an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well asto analyze and interpret data” was accomplished using a well-designed rubric, as is the subject ofthis paper. The rubric was established and administered in CEE-346L, Geotechnical EngineeringLaboratory. The means of assessment was a particular laboratory experiment, One DimensionalConsolidation Test. The rubric consisted of several indicators in each of the categories: “1” –Below Expectation, “2” – Meets Expectation, and “3” – Exceeds Expectations, with a desiredmetric threshold score of 2 or greater. The rubric was applied to the entire class for the selectedlaboratory exercise during

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Joseph Dobmeier; Joseph Gehrke; Matthew Simones; Patrick Tebbe

Environment Building Wall (a) (b) Figure 1: Examples of unglazed transpired solar collectors, (a) schematic and (b) installation at Breck School gymnasium.detailed the separate contributions of active solar gain, recaptured building wall losses, andreduced building wall losses to the total energy savings.Throughout the project there has been a strong focus and reliance on the assistance of studentresearchers. Several of these students have worked on the project for multiple semesters, takingon new tasks as their experience has grown. The research group throughout has

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Thomas Shepard

A Comprehensive and Culminating Thermodynamics Lab Competition Thomas Shepard University of MinnesotaIntroductionLab components to engineering courses are valuable for providing students with hands-onexperiences, demonstrating principles learned during lecture and developing basic experimentaland measurement skills. Depending on the target learning outcomes, students in a lab class maytake part in a variety of experiences including demonstrations, “cookbook” type experiments,guided inquiry exercises, and independent/design projects (Edwards & Recktenwald, 2010;Prince & Felder, 2006; Prince & Felder 2007). Typically the lab component runs

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Stanley G. Burns

MASTER OF ENGINEERING A ROAD TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Stanley G. Burns Associate Dean and Jack Rowe Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Minnesota Duluth Swenson College of Science and EngineeringINTRODUCTIONThe University of Minnesota Duluth offers Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemical, Civil,Electrical and Computer, Industrial, and Mechanical Engineering with a combined enrollmentapproaching 1000 students. In addition, Master of Science degrees in Electrical and ComputerEngineering, Engineering Management, and a Master of Environmental Health and Safetyprogram are also offered. To respond to our constituencies, the increasing

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Thomas F. Quinn; Ronald H. Brown; George F. Corliss

The GasDay Project at Marquette University: A Laboratory for Real-world Engineering and Business Experiences Thomas F. Quinn, Ronald H. Brown, and George F. Corliss Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Marquette UniversityAbstractThis paper presents Marquette University’s GasDay Project, a research activity that has beendeveloping natural gas demand forecasting models since 1993. The project provides studentswith opportunities for research and employment, and serves as a major technology transfer centerat Marquette by licensing software and forecasting models to energy companies across theUnited States. The project is part of the College

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Daryl L. Logan; Laurie Geyer; Ann Terrill

Dean, and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Program. Proceedings of the 2010 ASEE North Midwest Sectional Conference (a) (b) (c)Figure 2 – a) Child using his redesigned/modified bicycle, b) child positioned at her learningcenter, and c) light activity box showing arrangement of peg holesENHANCEMENT OF DESIGN EXPERIENCEFrom these projects for special needs children, we observe how the design experience for thestudents has been enhanced as follows: Solve real life problems with a sponsor or client. Introduce, interact, and serve students with special needs. Design unique and challenging projects for special needs. Provide a

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Rebecca Bates; Andrew Petersen

available. In practice, this means that feedback is provided moreslowly than desired, but team testing provides immediate feedback by exposing students to their ee de a d g f he a e a a d e g he ab c b e he g .By providing students with more timely feedback, team testing reinforces foundationalknowledge that the remainder of the course requires.In the next section, we describe the baseline team testing implementation. Section 3 provides thepedagogical theory supporting the idea, and Section 4 presents our experiences using variants onthe baseline team testing implementation in the classroom.2. IMPLEMENTING TEAM TESTING2.1 Giving the ExamThe exam format depends on the ultimate goal of the group exam

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Bart Johnson; Ron Ulseth

Conden ed Co e ModelThe majority of classes at ICC are the traditional 16-week semester courses, while classes inICC e ee a (e ineering, math, chemistry, and physics courses) are currentlydelivered a ca e a a e 8-week block format with two eight week blocks persemester. Students generally take two engineering, math, or science classes per block whilecompleting one or two semester long general education courses. Each block class is scheduled 2 e da , 5 da a ee e b e c de a -contact days to allow for student work days or engineering program events. This schedulingformat has the following attributes: Focus on two engineering, math, or

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Thomas Shepard

. The class was graded on the plus/minus system (A, A-, B+, B, B-, ….) and 44.4% ofthe students who did the extra credit saw a single step increase (i.e. B to B+) in their letter gradesuggesting that this option was attractive to students near a grade transition. The course was notgraded on a curve and students could calculate their current grade at any point during the classwhich would have allowed them to know if they were borderline grade-wise. In general thestudents who were performing better in the class also performed better on the extra credit asshown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Distribution of extra credit performance vs. overall performanceDiscussionThe administration of these extra credit assignments was well received by the

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Lance D. Yarbrough; Scott F. Korom; Zhengwen Zeng

need for a streamlined assessment plan andprocesses. Because we found that a single ABET-knowledgeable individual in the program willhave a difficult time convincing colleagues of the importance of assessment, we suggest that atleast t o facult trained in assessment are necessar for the program s continued gro th. ABETaccreditation is needed to attract new students, yet the work required to retain that accreditationcan certainly seem overwhelming. The death b assessment mantra might begin to ring inone s ears. However, it does not have to completely consume your time. With proper trainingand a willing set of faculty, you can offer a growing, improving program, while providingstudents an enriched engineering education.HOW DID WE VIEW ASSESSMENT

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Douglas F. De Boer

grades.Finally, it is important to analyse the grades about every week during the first month or so of theclass in order to rapidly identify students who need help. Figure 3 shows a spreadsheet of peergrades from an actual class the author taught. (The names have been changed.) Here a “4”represents an “A,” a “3” is a “B,” a “2” is a “C” and a blank or a dash is an “F.” After just threepeer grades (one week of class) it is clear that Jana Fulton, Jean Islos and Jarad Olthof, and JennyQuade need help. Jenny and Jana’s grades show improvement after intervention. Figure 3, Typical peer grades from about the first three weeks of a peer graded course. Students in need of help can be rapidly identified.Although peer grading has drawn

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Byron Garry

simulating workingfor an engineering manager in industry as a newly-hired engineer. They used their webpagesetup and rubrics to monitor the design process. They also reported that they had to develop andchange their rubrics over time, as experience showed that new considerations arose over time.Sealy 17 published examples of the rubrics they used for assessment of ABET Program Outcomes(a) and (b). His department spent a great deal of time talking about the workload necessary toproperly implement the assessment process. They, as are most programs, were concerned that anassessment method which causes an undue burden on faculty would not be successful in the longrun. They felt the use of standardized rubrics across the program helped lessen the

Collection

2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Beckry Abdel-Magid

between these two approaches are presented inthis paper. It is shown that while the second approach is rather daring and time consuming forboth faculty and staff, it has more potential to provide a better learning experience to studentsand help them attain all the elements of EAC-ABET Outcome 3b.IntroductionOutcome (b) of criterion 3 of program outcomes specified by the Engineering AccreditationCommission of ABET states that students should attain “an ability to design and conductexperiments as well as to analyze and interpret data”. The outcome consists of four elements:designing an experiment, conducting an experiment, analyzing data, and interpreting data. Thelast three elements can easily be addressed in a typical engineering laboratory

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

William R. Peterson; Guanghsu Chang

and applying engineering management and adaptionof new technology principles, the first step became to rethink the course’s presentation. What is aseminar? Webster’s (Neufeldt , 1988) defines it as: “seminar…1 a group of supervised students doing research or advanced study, as at a university, 2 a) a course for such a group, or any of its sessions b) a room where the group meets 3 any similar group discussion” Proceedings of the 2010 ASEE North Midwest Sectional ConferenceDiscussion, research, and advanced study seemed to be the key concepts in both the course andin a seminar style of presentation.The next step was to consider the students in the class. The typical students in these programswere working

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Daniel Ewert; Ron Ulseth; Bart Johnson; Andrew McNally

engineering education. Arlington, VA:National Science Foundation. 2007.[5] Redish, E.F. & Smith, K.A. Looking beyond content: Skill development for engineers.Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 295-307. 2008.[6] Adams, R.S. & Felder, R.M. Reframing professional development: A systems approach topreparing engineering educators to educate tomorrow’s engineers. Journal of EngineeringEducation, 97(3), 239-240. 2008.[7] Obama, B. “Remarks by the President at the National Academy of Science AnnualMeeting”. The White House Office of the Press Secretary, April 27, 2009. Retrieved January7th, 2010 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-the-National-Academy-of-Sciences-Annual-Meeting/. 2009.[8] ABET

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Robert W. Williams; Salam F. Rahmatalla

the hands-on education necessary to produce engaged and competent engineers. Proceedings of the 2010 ASEE North Midwest Sectional Conference 7AcknowledgementsProf. Colby Swan at the University of Iowa provided some valuable feedback for this paper. Hishelp is greatly appreciated.ReferencesBloom, B. S. and D. R. Krathwohl (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives; the classification of educational goals, by a Committee of College and University Examiners. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York, D. McKay Co.CEE. (2008). "The Mission, Objectives, and Outcomes of UI's Civil Engineering Program of Undergraduate Education

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Waddah Akili

, thosepromoting the change must be able to show that PBL is effective for engineering education.It is highly recommended that an Active Learning Taskforce be formed of experienced faculty,to initiate, infuse, and oversee the progress made. Their determination, patience, and resilienceare required to successfully promote college-wide implementation of PBL. Nevertheless, withclear intentions, goals and plans of action, coupled with support from the highest level of theUniversity’s key personnel, the Taskforce and other core groups, should be able to move theprocess forward. Success would almost be guaranteed, when a well-coordinated university-wideimplementation of PBL is underway in other colleges of the University.Bibliography1. Allen, D. E., Duch, B. J

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Melanie I. Cashin; Saeed Moaveni

’ written communication skills, a professor of mechanicalengineering collaborated with an English graduate student to study the common mistakes madeby students and find ways to intervene and reduce mistakes before they graduate. In thefollowing sections, we will discuss the class profile, typical written mistakes, the interventionmethod, and the results of our findings.The Class ProfileThe seminar class consisted of 31 students with the following composition: three internationaland 28 domestic. Eighteen of these students received A (17 domestic, 1 international), tenreceived B (8 domestic, 2 international), and three students received C (all domestic) grades fortheir efforts in the English Composition class. Moreover, eight students took the

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Christopher R. Carroll

Intelligent Control on the S12 Microcontroller Using Fuzzy Logic Instructions Christopher R. Carroll University of Minnesota DuluthIntroductionIntelligent Control is a modern phrase that implies using creative algorithms in computer controlapplications to address problems in unusual, or “intelligent,” ways. One tool that is used toimplement Intelligent Control is Fuzzy Logic, a scheme by which computer applications canmake decisions on imprecise, incomplete, or “fuzzy” information. This approach to IntelligentControl has seen application in various commercial products, from home appliances tosophisticated system designs. The

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Deborah Nykanen; Ashley Rehder

Bringing Engineering Concepts into the Kindergarten Classroom Deborah Nykanen, Associate Professor, Mechanical & Civil Engineering Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN Ashley Rehder, Kindergarten Teacher Hoover Elementary School, North Mankato, MN Corresponding Author: Deborah Nykanen, deborah.nykanen@mnsu.edu, 507-389-3200AbstractThis paper focuses on the K in the K-12 pipeline for engineering education. It will describe theexperiences of the partnership of an engineering professor and elementary teacher in bringingengineering activities into a kindergarten classroom. It will discuss how the activities wereadapted for the kindergarten level and will provide suggestions on how to integrate them

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2010 North Midwest Section

Authors

Deborah Nykanen; Rebecca Bates; Marilyn Hart; Mezbahur Rahman

Developing Academic, Professional and Life Skills in Undergraduate Engineers through an Interdisciplinary Peer-Mentoring Support System Deborah Nykanen, Rebecca Bates, Marilyn Hart, Mezbahur Rahman Minnesota State University, Mankato Civil Engineering / Computer Science / Biological Sciences / Mathematics1. IntroductionUndergraduate engineering programs prepare students for a career in engineering by buildingknowledge of fundamental engineering concepts and developing skills in engineering design.Due to limitations on program credits, broadening the student’s education beyond the requiredengineering coursework is typically limited to mandatory humanity and social science electives.Developing