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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Tammy Yut-Ling Chan; Gustavo Borel Menezes

Active Learning in Computer-Aided Engineering Courses (WIP) Tammy Yut-Ling Chan, Gustavo Borel Menezes Mechanical Engineering Department/Civil Engineering Department California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA)AbstractThe field of numerical methods in engineering is broad with many established concepts, yet isstill an area of active research. With the short 10 weeks in the quarter to teach this material toundergraduate students, the instructor is faced with issues such as the number of topics, depth ofcoverage, and how to effectively teach this large amount of material. Herein, the instructors usedactive learning and project-based

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Milica Markovic

Computer Aided Teaching and Learning in an Undergraduate Electromagnetics Class Milica Marković California State University SacramentoAbstractIn this paper integration of commercial CAD programs in an introductory, undergraduateelectromagnetics course at California State University Sacramento is presented. Matlab, Agilent'sAdvanced Design System (ADS) and Momentum are integrated in various activities throughoutthe semester. Students write Matlab code to visualize electromagnetic fields and waves and useAgilent ADS and Momentum to master transmission lines and design a microstrip patch antenna.The course requires students to

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Raman Unnikrishnan; Victor H. Delgado; Hye Sun Moon; Edward Sullivan

Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Conference Copyright © 2013, American Society for Engineering Education 276receive these high-impact learning experiences in the first year of college. Many of Kuh’s highimpact learning experiences have been adapted at CSUF.11 These high-impact practices arepositively associated with persistence and GPA, higher rates of student-faculty interaction,increases in critical thinking and writing skills; and higher student engagement overall2,10,11.The College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) at California State UniversityFullerton (CSUF), a comprehensive Hispanic-Serving Institution in

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Alex Edgcomb; Frank Vahid

Interactive Web Activities for Online STEM Learning Materials Alex Edgcomb and Frank Vahid Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of California, RiversideAbstractWe are developing a repository of parameterized interactive web activities to aid in learningSTEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) concepts. Much web-based materialtoday, including online textbooks, online tutorials, and MOOCs (massive open online courses),include quiz-like activities to support interaction with the user. Varied customizable interactiveactivities, such as drag-and-drop definition matching, or shooting or navigation games driven byquiz-like

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Sergio Mendez; Lisa AungYong

Simple Experiments and 3-D COMSOL Simulations to Enhance the Learning of Transient Heat Transfer Sergio Mendez and Lisa AungYong Department of Chemical Engineering, California State University, Long BeachAbstract Engineers are at the cutting edge of implementing technologies to garner energy fromsustainable sources or to make processes more energy efficient. Therefore, it is imperative thatwe provide a solid education regarding the principles of heat transfer. To keep competitive on aglobal scale, it also becomes important to train students on the latest computational software. Inthe chemical engineering curriculum, students are first taught the principles of heat transport in

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Anne Beug; Phillip L. Nico

junior high and highschool-aged students. The Arduino platform consists of both hardware and software: an opensource microcontroller system programmed in a C-like language. We developed parallelcurricula in Scratch and Arduino and compared the two in the setting of five high schoolclassrooms. Each course consisted of five sessions (with a lecture and a lab), each covering adifferent topic, building on previous sessions. While the results of our quantitative study have notbeen conclusive, our experience suggests that the Arduino platform is not yet ready for teachingcore programming concepts to computing novices. The combination of the C-like language andthe hardware were too complex for novice programmers to use in learning

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Thomas M. Korman; Hal A. Johnston; Lloyd Crask

, J.A. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, George Washington University, 1991.3. Felder, R.M. and Brent, R. Cooperative Learning in Technical Courses: Procedures, Pitfalls, and Payoffs. ERIC Document Reproduction Service Report ED 377038, 1994.4. Johnston, Hal, Borland, Jim, and Craig, K., " Building Industry Game (B.I.G.) A Computer Simulation for Construction Management," ASC Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference, pp 79-90. [Online]. Available: http://ascpro0.ascweb.org/archives/cd/2003/2003pro/2003/Johnston03.htm5. Korman, Thomas M., and Johnston, Hal A., "Development of Use of a Virtual Construction Company Simulation System for Education", FECS'12 The

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Alex Dekhtyar; Anya L. Goodman; Aldrin Montana

biological problems. Our approach relies on well-defined interdependent roles for biology (BIO) and computer science (CS) students in a project-based laboratory. We recognize distinct learning objectives for each major and implement them in two separatecourses taught side-by-side: Bioinformatics Applications for BIO majors and BioinformaticsAlgorithms for CS majors. We rely on separate lectures for each group of students, but inlaboratory we form joint interdisciplinary teams to work on building software for solving specificbiological problems. The teams rely on the biological expertise of BIO students and the softwaredevelopment skills of CS students to produce the software and to use it to obtain requestedresults. For each assignment, BIO

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Matthew T. Siniawski; Adam R. Carberry; Rafiqul I. Noorani

A Project-based Approach for a Design and Manufacturing Laboratory Course Matthew T. Siniawski1, Adam R. Carberry2, Rafiqul I. Noorani1 1 - Loyola Marymount University / 2 - Arizona State UniversityAbstractAn upper-division design and manufacturing laboratory course for mechanical engineeringstudents was redesigned to incorporate a semester-long project. The goal of the project was toprovide students with an experience applying the design process to develop a simple product, amanual bottle opener. During the design process, students individually generated a conceptualdesign, created a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model of their design

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nicholas M. Rhodes; Matthew A. Ung; Jim Herold; Thomas F. Stahovich

Using a Lexical and Temporal Analysis of Students’ Self- Explanation to Predict Understanding Nicholas M. Rhodes1, Matthew A. Ung2, Jim Herold1, Thomas F. Stahovich2 1 Department of Computer Science, University of California Riverside 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California RiversideAbstractNumerous studies have shown that self-explanation can lead to increased learning outcomes.Here we examine how the how the quality of self-explanation correlates with performance. Morespecifically, we examine how the words students use in their self-explanations correlate withperformance on homework. We also examine how the time spent solving

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Harmonie A. Hawley; Brian O'Dell

, have field experience labs as part of the curriculumthroughout the United States. This is a useful skill for Environmental Engineers going into theconsulting or research industries.Two field sampling experiments were incorporated into an environmental engineering class heldin the Spring 2012 semester. The lecture material discussed different sampling techniques andthe lab portion had the students learn “hands-on” proper sampling methods. The remainder ofthe lab time was spent learning field equipment for water and air quality analysis. A mainlearning objective in the class was for the student to be able to determine the most appropriatesampling technique for a specified situation. To assess student learning a practical exam wastaken by all of

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Ameneh Akbari; Karla Ananias; Jeffery Bouchard; Qian Wang P.E.; George Law

New Technology and Design Methodology for Micromouse: Challenges and Solutions Ameneh Akbari, Karla Ananias, Jeffery Bouchard, Qian Wang, and George Law Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering California State University, Northridge, CA 91325AbstractThe micromouse project has been integrated in many university curricula internationally. In theproject, the students design and build an autonomous robot which explores and maps a fixed sizemaze, and races to the center of the maze in the shortest time. These mice will compete in IEEEor other engineering society sponsored competitions every year. Normally, the students will usea microcontroller or a microprocessor

Collection

2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kiran George

consecutivesemesters (up to $2000 per semester). The academic standing of ACE scholars is evaluated everysemester and necessary remedial steps are taken if their academic performance is not up to par.(c) ECS and University Support Systems Utilized for the ACE Program: Instead of creating newsupport systems for the program, existing and well-established network of ECS and Universitysupport systems such as Center for Academic Support in Engineering and Computer Science(CASECS), University Learning Center (ULC), Center for Internships and Service-Learning(CISL), and CSUF Career Center were leveraged to ensure the success of the ACE program.(d) ACE Scholar Support Services: In order to improve educational opportunities and increaseretention of ECS students

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

R. Radharamanan

engineering students; fosterinnovation and creativity in engineering disciplines; help the students to develop business plansfor the entrepreneurial design projects and compete in the annual business plan competition, andpromote new ventures creation. The expansion of this program will support educationalinterdisciplinary curricula and co-curricular activities and benefit the students providing multi-and cross-disciplinary teaching, learning, and research opportunities on innovation andentrepreneurship. Selected creative student design projects with business plans involvingCAD/CAM, Robotics, and Rapid Prototyping are presented, analyzed, and discussed. Thestudents learning outcomes and their professional skills are assessed using KEEN-TTI’s surveyof

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Hao Jiang; José Carrillo; Alam Salguero; Ellaine Talle; Enrique Raygoza; Xenia Leon; Ben Lariviere; Amelito G. Enriquez; Wenshen Pong; Hamid Shahnasser; Hamid Mahmoodi; Cheng Chen

asked to improvethe existing device by re-designing the electronic circuitry using the printed circuit board (PCB)technology altogether. At the last week of the summer project, they have the opportunity tocharacterize the device that is designed and made by students. During the ten-week summerresearch, students from Cañada College have the opportunity to experience entire engineeringdevelopment flow: idea > design > prototyping > validation. In addition to learning theelectronics design using the state-of-art electronic design automation (EDA) tool, the studentsare exposed to the challenges in designing electronic systems for biological systems. Theinterdisciplinary thinking could benefit their future STEM careers. The feedback from

Collection

2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gene Fisher

production-quality software product?Unfortunately, the answer to this question in our case was "No". There are a number of reasonsfor the negative result, which will be examined in the paper. The examination will include con-sideration of whether it is reasonable to have product development as the primary focus of a uni-versity course, or if doing so sacrifices other important pedagogical goals.1. IntroductionWe have offered a year-long capstone course in software engineering since the 2000-01 academicyear. The course was introduced at the same time as our degree major in software engineering,which we currently offer in addition to degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering.Our capstone has been the subject of a number of previous reports

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Andrew Siefert; Jonathan Hoy; Keith Christman; Kevin R. Anderson

3801 West Temple Ave, Bldg. 17-2353 Pomona, CA 91768 USAAbstractThe use of ARDUINO microprocessors allows for a very top level approach to teachingMechatronics. The focus on this paper is to motivate the use of ARDUINO microcontrollers toteach Mechatronics and Control Systems in Engineering Education. This is not a research paperper say, rather it is a detailed explanation of an example of “hands-on” pedagogy. The goal ofthis paper is to merely share the outcomes of an experiential learning environment with theacademic community. This paper will present the results of using ARDUINO microcontrollerbased projects to teach a senior level Mechanical Engineering Mechatronics/Robotics course.The use of "hands-on

Collection

2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Paul M. Jones; J. Richard Phillips

. The same faculty members whoteach engineering science should also serve as project advisors. This is part ofrecognizing the importance of project learning (and professional practice) for faculty andstudents, as well as the administration. The use of clinical professors with industryexperience will often compliment tenured faculty as professional practice instructors andproject team advisers.Another consideration is conflict of interest. Many faculty members may have activeconsulting practices. Advising of sponsored projects is a source of potential conflict.To some extent, this is a matter of personal integrity. At HMC this has not been aproblem. Faculty members have found the two activities to be reinforcing. Many withconsulting practices

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Danyang Li; Qiao Zhen; Albert Gordon; Bhaskar Raj Sinha; Marcos Turquetti; Mohammad N. Amin

Wireless Communications (MSWC) program at National University(NU) is a professional degree that integrates communication techniques, problem solvingstrategies, simulation skills and mathematical foundations with hands-on training required tosolve real world problems in telecommunications29. The program is designed for professionalsand managers to facilitate the learning and application of skills in the field of wirelesscommunications, and uses a distinctive and challenging curriculum that emphasizesmultidisciplinary knowledge. The program integrates theory through applications and designconcepts. Classes combine lectures, case and hands-on studies, individual and team projects,research papers and participant presentations. With NU’s MSWC program

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Keith Level

Engineering, I have not observed any significant difference in student performance, when comparing students who completed homework through Mastering Engineering vs. a traditional paper-and-pencil approach. To accurately measure learning outcome differences between using Mastering Engineering vs. using the traditional pencil-and-paper approach would be very challenging. 3. Graphics-based problems. I was advised by another community college instructor to avoid assigning these types of problems. My brief exposure to solving these types of problems has confirmed the advice that I had received. 4. Assignment of computer-based homework problems may discourage students from solving homework problems using the

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Jin-Lee Kim

construction education curriculum. The demand for specialists in these two emergingfields is increasing tremendously due to the fact that green buildings education, research, andpractice issues are becoming driving forces in academia and industry. The BIM-based teachingapproach developed in the previous study is a stepping stone for the proposed innovative virtualapproach. The BIM will provide students with building models containing integratedarchitectural information to implement sustainability that goes beyond both conventional 2Dsolutions using electronic drafting board and 3D modeling for purely visualization purposes.Therefore, it is expected that students enhance learning ability of sustainability through aninnovative virtual approach using BIM

Collection

2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kiran George

      +++  CoursePedia for Engineering Courses Kiran George Computer Engineering Program California State University, Fullerton Fullerton, CA 92831, USAAbstractThis work-in-progress (WIP) activity explores the potential of a supplementary student resourcethat involves setting up an online conglomeration of current and applicable topics for a coursefrom the latest journals and publications to which students contribute, edit, and update as part oftheir class assignments and other course deliverables. The supplementary student

Collection

2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cheng Chen; John DeAndreis; Peter Moala; Agustin Robles; Jose Valdovinos; Qiming Zeng; Amelito G. Enriquez; Wenshen Pong; Hamid Shanasser; Hao Jiang; Hamid Mahmoodi

summer 2012 internship program,students designed a five-story steel special moment-resisting frame, and evaluated itsperformance under four selected ground motions. The students optimized the structural designthrough iterative computer-based dynamic time history analysis. Structural analysis programSAP2000 was incorporated into the design process for students to examine story drift, and thecapacity of the structural members. The ten-week program was found to be successful inengaging community college students in the civil engineering career thereby helping train futureAmerican workforce for seismic hazard mitigation.IntroductionEarthquake engineering is concerned with design and analysis of structures to withstandearthquakes at specific

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cheng Chen; Jose Valdovinos; Frank Sanchez; Nelly Avramova; Hector Santillano; Robert Hartsock

conduct computational simulations of a nonlinear structure usingrecorded ground motions from PEER strong motion database and to interpret the simulationresults to analyze the effect of actuator delay in real-time hybrid simulation. These engagementactivities of undergraduate students have been demonstrated very effective preparing theundergraduate students for the further study to accomplish the project objectives.IntroductionIn 2010 the Committee to Assess the Capacity of the U.S. Engineering Research Enterprisepublished a report indicating that engaging students in engineering research is essential for ournation’s competitiveness and long-term productivity in a global, knowledge-driven economy1.To achieve this objective, the National Science

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Frank G. Jacobitz; Thomas F. Schubert

electronic circuits and systems including: oscillators, non-linearwaveform generation and waveshaping, power electronics, communication circuits, and digitalgates. There was a strong emphasis on computer-aided analysis and design.The textbook used was an out-of-print electronics textbook coauthored by the course instructor.Since the authors now own the copyright to the textbook and it is undergoing revision for a newedition, both hard and electronic copies were made available at no cost to the students for theirprivate use. Each student was provided with a licensed copy of National Instruments Multisim™12.0 for use as a circuit simulator – arrangements were made so that the department’s licensecould be extended to the student laptops for this

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bridget Benson; Bryan Mealy

expect to gathermuch useful knowledge and experience. We intend to use this information in our expecteddesign of other digital design courses. Additionally, we feel strongly that knowledge and skills,particularly in the field of engineering, should be readily assessable to any student. Onlinecourses provide the means to overcome social and economic barriers around the globe bycreating new opportunities for students to obtain access to hands-on engineering education.Bibliography1. Self Paced Digital Logic Computer Assisted Learning Module. University of Surrey. http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/Labview/intro.html2. Brock LaMeres. “A Comparison of Student Learning in an Introductory Logic Circuits Course: Traditional Face-to-Face vs

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Liang Li Wu; Anis Hammoudeh; Gregory Washington

technical learning in a global context, the graduate students from theDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, consisting of diverse ethnicbackgrounds (many were from the Middle East), were invited. Over 70 graduate students hadattended the conference and interacted with professors and industry members.The inaugural Comm 2025 event served as a great way to bring experts in communicationsresearch together to discuss the future of this field. As a result, several research collaborationsbetween UCI and TAU faculty emanated from the conference. Furthermore, the Henry SamueliSchool of Engineering received recognition from the Orange County Jewish community3responding positively to the changes we intend to make. The second conference

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Xiaomin Jin; Xiao-hua Yu; Xiang-Ning Kang; Guo-Yi Zhang

, one of Prof. Jin’s graduatestudents, was awarded an NSF EAPSI summer and won the 1st place CSU research competitionon graduate engineering and computer engineering level in 2010, because of working on theproject. Now Prof. Jin is supported by 1) NSF Grant OISE Award #1029135 from year 2010 to2013 and 2) Chinese National Key Research Lab Collaboration Grant 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.Those grants enable Prof. Jin to bring more US students to work in China. This paper willdiscuss how those activities are running in the past years and what the key issues of the programare. The paper also emphasizes participates (students and faculty) learning outcome in bothtechnical aspect and culture aspect.1. IntroductionBecause of internet and www, the world

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Jim Herold; A. Zundel; Thomas F. Stahovich

serve as a basis for examining the cognitive processes employed bystudents as they solve homework problems. We employ a data-driven approach to automaticallyconstruct this taxonomy. This approach is enabled by our unique database of coursework. In thewinter of 2012, undergraduate Mechanical Engineering students enrolled in a Statics course weregiven Livescribe™ digital pens. The students completed their homework assignments with thesepens, creating a digital corpus of all their work in the form of time-stamped pen strokes.To capture the spatial organization exhibited by the students, we represent each page of asolution as a low-resolution image bitmap. We compute distances between bitmaps and groupthem by that distance using the K-Means

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2013 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Amelito G. Enriquez; Denise Hum; Christine Woo; Brandon Price; Danni Redding Lapuz; Anna Camacho

secondary goals of increasing studentawareness of tools, skills and resources needed to succeed in college, pre- and post-programstudent surveys were administered. Table 6 summarizes student responses to the pre- and post-program surveys for 2011 Math Jam and 2012 Math Jam. Note that the survey questions for2009 and 2010 were different, and are not included in this summary. For most of the pre- andpost-program attitudinal surveys, the survey prompt was: "Tell us how much you agree with theeach of the following statements," with a Response Scale of: 5 – Strongly Agree, 4 – Agree, 3 –Neutral, 2 – Disagree, 1 – Strongly Disagree. The average of the student responses for eachsurvey question was computed and is shown in Table 6. For both 2011 and 2012