Conference Session

Abroad Educational Opportunities in Engineering

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Jeffrey Giesey

talked to colleagues and students atOhio University who had lived in Namibia to get their assessment of the country.1 The World bank classifies economies by gross national product (GNP) per capita. Generallycountries in the low-income and middle-income groups are considered developing. This wouldinclude countries such as Argentina (GNP per capita = US$7460), Czech Republic (US$5250)and Mexico (US$5070) on the upper end and countries such as Rwanda (US$230), Mozambique(US$210) and Ethiopia (US$100) on the lower end. Page 8.49.2 “Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition

Conference Session

Capstone Design and Engineering Practice

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

David Harris

. Theresults are assessed with student surveys. The technical aspects went well, but students wouldhave liked to have learned more about their counterparts’ culture. In the Spring of 2003, we arerepeating the course with a planned Spring Break trip to Turkey.Course StructureThe METU seniors in the project had completed EE413, a senior/Masters-level VLSI designcourse taught by Tayfun Akin in Fall 2001. Six of the students chose to continue with the designproject in Spring 2002. Although the initial proposal called for granting credit, the METUbureaucracy could not approve credit in time and the students participated on a purely voluntarybasis.The HMC juniors and seniors were enrolled in E158 (Introduction to CMOS VLSI Design),taught by David Harris in

Conference Session

Mechanical Systems

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Firas Zeineddine; Ahmad Smaili

code allows one to analyze the synthesized linkage to assess its kinematicsperformance. This is an important step because mathematical solutions do not guarantee thatthe synthesized mechanism can traverse the positions in the desired order or it does not sufferfrom branching defects. The simulation option in SoftLink allows the designer to check finedetails in the kinematics before moving to the kinetics design and analysis.Matlab/Simulink is the platform of choice for several reasons: (1) It is a code familiar tostudents and faculty as it is already available and used in many courses in a curriculum tosolve a wide range of engineering problems including control, communications, DSP,optimization, etc.; (2) It has a vast library of functions

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Jewell

somedetail, discuss the curricular revisions implemented to allow students to participate, andcompare present and future methods for assessing the value and impact of the foreignstudy experiences on engineering graduates.IntroductionUnion College is a liberal arts institution with engineering and computer science. It islocated in Schenectady, NY, and was one of the first colleges in the country to offer adegree in engineering (Civil Engineering, 1845). Out of the total student population ofslightly more than 2000, approximately 300, or 15%, are engineers and computerscientists. This proportion is lower than historical levels, with the target for growth beingto increase the proportion to 20%.Union has traditionally maintained an active terms abroad

Conference Session

Trends in Mechanical Engineering

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard Forbes; Mary Emplaincourt

. Page 8.15.10“Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education”Richard E. ForbesRichard E. Forbes is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Mississippi StateUniversity (MSU) and Associate Director of the Industrial Assessment Center. He taught in theMechanical Engineering Department and he has over thirty years of litigation-related experience;working on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants.Mary C. EmplaincourtMary C. Emplaincourt in an Instructor of Mechanical Engineering at Mississippi StateUniversity and, also, serves as Associate Director of the Industrial Assessment Center. She holdsa

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Levitt

widely recognized, yet notfully addressed in the typical engineering curriculum. Communication can be an engineer’sstrongest ally or his/her worst enemy. The safe return of the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraftmarked both engineering and communication success. The explosion of the space shuttleChallenger was the price of failure. As I will further illustrate shortly, failures to communicateeffectively can lead to disastrous consequences.The Engineering Criteria 2000 promulgated by the Accreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology, Inc. (ABET) offers an opportunity for innovative undergraduate learning. TheAccreditation Board for Engineering and Technology's ABET Engineering Criteria 2000program outcomes and assessment states that"Engineering

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Nanette Keiser; Gloria Tressler; Arlen Gullickson

Evaluation Center (EC) at Western Michigan University is workingunder a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct an evaluation project. Theoverall mission of this evaluation project is to assess the impact and effectiveness of NSF’sAdvanced Technological Education (ATE) Program and to provide technical assistance forongoing evaluative efforts (Gullickson & Lawrenz, 1998). The first phase of this evaluation was1 This study was conducted with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Any opinions, findings, andconclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Herbert Hess

, Reliable Electric Power. Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationredesign an isolated electrical power generation facility in the beautiful location shown in Figure1. This paper reports how a team of four undergraduate engineering students, consisting of twoMechanical Engineers and two Electrical Engineers, successfully address this problem as asenior capstone design project. First, they assess the feasibility of the project. Defining theproblem is the biggest hurdle. They find that addressing this problem is within the capability ofthe team as students. Second, investigating the necessary technical questions and cost

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Zbigniew Prusak

heavy emphasis on process organization and teamwork. The goal of the exerciseis not only to solve a given problem, which is intentionally not clearly defined, but also to come upwith a range of solutions based on the understanding of the underlying scientific principles, and todevelop metrics to evaluate these solutions. Stating and solving engineering contradictions presentin the design and functioning of the apparatus have proven to be one of the prime areas ofstudents’ problems. An initial assessment of areas of biggest problems encountered by studentsduring the course of the whole process is included along with proposed remedies.1. IntroductionProblem solving skills are the very essence of engineering know-how. It is not only the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ramachandran Radharamanan; Angela Ansuj

what they can achieve_________________________________________________________________________________DFM Tools DFM activity _________________________________________________________ Optimize Simplify Ensure process Optimize product concept conformance function_________________________________________________________________________________Design axioms * * * *DFM guidelines * *Taguchi method * * * *Robustness assessment * * * *Mfg. process design

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Doria Hickman; Bala Ram; Sanjiv Sarin; Paul Stanfield

Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering EducationThe “Educational Processes” function involves the imparting of education and the guidance ofstudent progression to a degree. Under this function, course development/revision andcurriculum development/revision processes must be performed in a team mode to reflect theviewpoints of faculty members with different technical expertise. We define course evaluationas the assessment of the content and delivery of individual courses relative to the intention of theacademic department. This assessment should take into account the role of the course in theoverall curriculum. This consideration is not a traditional function in an academic department butis an important one in light of new accreditation

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Christine Noble; Karen Schmahl

presentation format. Schmahl and Noblesuggested that the poster format facilitates creation of “better products, fosters student interactionso students learn from each other and enables students to develop some planning and teamskills.”2 To assess the effectiveness of this approach in the engineering economy course, surveyswere administered to students.The CaseThe final case focused on evaluation of after-tax cash flows of multiple alternatives of equipmentpurchases with uncertainty of projected production volumes. A modified version of “TheCutting Edge” case from Cases in Engineering Economy was used with permission of Ted. G.Eschenbach.3 In the case, means of adding production capacity must be evaluated in order to bid

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Derek Dunn-Rankin

3 kg of CO2. A person walking 6 miles at 2miles per hour takes 3 hours, or 180 minutes. Assuming a breathing rate of 10 breathsper minute, the walker processes 1800 lungfuls of air, or approximately 1800 liters.Assume that in each breath, 21% of the air is oxygen and ½ of the oxygen is converted toCO2. 1800 breaths then process approximately 2.0 kg of air, converting 0.2 kg ofoxygen, making approximately 0.3 kg of CO2. Of this amount, only the respiration abovenormal resting breathing is due to the walking, so the actual CO2 creation for the effort isfar less. So long as you can carry the groceries, walking produces at least an order ofmagnitude less CO2 for the same trip.SummaryRapid assessment of design alternatives requires a solid

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Keinath; Jr., Walter J. Weber; Hildegarde Selig

the “common senseapproach" instructional philosophy of the class by adding complexity to the overall ammoniastripping tower design through successive modules. Each module corresponded to a topicalsection of the course with each successive module building on the work of the prior. This step-wise engineering application was designed in such fashion that by the end of the course thestudents completed a rigorous design of an ammonia stripping tower. To elicit a cooperativelearning environment, all but the first of the modules were completed in self-selected groups ofthree to four students. The effectiveness of this instructional approach was assessed throughstudent surveys before and after the project and analysis of student performance

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Herbert Hess

to have merit. Assessment of this will be presented at the conference,after summative reviews of the course from two semesters have been received.Summary In this paper, the design of the converters is first explained. In a senior capstone designcourse, fifteen students designed and built them from a unified set of specifications. Thesestudents also build an automated instrumentation interface to control the converters, with realtime display of waveforms and high level commands for open-loop control. Design students didthis with a stake in the process—in several cases, they were also the customer. They werecontributing in an obvious way to teaching the next group of students what they had just learned.Their insight in this manner greatly

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven L. Cohen; Dennis P. Slevin; David I. Cleland; Kim LaScola Needy; Heather Nachtmann

aware of any courses on governance in any engineeringmanagement programs. When developing a governance course for an engineering managementprogram, it is necessary to look at the existing curriculum and needs and skills of its studentsand their employers. This assessment will help to determine which format should be selected toteach governance within the program. The course that we will be developing and detailing inthis paper follows the general overview format. This was based on the best fit into our currentcurriculum and the needs of our students at the University of Pittsburgh. This proposed coursewould be developed and taught jointly by faculty from the Department of Industrial Engineeringand the Katz Graduate School of Business at the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Peter J. Graybash

decision theory, it is possible to describe theelements that are common to all decisions.It would seem that the decision-making process is a sequential process of steps that begins witha statement of the problem and ends with an assessment of the results. This assumes that thedecision-making process is rational and follows pre-described steps. C. identifying the problem, C. developing alternative solutions, C. evaluating alternatives, C. choosing the best alternative, C. implementing the decision, and C. assessing the results.There is a large body of literature pertaining to the behavioral theory of decision-making thatcan attempt to answer this question. Comparing and Contrasting three major decision-makingmodels portrays

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Resit Unal; Derya Jacobs; Charles Keating; Paul Kauffmann; Abel Fernandez

total: n ∑c ij 110 j =1 = = 0 . 21 ( 21 %) (4) m n ∑∑c 519 ij i =1 j =1 Assessment of Proportional Curricular ImpactThe second question examines whether the impact of the CTs on the PGs is consistent with the statedimportance (weight) of the PGs. The total impact values of Table 4 provide the basis to analyze thisquestion. Comparison of the importance of a program goal with the total impact of the CTs on the PG isa relative measure to

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Asif M. Shakur; Ali Eydgahi; Abhijit Nagchaudhuri

loop helps establishthe educational objectives by surveying the constituency. The second loop compares theeducational objectives set up by the first loop with the outcomes that result from the academicprocess. The assessment of the outcomes is integrated within the academic process. Thedifferences observed between the outcomes and objectives help refine the academic process orthe objectives or both, such that they become compatible with one another. This helps to set up acontinuous improvement cycle. Typically frequency of the loop closure is faster for the secondloop rather than for the first loop. Implementation of "Service-Learning" in a novel and creativefashion may well provide an effective pedagogical tool consistent with this new

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Karl Smith

-products Collective work-products Runs efficient meetings Encourages open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings Measures its effectiveness indirectly by its Measures performance directly by assessing influence on others collective work-products Discusses, decides, and delegates Discusses, decides, and does real work together Page 5.555.3A common way to promote more constructive and productive teamwork is to have the teamscreate a set of guidelines for the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Ray Price; Jonathan R. Dolle

office hours, which students are encouraged to attend Table 2: Sample Teambuilding ActivitiesEngineering 100 classes serve as important tools for communicating to students informationabout upcoming engineering events on campus. By directly encouraging student involvement inengineering activities early on, the likelihood that they will continue to be involved throughouttheir college career is dramatically increased.Every year more and more people want to use the Engineering 100 program to communicatewith students. These efforts have included skill assessment or placement tests for common Page

Conference Session

K-12 Outreach Initiatives

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Martha Cyr; Lacey Prouty; Erik Rushton; Brian Gravel

science students with classroom teachers. The CEEO had 6 graduatefellows in the first year of the project, and currently has 8 graduate fellows working in theclassroom. Selection for program participation involves a yearly application process subsequentor concomitant to admission to the School of Engineering. Students complete an applicationwith essay and submit it to the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach for consideration.Top candidates are then identified from the applicant pool and offered individual interviews withthe grant’s principal investigator. Throughout the application process, assessment is made ofindividual experience, understanding of Center’s mission and vision for the development ofprimary and secondary engineering

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Zhengtao T. Deng; Xiaoqing (Cathy) Qian; Abdul Jalloh; Amir Mobasher; Ruben Rojas-Oviedo

construction, stresses, forces and deflections in each member , (b) cost analysis for the finished frame, and (c) detailed drawing of the frame proposed for design as is provided to the manufacturer.3. An oral presentation of the work: The presentation will be made at the end of the semester. Each group will have 15 minutes to present the work. The work will be assessed by their peers.Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinary: In this Junior level course, the students areexpected to develop a simulation program for a particular linkage system and utilize theprogram in the design process. For the Fall 2000, the project assigned to the studentsinvolved the utilization of Matlab in the development and the simulation of a metalforming apparatus. The

Conference Session

Improving Statics and Dynamics Classes

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Christine Masters; Renata Engel

address some of these concerns regarding the lecture portion of thecourse.Concept Question and Peer Instruction ApproachBriefly, the ‘peer instruction’ approach detailed by Mazur consists of planned, intermittentopportunities for students to assess their own understanding and to articulate their understandingto their peers and the instructor, and for the instructor to obtain immediate feedback about thelevel of student understanding of key concepts. These learning opportunities are placed atspecific times in each lecture with the frequency depending on the number of conceptsintroduced or reviewed during a particular lecture. After a concept is covered, a question thatfocuses on that single concept is projected on the overhead for the entire class

Conference Session

Techniques for Improving Teaching

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Catherine Brawner; Rodney Allen; Richard Felder

implemented a faculty development program that includes teachingeffectiveness workshops, workshops for administrators on mentoring and supporting newfaculty, and measures to create and sustain engineering faculty development programs on eachmember campus. To assess the impact of these efforts, the SUCCEED faculty development teamdesigned and administered a survey of faculty teaching practices and attitudes toward teaching in19971 and administered it again in 1999 2. This paper summarizes the responses to survey itemsin which faculty rated the importance of effective teaching to themselves, to faculty colleagues,and to campus administrators, and the importance of effective and innovative teaching in theirinstitution’s faculty reward system.In 1999

Conference Session

Interdisciplinary Engineering Education

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Terra Smith

and ensuring the appropriate fluid viscosity11 isprepared for patients on a dysphagia diet. Regulatory and accrediting bodies monitor howsuccessfully the foodservice units accomplish their responsibilities to patients. In order to help understand the nature and extent of the problem of inappropriately thickeningof liquids at two facilities (with the same corporate parent company), researchers needed aninexpensive method of evaluating fluid viscosity. Researchers also needed to assess the controlthe fluid viscosity with methods that communicated the results understandably to the health carestaff. In addition, because preliminary investigations indicated that staff needed training in theproper use of food thickeners, training materials

Conference Session

Computer Based Measurements

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Widmer; Jan Lugowski

later in industry.3. Disadvantages of problem-based learningProblem-based learning comes with the following disadvantages: · Since PBL stresses quality, not quantity, of content covered, some of the material covered by textbooks may be omitted. · Students may initially struggle with PBL when this approach is new to them. They may not be prepared to answer questions posed by the instructor, they may want the instructor to solve all the problems for them. They may tell the instructor “It is your job to tell me.” · It can be difficult and time-consuming to correct erroneous student reasoning, and keep students on track.Student assessment is more difficult than traditional multiple-choice tests. It requires

Conference Session

Teaching Green Engineering

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Charles Turner

Paso (UTEP) has developeda program for the teaching and learning of sustainable engineering concepts in each andevery engineering program. The departments impacted are Civil, Computer Science,Electrical, Materials & Metallurgy, and Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. Theprogram is the result of self-assessment at UTEP and has the support of a NationalScience Foundation initiative for Model Institutions of Excellence. The program isintroducing sustainable engineering concepts in the teaching of specific existing coursesand developing a sustainable engineering certification program. This paper will reviewprogress on the sustainable engineering program and present several of the excitingconcepts being proposed for inclusion in the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Basavapatna Sridhara

discussed periodically in the class as well as withindividual students. The Assessment Manager (Fig. 6) on the Control Panel is an efficient tool for creatingtests and quizzes, posting grades and viewing course statistics. The Online Gradebook was usedto post or modify grades by student or by item such as test, quiz, lab, homework, andpresentation. The spreadsheet shows all entries and allows individual grades be entered and/ormodified. It has a built-in feature that automatically adds each student’s scores and also givesthe class mean based on the total possible points. Optionally, the spreadsheet can be exported toMS Excel for further processing of the data. Course Statistics can be used to obtain feedback onhow well the students have used

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Edmund Tsang

preliminary results of student assessment. Thepaper will then present the arguments that C.P. Snow would approve of service-learningin engineering because service-learning offers opportunities for collaborations between“The Two Cultures,” and because service-learning in engineering manifests the “moral”impulse behind the work of engineers and scientists described by Snow in “The TwoCulture” article. Finally, the paper will surmise that service-learning in engineering is aform of “Public Engineering,” analogous to the ideas of “Public Scholarship” [2] and“Public Science” [3] to meet the societal needs of the 21st Century.II. Service-Learning and Service-Learning in EngineeringIn a primer on service-learning in higher education [4], B. Jacoby gave this