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2008 GSW

Authors

Sergio Chacon; Mequanint Moges

Session 6-3 Project-Based Learning in Telecommunications: An Approach To Teaching New Technologies Sergio Chacon, Mequanint Moges Engineering Technology Department University of Houston AbstractThis paper provides a description of our approach to teaching new technologies in the senior-leveltelecommunications course in the University of Houston’s College of Technology (CoT). In thiscourse, students are required to work on two projects during the semester: 1) the

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2008 GSW

Authors

Steve Menhart

Session 17-2 Teaching a Modern Digital Systems Design Course: How to Select the Appropriate Programmable Devices and Software? Steve Menhart Department of Engineering Technology University of Arkansas at Little Rock AbstractFaculty face many tradeoffs and choices when they are called upon to select the programmablelogic and associated software that they will use in their digital courses and that is the primaryfocus of this paper. The integrated lecture/laboratory digital systems design course in

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2008 GSW

Authors

Farrokh Attarzadeh; Enrique Barbieri; Ankur Shukla; Prafulla Kesari

. Gallardo, Enrique Barbieri, “Toward Best Laboratory Management Practices,” Proceedings of the 2007 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, UTPA, March 28-30. 3. Farrokh Attarzadeh, Victor J. Gallardo, Deniz Gurkan, Enrique Barbieri, “Teaching and Graduate Assistants Training,” Proceedings of the 2007 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, UTPA, March 28-30.FARROKH ATTARZADEHDr. Attarzadeh is an associate professor in the Engineering Technology Department, College ofTechnology at the University of Houston. He teaches software programming, operating systems, digitallogic, and is in charge of the senior project course in the Computer Engineering Technology Program. Hehas developed a concept

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2008 GSW

Authors

Carol Costello; August Allo

Session 5-2 Simulating the Engineering Workplace: An Innovative Teaching Methodology in a Senior Electrical Engineering Class Carol Costello, August Allo Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Texas at San Antonio AbstractConcerns regarding the ability of the U. S. to produce competitive scientists andengineers have stimulated a major reconsideration of curricula in many universities. Thispaper documents the results of an innovative engineering professionalism programintegrated into the first semester of a two-semester

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2008 GSW

Authors

Jerry K. Keska

laboratory for a course in Instrumentation and Measurements.The course, designed for the undergraduate junior level, was a two-semester course for a total offour credits, and it took place in conjunction with a one-hour classroom lecture in mechanicalengineering. A modified version of this approach, however, can easily be used at all levels of themechanical engineering curriculum. This laboratory’s development process began by writing asuccessful proposal for outside funding in order to create a hands-on teaching laboratory. A two-semester long, open-ended project was utilized, a process which required the students to come upwith creative approaches to problem solving. Consequently, a full-cycle learning experience tookplace. The students began with

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2008 GSW

Authors

Arup Maji; Mahmoud Reda Taha

Engineering and Construction Management. In an attempt to better integratethe Engineering students and Management degree students as well as to seek newefficiency in teaching, the Construction Management students were required to take a 4credit course that was previously required only of the Engineering students. The courseon “Civil Engineering Materials” includes a significant laboratory component and was tobecome the only laboratory course taken by the Construction Management students intheir 4-year curriculum. Starting Fall 2006, the prerequisites and course content werechanged to accommodate the new clientele. The integration proved to be challengingpartly due to the diverse academic background of the two cohorts of students(management and

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2008 GSW

Authors

Mohamad H. Ahmadian

The University of New Mexico – Albuquerque Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering Education To teach team work and improve learning the idea of small group activities has already been implemented in the engineering and engineering technology laboratory assignments. A few institutions also have created learning communities to create an environment where students have an opportunity to register in a cluster of classes during a given term. This idea is a pre- designed instructional system that leads to instructional restructuring of students’ time, credit, and learning experiences to build communities and to foster more explicit connections among students, among students and their

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2008 GSW

Authors

Walter W. Buchanan

alternative energy producers, as well as a staticdisplay solar panel and a second wind turbine, will be part of the public exhibit. Foranother part of the exhibit, seniors in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (ME Lab)course built a wind turbine display complete with LED lights to show the magnitude ofthe power produced when a fan was operated at various speeds. Another team of seniorsin ME Lab instrumented wall simulations to measure the temperature drop acrossdifferent insulation materials. A similar display on the effects of window treatments(single pane, double pane, and double pane with low E) was also developed. The desiredresult of these efforts is an energy display which will educate the general public onrelevant energy issues. The display

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2008 GSW

Authors

Matthias W. Pleil

Mechanical Engineering Department University of New Mexico Thor D. Osborn Sandia National Laboratories AbstractThis paper will showcase an innovative approach to creating interest in microsystemsengineering processing and design at the community college undergraduate level. Thisproject based curriculum begins to address some of the economic competitiveness issuesraised in the recent National Academy of Sciences report “Rising Above the GatheringStorm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future,” and theNational Academy of Engineering’s “Engineer of 2020.” Common points raised includethe students

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2008 GSW

Authors

Victor Gallardo; Mequanint Moges; Enrique Barbieri; Aymara Boggiano; Carlos Ramirez

Padre Island, March 28 -30, 2007, on CD-ROM.4. F. Attarzadeh, V. J. Gallardo, E. Barbieri, “Toward Best Laboratory Management Practices” Proceedings of the 2007 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, University of Texas–Pan America, March 28-30, South Padre Island, TX5. F. Attarzadeh, V. J. Gallardo, D. Gurkan, E. Barbieri, “Teaching and Graduate Assistants Training” Proceedings of the 2007 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, University of Texas–Pan America, March 28-30, South Padre Island, TX6. D. Gurkan, F. Attarzadeh, D. Benhaddou, V.J. Gallardo, and S. Chacón, “Learning-Centered Laboratory Instruction for Engineering Technology,” Proc. of the 2006 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, Southern University

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2008 GSW

Authors

Ian A. Gravagne; Kenneth W. Van Treuren

and execute a research project in the theme, “The campus as an energy-efficiency and alternative-energy laboratory.”The burgeoning term “energy literacy” suggests that people exhibit varying degrees of energyknowledge. Many may not fully understand the differences between a BTU and a Calorie, a Wattand a VA, what a KWh is on their electric bill, why there are different grades of gasoline (and what“octane” means), and the foundational place in industrialized civilization of the heat engine. Thus,the central – but not sole – aim of the Energy ELG is to teach the science of energy and therefore topromote energy literacy. The majority of the class time will be spent on objectives 1 and 2,encompassing the science of energy. However, it is

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2008 GSW

Authors

Edward Crowley

curriculum developer,with several challenges. These challenges include defining the applied cryptographycourse with respect to course goals, scope, content, and organization. While there arewell-established cryptography courses offered in the Computer Science and Mathematicsdisciplines, these classes tend to focus on mathematical foundations rather than servicesand applications. Consequently, the developer of such courses finds that resourcesparticularly those relating to “hands-on” activities are lacking.For a lab module designer, creating modules that support an applied cryptography classpresents several unique challenges. For example, the choice of laboratory softwarepresents a unique challenge. This is especially true since most commercial

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2008 GSW

Authors

Ian A. Gravagne; Kenneth Van Treuren

objective of the educators to keep the courses accessible to engineeringmajors of any stripe (e.g. electrical, mechanical, biomedical, general, etc.) possessing theappropriate prerequisites. Energy is, at its best, a naturally interdisciplinary subject, though thereare pedagogical challenges inherent with teaching to such a broad audience. Another challenge isthe introduction of appropriate computational tools in the courses, which is the subject of thispaper. TRNSYS in Solar EnergyTRNSYS (“Transient System Simulator,” pronounced “tran-sis”) was originally developed at theUniversity of Wisconsin in the 1970s for numerical analysis of solar hot water heating systems.The UW Solar Energy Laboratory continues its

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2008 GSW

Authors

Kenneth W. Van Treuren; Ian A. Gravagne

. Heteaches the capstone Mechanical Engineering Laboratory course as well as courses in heat transfer, aerospaceengineering, fluid mechanics, and wind power. His research interests include energy education and literacy and gasturbine heat transfer. He can be contacted at Kenneth_Van_Treuren@baylor.edu.IAN A. GRAGAVNEDr. Gravagne is an assistant professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at BaylorUniversity. He teaches the Engineering Design II (“senior design”) course, as well as technical electives in solarenergy, robotics and engineering mathematics. His principal research interests are the engineering applications ofdynamic equations on time scales and energy education. He can be contacted at Ian_Gravagne@baylor.edu

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2008 GSW

Authors

E. H. Shaban

disciplines and are considered elective courses at the undergraduatelevel degree. Some schools have added an extra year (fifth year) to allow the student to graduatewith a master degree in addition to the undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. All thesecourses should be elective courses, in my opinion, to allow the electrical engineering student toexpand his knowledge in depth about his or her own interest. It does not make any sense that ageneral electrical engineering degree should be introduced by requiring the student to takemultiple unrelated courses in many disciplines. During teaching undergraduate students inelectrical engineering, I discovered that many students do not pass the communication course forthe first time. Similar

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2008 GSW

Authors

Marwan Al-Haik; Zayd Leseman; Claudia Luhrs; Mahmoud Reda Taha

is as old as thenanotechnology field itself 1. One of the first stand alone nanotechnology undergraduate degrees inthe world was established at Flinders University (Australia) in 20002. The pioneers at Flindersraised a valuable concern “The field (nanotechnology) is currently in its infancy and is incrediblybroad, spanning chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics and engineering. This is in fact probablyan incomplete list but it makes the point. How do you possibly teach all these areas to students in afour year honors degree?“2. Alternatively, other investigators proposed, utilizing lower divisioncourses as a departure course to familiarize undergraduate students with concepts ofnanotechnology3. All these successful pioneering experiences

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2008 GSW

Authors

Walter W. Buchanan; Jerome Tapper; Alireza Rahrooh

for two-thirds of a public institution’s funding to come from the state.Today things are dramatically different. A recent survey found that state funding can varyfrom eight percent to up to 57 percent of a state four-year institution of highereducation’s budget. On the low end were national research institutions and on the highend were predominantly teaching intuitions. [1] The rational from the respective statelegislatures appeared to be that research institutions could get by for less due to the grantmoney they took in. Their student tuition also tends to be higher. However, funding fromthe state and student tuition is not enough. Almost all public institutions now mustengage in fundraising to be able to balance their budgets. The question

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2008 GSW

Authors

Farrokh Attarzadeh; Enrique Barbieri; Miguel A Ramos; Mayuri Mahajan; Vishal Naik; Aditya Gupta

. References 1. Attarzadeh, Farrokh, “Innovations in Laboratory Development for Computer Engineering Technology Programs,” IJME, Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2007, http://www.ijme.us/, Accessed on 2/10/2008. 2. Attarzadeh, Farrokh, “Empowering Students to Become Highly Skilled Professionals for the 21st Century Industries,” Proc. of The 9th Annual IJME-INTERTECH International Conference, Session EN, October 19-21, 2006, Keen University, Union, NJ. Proceedings of the 2008 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of New Mexico – Albuquerque Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering

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2008 GSW

Authors

Eddie Miller; Chun L. Huang

geometry building through the solution process, topost processing and final output. FLUENT's performance has been tried and proven on a variety ofmulti-platform clusters. At the undergraduate level, we believe that FLUENT can be integrated intothe current mainstream fluid mechanics through examples of fluid mechanics problems solvingtechniques. Although a degree of uncertainty exists using the software as opposed to actual real-world analysis of the fluid mechanics process, the increased experience in using computationalsoftware allows the student to model the real world phenomena both graphically and analytically. Inthis paper, we will share some experiences and views on teaching and learning fluid mechanicscourse

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2008 GSW

Authors

Farrokh Attarzadeh; Enrique Barbieri; Miguel Ramos

(read as C- LABS) Project [19, 20, 21] in summer 2004. The Proceedings of the 2008 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of New Mexico – Albuquerque Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering EducationCLABS Project was made possible with a change in administration of the college anddepartment, hiring a new generation of energetic faculty and strong desire to change at alllevels. The rationale behind the CLABS Project is reported in several publications [22, 23,24, 25]. Recently, the department was awarded an NSF grant titled “An InnovativeApproach to Learning via Peer-to-Peer Undergraduate Mentoring in EngineeringTechnology Laboratories” that further refines and

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2008 GSW

Authors

Luciana Barroso; Jim Morgan

persistent and cannot be easily debunked by standardinstruction with lectures, textbooks, demonstrations or laboratories. Educators and researchers havelooked at using computers to enhance classroom instruction ever since the technology made itfeasible to do so. This is particularly effective for topics that involve motion of objects or othersignificant visual components that are not easily represented on a black board. Simulation programsalso allow complex systems to be quickly and easily modeled and can be adapted to many differentlearning styles. The authors have collaborated in the development of a dynamics simulationsoftware package that has the power and flexibility to handle the model systems normallyencountered in a course in dynamics in

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2008 GSW

Authors

Pradeep K. Bhattacharya; Jiecai Luo

. 6. ConclusionsThe impact of a multi-initiative effort on a complex problem as proper ethics teaching tool ina university or school is difficult to assess with firm casual approaches [7]. However, Proceedings of the 2008 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of New Mexico – Albuquerque Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering Educationqualitative connections can be identified for, before, within, or after undergraduate levelclasses in each subject and assessed. Newer student design competitions should be steadilygrown by industries. Newer research and development laboratories should be opened to bringmore hands on “real world” training from industries to

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2008 GSW

Authors

George D. Gray

. The hands-on lab in a supportive learningenvironment helps to develop a sense of involvement and fun for the new students.These type of activities also help to support and validate many theories presented within alecture environment which ultimately help in the overall understanding of the subjectmatter. In addition to their effectiveness as a retention tool, these hands-on labexperience courses also attract new students as the word spreads.Many colleges and universities have successfully developed a first year engineeringprogram aimed at improving student success and retention, and these programs very ofteninclude hands-on, collaborative, laboratory-based courses in the first semester. TheUniversity of Colorado School of Engineering has

Collection

2008 GSW

Authors

Arup K. Maji

) and the availability of private funding, private engineeringschools have proliferated. Most of these are ‘under the umbrella’ of well-established institutions andthe curricula are fairly uniform. However implementation is not. Resource allocation forinfrastructure, laboratories, faculty salaries and other forms of student facilities are inadequate. In theabsence of accreditation standards quality control of programs and its graduates is illusionary. This isin spite of most private engineering schools charging upwards of $2,000 in tuition per year, a highamount compared to personal income. The government-funded universities and colleges, which wereeffectively free (including room) in the 1980s, have also instituted tuition fees in the range of

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2008 GSW

Authors

Mohammed E. Haque; Pallab Dasgupta

conceptualization.1Like most other game engines, the technology is encapsulated in a binary runtime library, while thegame related parts of the Unreal games are available as source code in a scripting language calledUnrealScript. The novel approach of Epic Games is that they released the Unreal Engine 2 Runtimefree for non-commercial and educational use. The runtime even includes the map editor UnrealEdand header files for C++ programmers. Beginners do find lots of technical documents and evenvideo tutorial that teach level design, script programming and much more.2The use of a game engine based collaborative virtual environment has enabled the development ofsoftware to support architectural design education.4 The focus of Moloney & Harvey’s4 paper

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2008 GSW

Authors

Farrokh Attarzadeh; Miguel A. Ramos; Enrique Barbieri

Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering Education2. Brian Sturhan, Lee Howard, Brian Meixell, Juan Montelongo, Manmeet B. Patil,Farrokh Attarzadeh, “Endless Coffee Pot,” Technology Interface, Volume 8, no. 1, Fall2007, http://technologyinterface.nmsu.edu/Fall07/ (Last accessed on 02/08/2008).3. Attarzadeh, Farrokh, “Innovations in Laboratory Development for ComputerEngineering Technology Programs,” IJME (International Journal of ModernEngineering, Volume 7, No 2, Spring 2007,http://www.ijme.us/issues/spring2007/sl2007paper1attrasheh.pdf, (Last accessed on02/08/2008).4. Boodram, P., Brown, T. R., McNeilly, R. A., Mohammed, M., Mahesh, R., andAttarzadeh, F., “High Temperature Automobile Protection System,” ASEE-CoEDJournal, VOL. XVI, No. 4

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2008 GSW

Authors

Hamid Majlesein; Sujeet Bhatte; Zhengmao Ye

currently serves as a Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Program of College ofEngineering at Southern University and A&M College. His areas of interest are Electric Power Systems, ComputerNetworks and Digital Signal Processing. His teaching interests are in the areas of Network Analysis, Electric Machine,Power Systems, Computer Networks, Signal and Systems, and Digital Signal Processing.SUJEET BHATTEMr. Sujeet Bhatte is currently a full time student at Southern University and A & M College. He has successfully passedhis MS thesis and he will be graduating in Spring 2008. At Southern University he has worked with various on campusdepartments and organizations in areas related to computer networks and telecommunications