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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

James A. Lee; Michael J. D'Agostino

Designing a Zero-Waste Concrete Mix Testing Lab James A. Lee1 Michael J. D’Agostino2Abstract – A zero waste laboratory to mix and test the engineering and performance properties of concrete wasdesigned and tested at Wentworth Institute of Technology. To achieve the design, recycling and reuse opportunitieswere developed for both plastic and hardened concrete used from testing as well as other residual aggregate solids.Processed water waste was minimized by the design of a settling and filtration recycling system. Both reductions inraw material consumption and economic savings realized by avoiding waste streams were measured in the study.The laboratory is used extensively by students preparing for

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

A. Ieta; R. Manseur; M. Hromalik

. Accordingly, labs will beextended in order to account for the change. The lab work will be adjusted so that it can be completed in a singlesession, whenever possible. In addition, scheduling class time at 8 a.m. will be avoided in the future. Conclusionsfrom our experience will also helped with design the Signals and Systems and the Digital Design courses taught inthe Spring of 2012. Class size for the courses analyzed here was small, hence the conclusions cannot be statisticallyrelevant. Nevertheless, they point in certain directions worth considering by others as well. REFERENCES[1] E. W. Maby, A. B. Carlson, K.A. Connor, W. C. Jennings, and P. M. Schoch, “A studio format for innovative

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Zhiyong Gu; Bridgette Budhlall; Hongwei Sun; Carol Barry; Alfred Donatelli; Jill Lohmeier

Lab-on-a-chip Nano-sensors Devices Nanoelectronic Bio Sensors Devices Figure 1: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the New Engineering Course in Nanoscale Transport Phenomena A BFigure 2: (A) Setup for measuring the thermal conductivity of nanofluids; (B) Al2O3 nanofluids (inset is an SEMimage).Keywords: Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education; Nanoscale Transport Phenomena; Interdisciplinary Course;Nanomanufacturing, Engineering Education.2012 ASEE Northeast Section Conference University of Massachusetts LowellExtended

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Edwin Schmeckpeper; Ashley Ater Kranov; Steve Beyerlein; Jay McCormack; Pat Pedrow

tools for undergraduate engineering education”, IEEE Transactions on Education, 43(2), 2000, 111-119.[5] Sindelar, M., Shuman, L, Besterfield-Sacre, M., Miller, R., Mitcham, C., Olds, B., and Wolfe, H. “Assessing engineering students’ abilities to resolve ethical dilemmas”, Proceedings from the ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2003.[6] Shuman, L, Besterfield-Sacre, M. and McGourty, J. “The ABET professional skills—can they be taught?”, Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 41-55.[7] AterKranov, A., Hauser, C., Olsen, R., Girardeau, L. “A Direct Method for Teaching and Assessing Professional Skills in Engineering Programs”, Proceedings from the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jani Pallis; Neal Lewis; Ravi Mishra; Navarun Gupta; Arthur McAdams; Richard Yelle

outside of the incubator). The recent opening of the UB IncUBator creates anopportunity for students to take innovative ideas to a new level that was not previously possible. The proposedcenter’s faculty members will focus on linking the student teams with the resources of the IncUBator. Students maycreate their own company or work with existing companies. In so doing, the university will: a) create the goals,roles, procedures, and relationships that must be developed for students to successfully work with the IncUBator andits related companies and b) create models of success that will demonstrate to area companies the advantages ofworking with graduate student E-teams. E-TEAM OPERATION AND PROCEDURESThe university has

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Cullen A. Jones

Concrete Training Aids in the Classroom MAJ Cullen A. Jones, P.E.1 Abstract – This article provides an overview of recently developed training aids and classroom demonstrationsused in design of reinforced concrete and masonry structures organized by overarching concepts of flexural andshear design and general masonry design. Teaching a senior level design course to young engineers can be adaunting task at times. The teacher and students stand at the border where principle meets practice. It is an excitingand challenging time for the students as they take the knowledge they have gained from previous courses and yourcurrent instruction and start to create solutions that can be made into

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Vicki V. May

A Cooperative Learning Approach to Designing, Analyzing, and Building a Structure as a Class Vicki V. May1Abstract – Students seem to have little trouble applying equations and using structural analysis methods but theyoften struggle with creating mathematical models, making appropriate assumptions, and approximating the responseof structures, concepts that are not easily addressed with textbook problems. For the past three years students in mystructural analysis course have worked cooperatively to design, analyze, and construct a structure for a non-profitorganization in the community as a class. While active and project-based learning is becoming more popular incollege classrooms

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Gonca Altuger-Genc

Implementation Review of a Service-Learning Project into a Freshman Level Plastics Engineering Course Gonca Altuger-Genc1In an effort to provide students with a vast array of experiences, educators support their in-class teaching withproject-based, experiential and hands-on learning approaches. As these approaches have been implemented intoundergraduate engineering curriculum, the need for incorporating the service component became necessary. As theimportance of service learning became more evident, higher education institutions incorporated service learningconcept into the engineering education. University of Massachusetts Lowell incorporated service-learning intomany of its undergraduate

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Joanna A. Badara; Buket Barkana; Nelson Ngoh; Allen Cook

Development of a STEM Program for Teacher Educators Joanna A. Badara1 [Buket Barkana, Nelson Ngoh, Allen Cook]The School of Engineering and The School of Education at a regional higher educationinstitution currently collaborate on developing a STEM curriculum for secondary scienceteachers. This involves the development a new STEM-based course (Neuroscience for Teachers),improve an existing STEM-based course (STEM for Teacher Educators), and to provide scienceteachers with high-quality professional development opportunities. The Neuroscience forTeachers course will be designed to provide participants with an overview of human cognitivedevelopment, including theory and research concerning new

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jerald D. Cole

Participatory Tweeting as a Vehicle for Course Engagement Jerald D. ColeThis paper advocates for engaging uses of Twitter (or similar clients or services) in the classroom. We coverhow to use it efficaciously, and why the very notion of class participation needs to be redefined.Nominally, “class participation” is at minimum equivocated with simple attendance in some way, either by showing-up in a physical classroom or by logging into a virtual one at regular intervals. Participation may also entail beingpresent in a group for show-of-hands responses when prompted, partaking verbally in classroom discussions, ordemonstrating the ability

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Carlos Luck

Progress with a Synergistic Mechanical Engineering Degree Program Carlos Lück1Abstract – USM has been offering an ABET-accredited Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degreeprogram (EE) for 24 years. In 2006, we started a new degree program in Mechanical Engineering (ME) in responseto industry demand for mechanical engineers with background in electromechanical systems. The prospect forgrowth was evident and it quickly realized, yet there were no start-up funds – especially to invest in new facultylines. The solution was clear: design a curriculum to leverage existing electrical engineering resources and somedistance education, and let the growth spur further

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

John Finnie

Retracing the Path of a Street Railway John Finnie1Abstract – The history of technology can stimulate student interest and provide an important historical andcultural prospective for engineering courses. This paper presents the results of historical research about a localstreet railway, and discusses the use of history of technology topics for freshman and senior courses.Electric street railways played an important part in the development of cities and towns in the early twentiethcentury. Many of them operated for only a few decades, and often became obsolete as automobiles and roadwaysimproved.New Bedford and Onset Street Railway operated electric trolleys between the

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Sanjay R. Arwade; Vicki V. May; Benjamin W. Schafer; Stephen G. Buonopane; George Deodatis

Teaching structural art: a multi-institution collaboration Sanjay R. Arwade1, Vicki V. May2, Benjamin W. Schafer3, Stephen G. Buonopane4, George Deodatis5A group of five professors are collaborating on educating broad constituencies of students at five institutions (JohnsHopkins, Columbia, Dartmouth, Bucknell, and UMass, Amherst) in the traditions, ideas, and practice of structuralart. David P. Billington has defined structural art as that subset of structural engineering design that achievesgreatness in efficiency, economy, and elegance. These efforts build upon the course “Structures and the UrbanEnvironment”, long a part of the curriculum at Princeton

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Lisa Shatz

Using Blogs and Labview and Lego Robotics in a Freshman Seminar Course to Teach about Sustainability Concepts Lisa Shatz1 Sustainability at Suffolk is freshman seminar course that explores the science of sustainability and contemporaryissues related to sustainability; and has the students develop an experiment that teaches other Suffolk students about energy and sustainability. The goals of the course are: to provide students with a context for learning how to frameand solve complex problems using an integration of science, engineering and the humanities; how to do independent research and work in teams, and how to communicate complex scientific issues

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Christian Dietz; Dennis Sugrue

, one review and two requiring class preparation. The results were plottedagainst overall course grades, listed below in Figure 1. It showed that the outcome of a student’s class preparation generally correlates to the student’sperformance in the class. The wide range in course grades for students with similar course preparation scores(effort). The students who earned an A+ on all course preparation assignments had final grades range from an A+ toa C. Students who gave a strong effort by preparing for class routinely were either doing well or failed to meetexpectations on major graded events. Using Blackboard is an excellent method to filter out the A students andidentify the B and below students who may need more one-on-one

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David Kazmer; Katie Bardaro

engineering. In evaluating theeconomic value of engineering education, it is important to develop a high fidelity model that provides an accuraterepresentation of the evolution of engineering salaries as a function of experience. Furthermore, it is desirable thatthe developed model has a minimum number of coefficients and that those coefficients have a readilyunderstandable meaning. As such, the following model was developed for salary, s, as a function of time, t, with aGompertz type sigmoidal behavior: ( ⁄ ) ( ) ( ) (3)where b is the base salary at the onset of engineering work

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David O. Kazmer

Reflections on Best Practices in Engineering Academic Administration David O. Kazmer1The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s administration has increased dynamism and ambition. Feeling the needfor more personal interaction and making larger contributions, a full professor accepted the position of AssociateDean for the James B. Francis College of Engineering. The primary focus for the position was strategic developmentof academic and research programs, with other assignments in support of day-to-day operations of the College.The new Associate Dean successfully began the position by meeting with all interested faculty and staff regardingtheir perceptions of

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Olga Lepsky; Michael Werner

useful matches: the students and co-ops, groups of several roommates, etc.2.4 Numerical algorithms for solving nonlinear equationsWe cover three numerical algorithms for solving nonlinear equations: bisection, false position, and Newton’s [13].These methods can be applied to solve the equation y=f(x) on an interval [a, b], where f(x) is a continuous function,but with the following limitations: bisection and false position method require f(a) and f(b) to have opposite signs,2012 ASEE Northeast Section Conference University of Massachusetts LowellReviewed Paper April 27-28, 2012Newton’s method requires f to be smooth and the

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Ethan Danahy; Morgan Hynes; Leslie Schneider; Danielle Dowling

, 7(3), 2005, 855–879.2012 ASEE Northeast Section Conference University of Massachusetts LowellReviewed Paper April 27-28, 2012[11] Gallagher, S., Sher, B., Stepien, W., and Workman, D., “Implementing Problem-Based Learning in ScienceClassrooms,” School Science and Mathematics, 95(3), 1995, 136–146.[12] Gertzman, A., and Kolodner, J.L. “A Case Study of Problem-Based Learning in a Middle-School ScienceClass: Lessons Learned.” Paper presented at the Second Annual International Conference of the Learning Sciences,Evanston, IL, 1996.[13] Haury, D.L., “Teaching Science Through Inquiry,” in Striving for Excellence: The National

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Yakov Cherner; Gary Mullett

students to explore the Diffuse Optical SensingMethod in detail.The main menu of the experiment (A in Figure 3) provides students with access to embedded resources, such asevaluation quizzes, lessons, and a system diagnostic tool.First, students are presented with the specific learning objectives and experiment description. Then the simulationruns with step-by-step instructions for students underneath (B). The student is expected to follow these instructionsto accomplish the assignment.From within the experiment students may be asked to open a worksheet (D) to record acquired data and answerquestions. The worksheet can be an Excel, .doc, or .pdf file formats and can be entered either online or manually on2012 ASEE Northeast Section Conference

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Valeria Matinuzzi; Danielle Peterson; Sean Iacobone; Salah Badjou

-recommendeddosages of B vitamins and amino acids.While the caffeine, taurine, or sugar found in a single serving of a drink alone might not have any large effect onday-to-day health, in combination they are best used sparingly. Just like any other sweet treat, energy drinks won’thelp with weight loss or overall health goals. In addition, it is important to remember that it is easy to build up atolerance to caffeine and taurine. When this tolerance occurs, it is tempting to consume more of these drugs in orderto enjoy the positive side effects. However, the body does not build up the same kind of tolerance to the negativeeffects of these drugs. In general, it is important to stick to less than 500mg of caffeine, 2g of taurine [39], 1gvitamin B6 [4], and

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Richard Harris; Hameed Metghalchi; Claire Duggan; Emanuel Mason; Rachelle Reisberg; Deepti Dutt

Counseling Psychology, 39(4), 527-538.2012 ASEE Northeast Section Conference University of Massachusetts LowellReviewed Paper April 27-28, 2012[16] Howard, A., & England-Kennedy, E. S. (2001). Transgressing boundaries through learning communities. Journal of Cooperative Education, 36(1), 76-82.[17] Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).[18] Lent, R.W., Brown, S. D., Brenner, B., Chopra, S. B., Davis, T., Talleyrand, R., and Suthakaran, V. (2001). The Role of Contextual Supports and Barriers in the Choice of Math

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Keith M. Gardiner

’ collaborations and teamwork as result of using a new‘Moodle-based’ course management system (CMS) [15]. CATALOG DESCRIPTION, OBJECTIVES AND OUTLINEIntroduction to Engineering Practice: First year practical engineering experience; introduction to concepts,methods and principles of engineering practice. Problem solving, design, project planning, communication,teamwork, ethics and professionalism; innovative solution development and implementation. Introduction to variousengineering disciplines and degree programs.Required Text: Landis, Raymond B., Studying Engineering: A Roadmap to a Rewarding Career. Discovery Press,Los Angeles, CA. 3rd ed. 2007. ISBN 13-978-0-9646969-2-1 [16].Objectives: 1. To afford opportunities for hands-on

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jacob Cox; Jason Cody; Jesse Fleming; Matthew Miller

student’s overallexperience, satisfaction, and confidence with the course. Many entry-level students arrive at college undecided as towhich major they want to pursue. Our assertion is that if we can improve these factors for all of our students, thenwe can improve the percentage that chooses to pursue a STEM-based major. We further seek to learn whetherseating assignments can affect a student’s interest and perceived level of difficulty within the course. REFERENCES[1] M. T. Carlisle, T. Wilson, J. Humphries and S. Hadfieldand, "RAPTOR: a visual programming environment for teaching algorithmic problem solving," ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2005.[2] F. D. Becker, R. Sommer, J. Bee and B. Oxley

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Franco Capaldi

Development of an Online Statics Homework System Franco Capaldi1Since the late 1990’s, there has been an explosion of web based platforms for the submission and grading ofhomework. There are many advantages to online homework submission including (1) students obtain immediatefeedback, (2) they can be used to randomize questions and eliminate blatant cheating, and (3) they can be used toprovide just in time tutorials and information when needed. Many online homework systems such as WebAssign,CAPA, and Blackboard offer a wide range of question types such as multiple choice question formats, fill in theblank, and numerical answer evaluation. However, in the field of engineering, obtaining the

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Brian Savilonis; Kent Rissmiller

Great Problem Seminars: Engaging First Year Students in Project-Based Learning Brian Savilonis,1 Kent Rissmiller 2In the early 1970’s, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) promoted project-based learning to the core of itsacademic program. At that time, WPI redesigned its graduation requirements to include two required projects [2].One project is undertaken within the student’s major field of study is completed during the senior year. A secondproject is usually completed during the junior year and challenges students to work on an interdisciplinary problemat the interface of science, technology, and societal needs [4]. For both projects, effective teamwork is a key skillemphasized

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Basile Panoutsopoulos

, calculations, simulations and experimentation, is presented, as they fit inacademic and industrial environments.Lecture is a convenient way to introduce new ideas in short time using mathematical modeling. Calculations allowfor symbolic and numerical results. Computer simulation of a system is represented as the running of the system'smodel. Experimentation allows for the realization and verification of the results obtained earlier by the previousthree methods, for a real system.In this work we propose the integration of the lecture with calculations, simulations, and experimentation in order toensure that the subject matter under consideration is fully comprehended, investigated, and understood. Thisapproach uses active participation of the student

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Brian Davis; Chris Dorchester; Ted Geldmacher; Tim William; Salah Badjou

on pollution and energy costs. This project was completed in a semester-longjunior-level Electromechanical Design course of the interdisciplinary electromechanical engineering program atWentworth Institute of Technology. All goals were met, a functioning prototype developed, and the finalcalculations made for the installation of a turbine in Keene, New Hampshire with a power output estimation of 71kW.Keywords: Renewable energy, turbine, generator, electric grid INTRODUCTIONWith the growing concern of a cleaner living environment, renewable energy has generated a large interest andmarket [9]. With a high potential energy stored in water towers through the pressure caused by gravity, there

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Gonca Altuger-Genc

Social Network-based Self-Regulated Learning for Engineers: Is it possible? Gonca Altuger-Genc1Lifelong learning gained more importance as the Accreditation Board for Engineering Education and Technology(ABET) criteria require that engineering programs demonstrate that their students attain “a recognition of the needfor, and an ability to engage in lifelong learning”. Universities across the nation are implementing modules,projects, case studies, and online set-ups to meet the lifelong learning criterion. The concept of lifelong learningdiffers than the traditional in-class learning in being self-regulated and voluntary. These two characteristics oflifelong learning make it

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2012 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

John W. Duggan; Michael Davidson; Leonard Anderson

Promoting Intra-Disciplinary Design in Civil Engineering Technology: An Approach to Comprehensive Capstone Design Through Faculty and Practitioner Mentorship John W. Duggan, Ph.D., P.E.(1), Michael Davidson, P.E.(2), Leonard Anderson, Ph.D., C.P.C.(3)Abstract - Working in teams, civil engineering technology students develop an open-ended design on a project of theirchoosing. The design integrates several design and engineering concepts including design alternatives, designassumptions, value engineering, cost, safety, construction feasibility, construction scheduling, engineering ethics andengineering economy. All projects include elements of civil engineering sub-disciplines, including structural, hydraulic,site