Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Matt Leonard; Joseph Morgan; Jeremy P. Coffelt

Digital Systems Teaching and Research (DSTR) Robot: A Flexible Platform for Education and Applied Research Matt Leonard, Dr. Joseph Morgan, Jeremy P. Coffelt Texas Space Technology Applications and Research (T STAR) LLC 216 W. 26th St, Suite G2, Bryan, TX 77803, USA E-mail: matt@tstar.us Abstract The DSTR (pronounced “Disaster”) robot has a stronghistory of being adaptable to different user’s needs, and thereare many opportunities ahead that indicate that the sky, quiteliterally, is not the limit for this robust platform. This paperprovides a historical perspective on the

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Viktor N_ssi; Ana Goulart

experiments:To illustrate 5G research at Aalto, in 2015 Aalto University - millimeter wave transmission,received a grant called TAKE-5 to create a testbed for a 5Gnetwork [5]. Other Finnish universities participate in this - ultra wideband (UWB),testbed, as well as companies such as Ericsson, Huawei, - multi-channel generation.and Nokia. It is a project that is part of a larger initiative by which are described next.the Finnish government called 5G Test Network Finland(5GTNF). 4.1 Millimeter wave transmission

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Jitendra Tate; Craig Hanks; Harold Stern; Walt Trybula

of ethics The project will focus on three, linked, into discipline specific engineering courses to transform STEM education, and initiatives that directly impact the eventually influence the research and ethical professional formation of engineers: culture across campus. • Share what we learn with local and regional 1. Reinforce and foster ethical and cultural professional organizations sensitivity, knowledge, and skills in • Develop new forms of outreach for engineering faculty, in order to professionals

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Julia N. Savoy; Mia K. Markey; H. Grady Rylander III

initiate conversations with their supervisors2.3 Talking Points Tool Study about these issues, either out of feelings of safety (seeking For this study, we are conducted surveys of BME nonacademic careers may be penalized), mutuallystudents and faculty for the TPT study. The Graduate prioritizing research, or that the supervisor’s ability toAdvisor for the department sent all students a pre-notice, advise them in these areas was limited. Others simply didexplaining that the study would be taking place and that not know what to ask or how to get started. Meanwhile, faculty supervisors were willing to

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Heather S. Rose; Charles R. Upshaw; Joshua D. Rhodes; Yuval Edrey; Michael E. Webber

description of the student research and other projectsUniversity of Texas at Austin built by graduate and associated with the lab. This paper concludes with lessonsundergraduate students in the Cockrell School of learned so far and plans for the future.Engineering. The project was funded by the Texas StateEnergy Conservation Office and the University’s Green 2. MotivationFee Grant, a competitive grant program funded by UT The genesis of the SWEAT Lab started in 2012 whenAustin tuition fees to support sustainability-related projects graduate student Joshua Rhodes determined there was aand initiatives on campus. The SWEAT Lab is an on-going lack of publicly available solar insolation

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Jafar F. Al-Sharab; Curtis Desselles; Robert Dalling; Mauricio Escobar; Ariell Shield; Hoa Nguyen; McKenzie Cutrer; Will Heitman

that they can propose a project or an experimental design within the firstdevelop skills that will allow them to contribute three weeks of classes, begin work on gathering datameaningfully as engineering technology professionals. through the first part of the fall or spring semester, and compose the results in a comprehensive lab report. EachThe current enrollment of the club is 20 students. student presents his/her findings at the NSU annualParticipating students are taught theory and gain research research day held in late April [8]. The Engineering andand hands-on experiences at NSU laboratories and Science

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

John R. Clegg; Kenneth R. Diller

problems4.participated in a challenge-based instruction biotransportcourse, offered by the UT Austin BME Department in an The GIM consists of three main components (Figure 1). In theaccelerated format, at the University of Cambridge. Students’ first, an initial considerations step, students dissect theattitudes toward, and aptitude for solving genuine and complex challenge prompt for important information, insights, andbiomedical problems were assessed throughout the semester directional

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Timothy Urban; Margaret Baguio

major initiatives to be undertaken nationally to address and mathematics, or STEM disciplines”. In addition, it isthese educational trends [2,3,4]. contributing to: “enabling STEM education” through mentorship, In engineering, the need for change has been selection of existing NASA content supporting STEM and thehighlighted by American Society for Engineering opportunity for high school students and teachers to conductEducation’s (ASEE) Engineering Deans Council and the authentic NASA mission-based research, “improve U.S. scientificCorporate Roundtable (1994); the National Research literacy” by integrating identified lessons and data for

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Sarah Seraj; June Young Park; Michael Pieratt

firm andThe engineers’ job was to help voters make an informed one group from a consulting firm, have been hired to dodecision about which policy (or party) to vote for, while some initial analyses on the proposed construction project.helping politicians craft the right policy. The voters’ job was The residents of Rainbow Town are voters with differentto protect their own livelihoods. professions who will vote for one of the political parties We had three objectives for our activity. First, connect based on their personal objectives. Each political party willstudents with real-world engineering ethical issues on a try to convince the voters to support their

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

John Etringer; Stephen OÍBrien; Austin Updegraff; Timothy Langerhans; Andrew Nadjari; Chan Kim; Aaron Hill; Michael Campbell

completely disregard the of forty lessons at fifty-five minutes apiece and constitutesdesigns and methods of previous teams, but the reliance on the integrative experience for students. During each classtheir decision-making process was more heavily scrutinized meeting, the team members are seated at a rectangularwith the current multidisciplinary team. Our research is not meeting table in the team’s advisor’s office. During thesolely limited to competitive performance. We also initial lessons, the team and advisor created a syllabus byanalyzed the decision-making process of this year’s team in backwards planning from the competition in April 2018.comparison to previous years. While data on decision

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Vijaya Gopu; Ayman Okeil; Roger Seals

Introduction of Structural Health Monitoring to Civil Engineering Education Vijaya Gopu 1, Ayman Okeil 2 and Roger Seals 2 1 Louisiana Transportation Research Center and University of Louisiana- Lafayette 2 Louisiana State University 4101 Gourrier Ave, Baton Rouge, LA 70808 E-mail: v.gopu@la.gov Abstract relevance and merit in the preparation of civil and This paper describes the development of a Structural environmental engineering professionals, there is a

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Raj Desai

and waste disposal costs, 4. Product Developmentthe low cost of entry into recycling, and increasing The process of taking an idea from initial conception toprominence of environmental concerns regarding both market is called product development. It includes idearesource use and waste disposal. In 1995 alone, pallet generation, market research, product evaluation andrecycling firms recovered 171 million pallets [4]. There is selection, design and development, product protection andtremendous potential for the recovery of large quantities commercialization [10].of valuable hardwood lumber from landfilled pallets. 4.1 Idea GenerationOver 25% of all

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Daniel Puperi

entail. Initially, this coursewas offered as a one-credit hour seminar format, however, the 2.1 Laboratory-based activitiesclass was expanded to include a design component in order to The laboratory portion of the exercise remains largelyengage students in formal engineering training early in their unchanged from previously reported.curriculum. This trend has occurred in many engineering Proceedings of the 2018 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference The University of Texas at

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Madeline Small; Monica Jackson; Pierre Neuenschwander; Shih-Feng Chou

reactions, secondary procedures are typically required towater content was calculated using the equation below (n = 3), properly restore the initial function of the device and to 𝑊! − 𝑊! increase the survival rate for the patient. As such, clot %𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 = 𝑊! formations on artificial surfaces are important information forwhere Wt is the initial dry weight and Wt is the dry weight at the determination of device lifetime. Figure 2 shows the cloteach time interval. time for TPU films and glass substrates as a function of plasma

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Julio Alonso; Jesus Vargas; Daniel Li; Abraham Elizarraras; Tony Hoang; Khanh Vu; J. Patterson; Mohammad Palwala; Marco Maldonado; Masaki Isago; Mark Aranda; Lan Trinh; Tu Huynh; Tie Nguyen; Bao Ly; Jiao Huang; Heidar Malki; Xiaojing Yuan

Austin April 4-6, 2018based mobile computing platform, before reaching theconclusion and presenting our future direction.2. Bike Share Research andBikeShare@UH Project DesignEven with some initial success, wide spread of BicycleSharing encounter several obstacles. Some programs failedto scale up, others failed after government pulled outsubsidies, still others cannot sustain the program becausetoo many bicycles got lost or damaged. Besides challenges Figure 1 The Golden Circle Modelin business and operation model, municipality policies, the the project aims to create a transformative transportationmost critical technical

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Young Lee; Jeong Yang

@tamusa.edu Abstract Java programs by detecting the code of the security leak.Few toolsets for program analysis and Java learning system This paper presents an initial evaluation of this tool toprovide an integrated console, debugger, and reverse investigate its effectiveness and user satisfaction throughengineered visualizer. We present an interactive debugging quantitative and qualitative experiments.environment for Java which helps students to understand Data flow analysis can identify data flow anomalies in thethe secure coding by detecting and visualizing the data flow sequence of actions performed upon a program’s dataanomaly. Previous research shows

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Zachary Hall; Gary Baxter; Neil X. Dong; Shih-Feng Chou

able to tilt the head for20°, the deacceleration value was 40-fold lower. Overall, ourpreliminary data suggested that concussion could be avoided ifthe football players were better trained and can tilt their head toavoid head-to-head collision.3.2 Discussion While these results proved the initial hypothesis, it’sworth noting that the next step is to further increase the amountof data taken over the collision interval time in SimScale, sothat this may be used in further research. As such, the datainterval was increased to have 150 data points, which alsoproduced a similar significant decrease in von Mises stress inthe skull, from to, which further agreed with our initialhypothesis. These are important steps in preventing an NFLathlete from

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Margo Cousins; Daniel Puperi

relationship between collaboration factors andstudent outcomes, the authors surveyed all first year BME teamwork satisfaction. [2] This section of the survey askedstudents at the end of the fall 2017 semester to measure the students to rate their level of agreement on 5 pointstheir own perception of teamwork, communication skills, from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree with ninelifelong learning, and ability to use engineering tools. This statements of important teamwork factors. These includedpaper presents initial results of the survey comparing solving problems, interactions with teammates, andengineering student outcome perceptions from students producing quality work.who just completed a FIG and BME

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Steve E. Watkins; Nancy M. Ostin

as common disincentives faculty, alumni, etc. These expectations are maintained infor advising work, especially on a research-oriented part by chapter visibility and by evidence of priorcampus13. Some chapters lessen the time commitment for successes. Examples are formal initiation events, campusan individual faculty advisor by having multiple faculty monuments, and award displays such as those in Fig. 2.advisors, industry advisors, or graduate student advisors. 4.2 The IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu ExperienceIn such cases, the duties of each advisor should be specified IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu is the honor society for IEEE fieldsacross the advising team. of

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Kenneth Van Treuren

given an assignment on the first day to write a considering the request yet at the same time not be sopersuasive/position paper, supported by research, either for specific as to limit possible solutions. A new engine wasor against replacing the engines on the B-52H. Three teams desired which meant that new technologies needed to besupported the United States Air Force (USAF) re-engine addressed. This exercise helped prepare the student teamsproject and two surprisingly were against. All defended understand the origin of the RFP and its purpose. Teamstheir positions with documentation. The position paper examined the current B-52H aircraft mission capabilitiesgave the students a chance to learn about the aircraft

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Freddie Davis; Roy Issa; Kenneth Leitch; peter Hughes

by embedding phase changeTexas A&M University, students are exposed to a variety material (PCM) inside building walls. The purpose of thisof sustainability-oriented projects through senior design project is to have senior engineering students from both theand research courses. The projects are selected to provide mechanical and civil engineering programs design aan in-depth understanding of the investigated area through prototype composite residential wall that incorporatesanalytical and experimental studies. In this particular phase change material to optimize the temperature gradientproject, students in thermal design were asked to across the composite wall, and to compare the

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Nisha Abraham; Nina Telang

students who showed investment in using this resource To assess the impact of SI attendance on student versus those who did not. To examine the effects of SI onachievement, this study addresses the following research student academic performance, course grades werequestions: converted from nominal to ordinal data as per the university’s numerical grade point equivalencies.1] How does students’ initial awareness and perceptions ofresources influence SI attendance? 3.2 Qualitative Data Collection2] How does students’ perceptions of SI and it’s learning Qualitative data was used to answer

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Noe Vargas Hernandez; Arturo Fuentes; Stephen Crown

self-transformation to promote their innovative While innovation applies creativity to solve problems inproducts and business startups. new ways, entrepreneurship applies these innovativeThe focus of this paper is to identify the innovation and solutions to cash in on the innovation [19]. For theentrepreneurship skills and initiate and analogical purposes of this paper, both sets of skills are of interest, andcomparison for a set of student self-transforming skills. although innovation and entrepreneurship have clearlyFuture work will focus on how to develop each of the different goals, some of the required skills are shared.selected self-transformation skills

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Jorge Leon; Angie Hill Price; Mathew Kuttolamadom

internet, knowledge Mechanical Engineering Technology [5] is offered alongautomation, internet-of-things, autonomous vehicles, with other specialty engineering technology programs. Theadvanced manufacturing methods such as additive curriculum is more focused on research and appears to be amanufacturing and other advanced technologies, as well as deeper extension of the undergraduate degree offered.project management abilities in these areas. In order to Communication skills for the students are emphasized asmeet this need, faculty in the MMET program at TAMU Proceedings of the 2018 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference The University of

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

P.L.Stephan Thamban; Dani Fadda P.E.

students. Lecture-based courses can be function of time, after an initial “warm-up” it will reach asignificantly less engaging than inductive or project-based maximum around 10 minutes and from then it will startcourses, however, lectures continue to be necessary. For dropping steadily; that trend can be plotted as shown inthis reason, there is a deliberate effort to explore all Fig. 1 [4].avenues that aid retaining the student’s interest-level andcontent-assimilation while participating in long (50 to 75minute) lecture sessions. In this paper, we specifically discuss simplemethods (systemic pauses and group in-class assignments)that can be used in any lecture-based course. Thesemethods were

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Joseph A. Donndelinger

support of the section.larger initiative to offer a certificate program in TechnologyEntrepreneurship. This is an elective course that may betaken as an alternative to the conventional Engineering 3. ApproachEconomics course that is required for all students in Baylor’s There were a total of six homework assignments in the Fallundergraduate engineering programs. As such, the course 2016 GBEC session. The first was a problem-based sessionwas patterned after a conventional engineering economics in which students developed value propositions from thecourse, supplemented with content on persuasive perspectives of technologists, venture

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Cynthia C. Fry; Steven P. Potter

labs and representation of these schedules assignments, in particular, prepared students to apply what  Project Idea Submittal: research and compilation of they had learned in the application of their final projects. various group project ideas A series of homework assignments were assessed, including:The labs included a series of in-class demonstrations of the  Assignment (A)1: Compare and contrast severalunderstanding and integration of: current microcontrollers/small board computers  Lab 1: Introduction to the Atmel SAM4L XPlained

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephany Coffman-Wolph; Kimberlyn Gray

in a large lecture hall comes with a variety of challenges. The Research has shown that students learn and perform addition of active learning into large classrooms has beenbetter in learning environments that are interactive [1]. shown to be highly effective overall [4] but it has beenTeaching a freshman-level introductory course in computer reported that is often less effective with freshman thanscience (CS) can be challenging, because most students are

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Christine Julien

course has three broad limited relevance [20] and a culturally inculcated “fear” thatgoals: (1) to make software engineering fun and applicable, programming is inherently (too) difficult to learn [18].with the aim of recruiting traditionally underrepresented However, research has also shown that exposure to hands-ongroups into computing; (2) to make young students begin to computer science in the K-12 years can positively impactapproach problems with a design mindset; and (3) to

Collection

2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Peggy Kulesz; David Ewing

future in theHeeding the concern of faculty members regarding the engineering profession. As the authors of [5] have noted,students’ ability to write professionally, the curriculum integrating writing into engineering courses is far morecommittee for ENGR 1300 collaborated with the English effective than having separate language courses withoutDepartment to create an initial curriculum that tasked engineering collaboration. Therefore, ENGR 1300 has anstudents with basic writing tasks such as professional imbedded writing element in collaboration with UTA’semails, resumes, reports, and simple process papers. While English department. In Spring 2017, a new writingthese assignments seemed to