Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Ryan A. Ebel; Donald S. Abbott-McCune; David Chang

Undergraduate Mechatronics Couse Design Project MAJ Ryan A. Ebel, United States Military Academy MAJ Donald S. Abbott-McCune, United States Military Academy MAJ David Chang, United States Military AcademyAbstractThere is a real need to educate our engineering students in the application of electronics, controls,mechanics, and software; this multidisciplinary initiative has led to the creation of an undergraduateMechatronics courses at the United States Military Academy (USMA) and many other universitiesaround the world. The focus of these courses is to emphasize application and hands on laboratory work ingeneral, and design projects in particular. This paper presents an

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Service-learning in Environmental Engineering: Projects with Local Water and Wastewater Treatment PlantsAbstractOver the past several years, faculty and students in Civil Engineering at the United States CoastGuard Academy have partnered with local water and wastewater plant personnel on a variety ofprojects. Through these projects, student learning is fostered while local plants receive help withtechnical issues and public education activities. The projects are incorporated into theEnvironmental Engineering II course; a junior-level major area elective covering analysis anddesign of water and wastewater systems. The projects provide outstanding opportunities forstudent development in a number of educational

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Robin K. Burk

Project-Based Team Learning: Teaching Systems Engineering When the Data are Sparse Robin K. Burk U.S. Military AcademyABSTRACT: Undergraduate systems engineering courses face several challenges, including the need toprovide students with integrative projects which present sufficient depth and complexity while beingscoped for execution within a one or two semester course.This paper describes the results of providing students with challenging real-world analysis projectsdespite the sparse availability of established technical and operating data. Sixteen teams werepresented with projects regarding evaluation of advanced

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Yiming (Kevin) Rong

MQP in China: Extension of WPI Practice on Project based Engineering EducationYiming (Kevin) RongWorcester Polytechnic Institute, Mechanical EngineeringAbstract - With the development of global economy and the rapid shift of manufacturing to China, thedemand for engineers with the ability to work in unfamiliar cultural environments is critically importantfor both Chinese and US companies. In response to a world in which science and engineering areincreasingly global in scope, integrating international research experience into engineering education isessential. An exchange program of Senior Projects in Mechanical Engineering has been establishedbetween WPI and HUST. US and Chinese students work in mixed teams doing real world

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Robert M. Brooks; Soumitra Basu; Shriram Pillapakkam; Kurosh Darvish; Keerthi V. Takkalapelli

The Effect of Incorporation of Empowerment Projects on Student Performance in a Civil Engineering CourseDr. Robert M. Brooks, Dr. Soumitra Basu, Dr. Shriram Pillapakkam, Dr. Kurosh Darvish, Keerthi V.Takkalapelli College of Engineering Temple University Philadelphia, PAAbstractIn this paper, student empowerment was utilized as a tool in design, discovery, and learning. Theprimary objective of this study is to provide adequate learning experience for the student withinthe scope of the syllabus for the course. In this study, a courses repeated over four years (onceevery year) was considered

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

M.G. Guvench

Design, Simulation and Testing of MOSIS Fabricated CMOS Operational Amplifiers for Class Projects in an Analog I.C. Design Course M.G. Guvench University of Southern Maine, Gorham, ME 04038 guvench@usm.maine.edu AbstractThe paper describes use of MOSIS fabricated CMOS Operational Amplifiers as a real world designexperience in senior level Analog Integrated Circuit Courses in Electrical Engineering. In the one-semestercourse on CMOS Analog I.C. Design offered at our department, design of a CMOS Operational Amplifier isrequired as a term project. Students are given a set of

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Christopher W. Swan; Julia Carroll

professional issuesassociated with the practice of engineering. The course also examines the economic, political andsocial issues that frame the project delivery process. Professionalism, ethics, communications,and leadership skill development were threaded throughout the course. Though specificallydeveloped and aimed for civil and environmental engineers, course materials are applicable tomost areas of engineering and science. This paper presents an overview of the course and provides specific examples of differentpedagogical methods and tools used for topic and course delivery. In addition to exams andassignments, a number of term projects were completed, allowing students to actively apply theskills discussed. Some of the pedagogical

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Evolution of a Senior Capstone Course Through the Assessment ProcessAbstractThe civil engineering senior capstone design course at the United States Coast GuardAcademy has evolved over the past fifteen years. Historically teams of cadets worked inparallel on one design problem with a single faculty advisor. The senior design projectsnow actively involve students in a variety of real world consulting projects to help theCoast Guard and local communities meet technical challenges. Each student team workson a unique project with a faculty advisor. The departmental assessment processconfirmed the educational benefits of student exposure to real world projects with clients,budgets, and deliverables

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Arthur Heinricher; Brian Savilonis; David Spanagel; Robert Traver; Kristin Wobbe

explored the chemical,ethical, physiological and economic dimensions of a (simple) question: Why do we eat what weeat? The students completed projects on subjects ranging from hunger in Worcester tocontrolling fertilizer runoff. Power the World focused on the physics, history, and theenvironmental and economic impact of energy technologies. The students completed projectsranging from an energy cost analysis of green roofs and photovoltaic systems for WPI to airpollution in China.This paper will describe the final student projects as well as the smaller projects and activitiesdesigned to help students develop the intellectual skills needed for research and professionalwork, including clear, succinct writing, oral presentation, pair and small group

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

mechanical requirements, it is stipulated that the design must be creative. Performance ofthe beam is weighted at a 40%, and creativity is weighted at a 20%. Critique sessions, oral presentationsand formal reports are required as part of the process, and constitute the other 40%. This paper provides adescription of the open-ended problem, the requirements and the results obtained during itsimplementation. These results are compared to previous groups where creativity was not considered. Thepaper discusses how this project promotes active learning, fosters teamwork, increases communicationsskills and prepares students for further experimental activities. Students’ perceptions of the importance ofcreativity are presented and discussed. It has been

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Jennifer Zirnheld; Adam Halstead

how does one explain each discipline in adequate detail in theallotted time? Two different methodologies were tested in a first-year engineering course at theUniversity at Buffalo. The first approach, called the disciplinary approach, covered each of the maindisciplines one at a time. The second approach, called the multidisciplinary approach, covered each ofthe main disciplines through a series of multidisciplinary projects. The results and discoveries of thisexperiment are presented.All freshman engineering students at the University at Buffalo (with the exception of computer engineers)take a course called Engineering Solutions. The goals of this course are threefold: to increase studentunderstanding of engineering, to develop teamwork and

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Beena Sukumaran; Joshua Bonzella; Kevin McGarvey; Heather Klein

Teaching Engineering Design with a focus on the developing world Beena Sukumaran, Joshua Bonzella, Kevin McGarvey, Heather Klein College of Engineering, Rowan UniversityAbstractThe paper describes a program, Entrepreneurs without Borders and a project undertaken through theprogram. The program seeks to establish entrepreneurship opportunities for the developing world. Thiswill be done through student teams comprising both engineering and business majors at RowanUniversity. The engineering and business students perform a survey of local communities in thedeveloping world, identified as having a need for engineering skills by Engineers without Borders1.During this initial survey, the students

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Roy T.R. McGrann

landing gear design and analysis project. Acomparison of outcomes is made of results for semesters in which the videos were used withoutaccompanying lectures with other semesters in traditional lecture format. The changes to the coursethat were adopted based on the assessment are presented. The assessment procedure is used to improvethe quality of the course and to satisfy ABET requirements. It is proposed that this assessmentprocedure using marker problems can be used in other design courses.IntroductionThe ability to design components and systems is recognized as one of the key characteristics definingan engineer. Design is a “systematic, intelligent process in which designers generate, evaluate andspecify concepts for devices, systems, or

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Junichi Kanai

required little encouragement to start usingthis system, many project teams quickly learned to use it productively and obtained good results. Thesystem allowed sponsor mentors to share project information with a broader audience within theirorganization. It enabled them to provide better and timelier feedback to students and faculty; therefore,the students were able to explore more realistic design solutions. The faculty advisers were also able toassess a team’s progress, problems, and individual contributions more effectively by monitoringinformation posted by the team. The system made a significant impact on the project outcome andstudents’ learning experience.IntroductionThe O. T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory (MDL) at Rensselaer

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

M. Ali Montazer

this lab including ARENA andQUEST 3-dimenssional discrete event simulation software for factory modeling.Initially, two aerospace parts manufacturers, Consolidated Industries Inc. (a metal forgingcompany in Cheshire, CT) and Valley Tool and Manufacturing (a machining andmanufacturing services company in Orange, CT), and three months later, a healthcare-medical devices company (Covidien previously U.S. Surgical) participated as the first setof real world test-cases in this experimental initiative. Each company was assigned astudent team who was responsible for the total project life cycle (from definition toreporting and presentation) in which they developed a discrete event simulation model ofa process from each organization. The experiment

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

John Hartke; Robert Kewley; Greg Kilby; Greg Schwarz; Gunnar Tamm

study and identify the specific design issues addressed by the student team. It willalso describe how the project was structured so that each student on the team had both an in-depthexperience within their discipline and learned how to integrate their discipline specific expertise in thelarger multidisciplinary project. Finally the paper will present the results of the students’ work andlearning outcomes.1. Introduction One of the desired outcomes of nearly all engineering programs is that the students participate ina project where their work is integrated into a larger multidisciplinary project. The multidisciplinaryproject adds more real-word constraints and considerations to the problem than a single-disciplinaryproject can offer

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Ashraf Ghaly

interdisciplinary course that combines engineering arts and the liberal arts has beendeveloped and offered. The course materials were designed to appeal to both engineering andnon-engineering students. The class was equally split between these two groups of students. Thecourse required high technical skill and ability to operate advanced software, which some did notpossess. The course explored the tightly knit relationship between the art of constructing some ofthe most sophisticated projects and other non-engineering requirements such as political,economical, historical, cultural, and public perception factors. The course offers an insight intothe role engineers play to find a common ground that satisfies all needs and meet

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Matt Armstrong; Richard L. Comitz; Andrew Biaglow; Russ Lachance; Joseph Sloop

that more closely resembles the reality of the actual design process, to include the abilityto use Chemical Engineering software in an earlier stage of the development process.Results and Discussion Chemical Reaction Engineering Design Project In the Chemical Reaction Engineering class, the students were given a design project with thefollowing specifications: 1. Volumetric flow rate υ0 is 52 L/min; 2. A desired product ratio of 50:50 n-propyl-p-xylene to isopropyl-p-xylene at the outlet; and 3. T min is 15°C and Tmax is 70°C. The studentswere directed to use ChemCad to develop their designs, but ChemCad needs frequency factor andactivation energy values to correctly model the reactions mathematically. Since these values could

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Rashmi Jain; Keith Sheppard; Elisabeth McGrath; Bernard Gallois

engineering curriculum2. The vehicle for this thread was to bethe core design sequence at Stevens known as the Design Spine3. The first five courses are core designcourses taken by students from all intended disciplines; the last three are taken in the discipline - a juniorcourse followed by a 2-semester capstone senior year project. In most cases the core design courses arelinked to concurrent engineering science courses, thus providing context for the latter. The Design Spineis a key vehicle to develop a number of threads that build both technical and so-called “soft”competencies. The latter include communications, creative thinking, teaming, economics of engineering,problem solving, project management etc. It should be noted that the first four

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Gregory S. Parnell; Michael Kwinn

Series in early 2008. The authors redesigned the introductory course, now titled“Fundamentals of Systems Design and Management,” around a system thinking presentation, anindividual decision problem, and a group design project. We have continued to improve the course forthe past two years.IntroductionDesigning the first course of any academic program is always challenging. There are more foundationalconcepts than time in one semester. The first course of any engineering program is especiallychallenging. Several key questions need to be answered. What are the foundational topics that will beneeded in future courses to provide the knowledge for follow-on courses? Will students have thenecessary prerequisites? What pedagogy should be used?In the

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Anthony Manno; Kamal Shahrabi

of databases The perspective changes according to the user Very large database environments: Data marts, warehouses, miningProjects:Various ideas for projects have been tried. The least effective have been writing a paperon something that the instructor says. It is just another boring paper to write. Moreinteresting projects are hands-on. These projects have to do with grouping studentstogether to investigate a technological aspect of their major.Another type of project has been where students were split up into different groups andthey have to debate a subject where they need to learn about some technology. Studentsin different sections have also been brought together so that they can interact with eachother on a

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Neal A. Lewis

. Methods of obtainingbusiness experience are also offered.IntroductionMany university instructors have long careers in academia. Some of these instructors have had contactwith industrial companies in the form of research projects, grants, internships, and various other forms ofwork. All of these can be beneficial to the quality of teaching in the engineering classroom. Manyadjuncts and a few full time faculty members bring significant experience to the classroom. Someuniversities find value in this experience and seek out experienced professionals for their faculty. Manyuniversities find little value in “real world” experience, preferring people who focus almost exclusivelyon academic research. I happen to be one of those people who changed

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

John Adams; Charles Kochakian

systems engineering concepts and introducing economicconcepts and business benefits through implementations such as found in Supply Chain andWarehouse Management (SCM/WHM). In addition, RFID is a natural place to introduce ethicalas well as global engineering issues. The course includes selected RFID projects incorporatingbusiness student participation on multidisciplinary teams. As a result, the department has beenable to tailor the course to specifically addresses ABET1 outcomes 3 (d), 3 (f) and 3 (h). Earlyexperience in multidisciplinary teamwork has been favorable, one example provided by a teamthat evaluated possible adoption of RFID by the college’s library. The role of assessment indeciding to adopt this course, and the assessment of the

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Aaron S. Bradshaw; Gary N. McCloskey; Franklin Miguel

of Luz Consuelo (Figure 1) isinterested in improving the quality of life for these people. Since these people have essentially nomonetary resources, future development of replacement housing will require external funding. TheDirector is in the process of obtaining funds but it is unclear what the future housing will look like.Therefore, the design objective for the students is to design housing that is safe, maintains the integrity ofthe existing community, and minimizes cost to allow the most effective use of external funds. The courseconsists of three major phases including research, field research, and design.Research Phase (Reflection-on-Action)Typically the first step to any civil engineering project is to collect and understand as much

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Diana Schwerha; Chang Liu; Sertac Ozercan; Tripura Vadlamani; Lev Neiman

Second Life as a Pedagogical Tool for Improving Statistics Homework Sessions Diana Schwerha, PhD, Chang Liu PhD, Sertac Ozercan, Tripura Vadlamani, and Lev Neiman Ohio University, Athens OH 45701Abstract:Learning statistical concepts can be difficult for students because of the content as well as interactionsbetween learning styles and content presentation. Although homework is given to promote time-on-taskand student learning, it is largely unguided. This project used the multi-user virtual environment, SecondLife, as a way to direct learning through interactive and collaborative virtual homework sessions. Thecontent matter for this

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

R. Radharamanan; Ha Van Vo

mixing cup, and a spoon. The robot armshould be programmed to include all the necessary motions to complete the mixing process. The resultsobtained from the student team projects on the above three modules are also presented, analyzed, anddiscussed.1. IntroductionThe advancement of industrial applications of process technology, computers, and automation demandscontinuous improvement in the quality of engineering education both in classroom theory and in hands-onpractice in design, computer simulation, and manufacturing laboratories. There is a growing need forpreparing students both in theory and practice so that they are well prepared to meet the challenges of thejob market, especially in the manufacturing industries of the 21st century. A

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Ashraf Ghaly; Megan Ferry

advantages of damming a river are, there are always some disadvantagesthat can derail the project. Dams may be built to achieve one or more of several goals such as reducing oreliminating the hazard of floods, regulating water flow in a turbulent river, storing water for drinking orirrigation purposes, generating hydropower, creating an artificial lake for recreational activities, orestablishing a new habitat for fish, birds, and animals. Historically, dam building has always beencontroversial. Currently, arguing about building a new dam and studying its impact can take years. Damconstruction is impacted by technical, political, economical, environmental, and cultural factors. Theconstruction of a new dam may also result in the displacement of

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Teaching for Success; Molding Course Syllabi to Support Student Capstone Design Work.Abstract This paper details the curriculum changes made within both the aeronautical and automotive sub-disciplines of the United States Military Academy’s (USMA) Mechanical Engineering (ME) program tosupport student senior design projects. Based on instructor/advisor observations, both sub-disciplinesrealized a need to better support student design by front-loading crucial design concepts andmethodologies in their respective courses. A review of the USMA mechanical engineering curriculum isaddressed illustrating the need for these syllabi changes. The aeronautical and automotive syllabi changesimplemented and their

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Bahram Nassersharif

expand depths of understanding. Thecenter would provide no constraints to a person’s visual system. It would provide an environment similarto natural vision.i iiFor example, our engineering students currently build a mini-Baja vehicle for national competitions, aprocess that normally takes nine months to complete because many of the problems in the design arediscovered during vehicle manufacturing. With the availability of the Discovery Center, students wouldview large “wrap-around” imagery from inside physical mock-ups of the vehicle or cab, whilemanipulating actual vehicle controls. The student’s design project would be test driven before a prototypeis ever built. Students could fly through a jet engine or follow a Borrelia burgdorferi (the

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Mir M. Atiqullah

demand for composites engineers the engineering andtechnology graduates need to be knowledgeable in the field, if not develop some level of expertise, beforethey graduate from college. Traditional materials science/engineering course can accommodate only anoverview of composites. In the absence of a dedicated composites course a special project course or aresearch project on composites could be a supplement to the standard materials course. During thesummer of 2007, two minority students were awarded scholarships from Peach State Louis StokesAlliance for Minority Participation (PSLSAMP) to do undergraduate research. These students alreadycompleted their regular engineering materials course and were assigned to the project of performing