work avaluable reference for a very wide academic audience.1. IntroductionAdequate communication skills constitute a requirement for engineering program accreditationby ABET and an essential component of an engineer’s professional function. However, inmodern days, communication has exceeded its traditional verbal and written aspects.Technological advances in presentation, computers and the rise of the internet have allowedcommunication to incorporate presentation, technical, graphical, media, and artistic concepts aswell as communication techniques targeted to different audiences.Engineering curricula are already overburden and difficult and must conform to manyeducational and institutional constraints. Most states or institutions impose a
times to complete the laboratory tasks, they seemed to beenthusiastic about it and enjoy the challenges. Further effectiveness of this hands-oncurriculum is demonstrated in terms of student feedback, student performance in thecourse, and ABET outcomes assessment.2. Laboratory EquipmentThe course had 2.5 hours laboratory component to go along with two 50 min. theoryclasses. The students were given laboratory tasks during these lab sessions where theymanufactured different objects using a variety of equipment shown in Figures 1 – 12.Brief information about these equipment and the objects students made using them isgiven as follows.Figure 1 is a picture of stereo lithography (STL) equipment that uses a photosensitiveresin exposed to a computer
worked well, what did not work well and should be changed, what was omitted and shouldhave been included, and what was included and should be eliminated.We made the decision not to promote the course actively in the first offering, thinking that asmall enrollment while we tested the structure and content would be most appropriate. Webelieved that the course would populate, probably in the range of 8-10 students, in both theengineering and science disciplines. In fact, only five engineering students enrolled in the course(1 MS Chemical Engineering, 3 MS Civil Engineering, 1 PhD Manufacturing Engineering), andone of them, the doctoral student, dropped out after the first week. Additionally, only one of theremaining students had any professional
addresses the skills continuum in three main parts: a) Part I addressesthe Direct Leadership Skills and Actions required for Engineering Levels [1-3]; b) Part II addresses theOrganizational Leadership Skills and Actions required for Engineering Levels [4-6], and; c) Part IIIaddresses the Strategic Leadership Skills and Actions required for Engineering Levels [7-9]. The overallanalysis sets the foundation for building a coherent professional graduate curriculum and dynamiceducational process reflective of how experienced engineering professionals learn, grow, and create newtechnology in industry. This paper addresses Part III: the Strategic Leadership Function, Skills andActions that the engineer must learn and develop at Director of Engineering
fundamental changes starting with a comprehensive review toanalyze the course content and assessment results obtained from previous years. During thisprocess, some limitation factors were discovered such as- 1) The course contents were mainlytargeted for electrical engineering major, neglecting other engineering disciplines; 2) Too muchemphasis was placed on circuit analysis techniques with no “real world” context provided; 3)Laboratory activities were step-by-step and focused on verifying lecture content rather than ondiscovery of concepts; and 4) Computers and state-of-the-art simulation software were not usedor underutilized. Based on these observations, the course was revised with a completely new setof lab experiment focused on verifying
foreign engineers available, the export of jobs is then driven bytheir lower cost. For example, eight young professional engineers can be hired in India for thecost of a single engineer in the United States4.The implications of these numbers for the engineering students of today are twofold: (1) studentsof today face much more international competition for jobs than they have in the past, and (2) aspracticing engineers they are much more likely to have to work with engineers from all over theworld. In order to prepare our students for this new environment, it is necessary that weeducators modify and improve their preparation. It is no longer enough that our students betechnically competent, they must excel as leaders, communicators, and
skills, project management, engineering ethics and other relatedskills.1, 2 This paper focuses on the assessment of the curriculum improvement from these threenew courses.Various methods have been reported in the engineering education literature to assess theeffectiveness of the curriculum improvement. Dempsey et al. 3 presented using senior mini-projects instead of traditional senior capstone projects in electrical and computer engineeringcurriculum assessment. Ricks et al. 4 used student perceptions of their abilities and quantitativemeasures of student performance using both written assignments and laboratory assignments toevaluate the effective of a new embedded systems curriculum. Gannod et al. 5 described the gapanalysis and its impact on
Page 15.42.2learned.Factors Influencing Capstone Design CoursesMultidisciplinary capstone design projects represent an integrative opportunity in a student’seducational journey as they transition from engineering education to practice. While capstonedesign courses can (and should) be challenging for students, assessment in the context of designprojects for instructors is especially challenging. This is due in part to the multiple learningobjectives involved which broadly include teamwork, communication and the design process.Figure 1 identifies many of the factors that have the opportunity to influence capstone designprojects. Noise Parameters • Team
systemsrequiring custom printed circuit boards. The majority of electrical engineering programs teachbasic electronics laboratories using solderless prototyping boards and circuit analysis usingsimulation software such as PSpice. There is a different skill set needed to design a prototypecircuit as compared to designing and implementing an actual electronic device using PrintedCircuit Board (PCB) tools and techniques.1, 2 To fill the gap, several universities started todevelop electronic manufacturing laboratories and offer courses for electrical and computerengineering students.1, 3-9 But all of these courses are upper-division and most of them are Page
to address the need for theinstitution to offer project courses. The Sustainable Development Capstone Project also providedan opportunity to address several graduate attributes desired by the CEAB2. These attributesinclude :1) Design :“An ability to design solutions for complex, open-ended engineering problems and to designsystems, components or processes that meet specified needs with appropriate attention to healthand safety risks, applicable standards, economic, environmental, cultural and societalconsiderations.“2) Team work and multidisciplinary work :“An ability to work effectively as a member and leader in teams, preferably in a multi-disciplinary setting. “3) The impact of engineering on society and the environment :“An ability to
. Theintended outcome was to prepare our students with the multidisciplinary skills needed to meetthe challenges of the fast-growing energy economy.Following are examples of some of the hands-on projects used to introduce renewable energycourses to engineering technology students. Although the objectives for each individual projectwere different, the presented examples share common practices, including:(1) Students achieved a basic understanding of hardware or control systems by taking the coursesrelated to the assigned projects or/and conducting literature searches.(2) Students learned how to define specifications of hardware or control systems from the facultymembers with expertise in the field.(3) Students designed experiments to meet their project
are often overlooked or assumed by people espousing newteaching methods. But they are things that are necessary for faculty to do to connect with theirstudents. Other researchers have discussed some of these points, but often include suggestionsthat are more time-consuming than desirable for new faculty in a research environment.1-4 Kim5has some excellent suggestions that are echoed in this paper, but this paper provides additionalsuggestions. The suggested actions are things that build up the respect that students have fortheir teacher, and it is necessary for a teacher to have the respect of the students in order toconnect with and teach their students. So as to not add further work to the faculty member, thesepractices require little or no
could be e-mailed to an instructor. But as students could work onthe program at any time, immediate answers were not always available.Table 1 contains the number of students who participated in the on-campus and on-line versionsof the program in 2007 and 2008, and the number of students who participated in 2009. In 2008,there were two versions of the on-campus program, with one version containing more activitiesthan just the math instruction. While this may eventually impact graduation rates between thetwo sets of students, for this paper the math placement results will be combined as the format ofthe math instruction was very similar. It is also noted that each year, one student received APcredit for Calculus while participating in the program
additional wind tunnel testing. In the first semester of this project, studentteams built from 1-3 airfoils to test.The final glider each team builds will be made entirely out of foam, and the shape of the glidercan be determined by each team. They are limited only in that the overall dimensions must fitinto the launch mechanism, which was 28 inches wide. The students can design and build anyshape of fuselage they want, and they can select the length, chord, and aspect ratio of the wings.Students are responsible for ensuring the glider design is dynamically stable in pitch, yaw, androll. An additional constraint on the design is economic. Students are charged “Bradley Bucks”for all material used, and for the use of equipment, including the wind
, digital systems and real-time signal processing. Dr Steadman is currently Dean of Engineering at the University of South Alabama. E-mail: jsteadman@usouthal.edu Page 15.1089.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Standing and Traveling Waves on Transmission Lines: Getting it RightIntroductionIn the recent engineering education literature there have been numerous papers dealing withstrategies for teaching electrical transmission lines. These papers approach the assistance inteaching from two points of view. The first is the use of simple low-cost experiments todemonstrate the concepts 1-3 and the second
programs based onthe original CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) series that takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Theelectronics technician evaluates system performance and deals with system problems by eitherreplacing mal-functioning or defective sub-system components or up-dating or reprogrammingsystem software to bring the system back on-line (see Figure 1below for the block diagram of atypical electronics system). Figure 1 – Block Diagram of a typical modern electronic system (showing typical system sub-systems and the interconnections between them)Surface mount technology (SMT), multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs), and the on-goingtransition from board-level system technology to system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology have
determine if money was being saved. Data was obtained for March, April, and May of 2008and 2009. Electronic metering exists on all the transformers on campus. The electricalconsumption data is read directly from the meter in the form of kWh and stored in a computerdatabase. There are two transformers that feed power to the Hogue Technology Building. Datawas obtained from these two transformers for the prescribed time period.FMD also measures the amount of steam condensate that is pumped back to the central heatingplant from all the steam heated buildings on campus. This information can then be converted totherms (1 therm = 100,000 BTU’s). The amount of condensate that is pumped out of a buildingis directly proportional to how much steam the
crucial for the engineering graduates of the future. This documentstated “. . . attributes needed for the graduates of 2020 . . . include such traits as strong analyticalskills, creativity, ingenuity, professionalism, and leadership.”1 In their follow-up report,Educating the Engineer of 2020, NAE encouraged engineering educators to incorporate moreeducation in the topics of leadership principles, professional ethical behavior, knowledge ofglobal technology issues, and understanding of the world’s cultures in order to facilitate workingin a global arena and engagement in civic activities.2 The popular author Thomas Friedman, inhis bestselling book The World is Flat3, effectively described the current state of globalizationand its effect on the
students interested in pursuing a minor in ECE. This paper reports onour method of teaching such a class that is particularly appealing to non-major students.In this paper we would like to share our experience thus far with colleagues who are teachingsimilar non-major classes. We intend to discuss the following traditional and rather non-traditional topics: 1. Analogies to mechanical engineering concepts 2. Current flow in DC circuits 3. Basic semiconductor (diode) theory - is it difficult? 4. Basic solar cell and thermoelectric engine 5. Laboratory materials 6. MATLAB and LabVIEW 7. Historical context 8. Video tutorials 9. Conclusions and assessment1. Analogies to mechanical engineering conceptsIn our
offered by the department of Vehicle Technologycovers eight semesters over a four year period for an undergraduate and is based on theprinciples of Project Based Learning (PBL), a theme which has been elaborated upon inprevious ASEE conference papers (Bischof et al., 2007; Bratschitsch et al., 2009).Briefly, the degree’s structure is broken into three distinct project phases, which take place inthe 2nd and 3rd semesters (phase 1), the 5th and 6th semesters (phase 2) and the 7th semester(phase 3). In each phase, the subjects in the syllabus are designed to compliment each otherand motivate student learning, and the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) programme isdesigned to support and correlate with each phase including the project objectives
consists of a question and actual student response from a recentTransport Phenomena 1 final exam (the student was a junior):Gasoline is being pumped 17 miles through nominal 3-inch, schedule-40 steel pipe at arate of 9500 gal/hr. What horsepower will be required if the pump’s efficiency is about75%? ≠ M/ τ The average velocity in the pipe: > V ≅? ρR 2 4571856 therefore, > V ≅? 2 ? 8.9 x107 ft/s. ρ (0.1278) d >V ≅ τ
one’s book is given to colleagues and perhaps their students as aPDF file it essentially becomes open course ware (OCW) such as has been pioneered byMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A commercial publisher who needs to havecapital to run the business would probably not release an unrestricted PDF file unless it would bea promotional product to sell a larger book for which the material could be a section, forexample. Indeed one can download textbooks from the world wide web. (1) (For furtherdiscussion see http://www.stevens.edu/asee/fileadmin/asee/pdf/Aston--_final.pdf )E-Book Generation Example A 164 page e-book completely produced on a desktop computer, Medical Imaging
realistic constraints, such as economic factors, safety, reliability, aesthetics, ethics and social impact.Implicit in this understanding of Figure 1. Navajo Bridge in the Grand Canyon Nationalengineering design is that need is Park7something that is established by non-engineers or engineers working outside of engineering practice and is communicated in anover-the-wall approach to the engineers. Non-engineering factors such economics, safety,reliability, aesthetics, ethics, and social impact are relegated to a plethora of systematizedapproaches often known as Design for X If engineering design is merely the application ofalready well defined knowledge then there indeed
and the dielectric material,students designed many kinds of sensors. The simplest one is a pressure sensor based on aparallel capacitor, which is shown in Fig.1. The distance between the two capacitor plates isrelated to the external pressure; the higher the pressure, the larger the capacitance. On the otherhand, the idealized theoretical model often assumes the electric field is confined between the twoplates, but the simulation result shows clearly there is a wide range distribution of the fringefield. In addition, students can also investigate the electric charge distribution on the plates,electrostatic potential energy density and the total capacitance. Fig. 1. Potential and field around a parallel plate
funding. There were two ways that staged funding wasdiscussed: as a part of decision trees, and as independent material. Table 1 shows the results inthose texts where staged funding was discussed, whether there was a discussion of stagedfunding as part of decision tree analysis, and/or whether there was an independent discussion oruse of staged funding.While the use of staged funding is widespread within industry, it is not a significant part of ourengineering economy textbooks. A survey of finance texts revealed much the same thing; somebooks discuss staged funding 1,12,13 while others do not14,15,16,17. Project management texts dealwith the fact that many large projects are managed as distinct stages or phases18,19,20,21, but fewdiscuss how the
latest information for a rapidly changing domestic industry. Engineering 2020 concerns designing an engineering curriculum that grows to meet or exceed current and future demands. This is based on vision, values, variability, knowledge and awareness of the inherent worth of people [1]. In this work, we describe a state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary undergraduate course in electronic manufacturing that satisfy elements from engineering 2020 objectives. The course integrates knowledge from different technologies with application in life sciences. The course incorporates four technology processes: ASIC, PCB, FPGA, and MEMS into engineering application. Indiana Life Sciences Inc. located at Indianapolis, Indiana, will be hosting the manufacturing
required for thenew economy, and the role of professional or soft skills in getting and keeping a job. Infact, according to one recent research report (discussed extensively below), only 31.5%of four year graduates enter the workforce with excellent professional skills.1 While theresearch report discusses graduates of four-year institutions and their work skills, thisauthor posits that any identified shortcomings in four-year education can be remedied notonly by changing the education in undergraduate education, but also by addressing thoseemployer needs at the graduate level. Without question, technical skills are required intechnical professions, but those technical skills alone are no longer sufficient to preparegraduates in engineering and
describes high school STEM lessons created by three undergraduate MechanicalEngineering students. The students participated in a classroom outreach program called ComputerScience Investigations (CSI: Cincinnati) as part of the Mentoring for Connections to Computing effortfunded by the National Science Foundation’s Broadening Participation in Computing program. The CSIprogram performs computing-themed pre-college outreach with a team of undergraduates who deliveroriginal lessons with hands-on activities and interact with high school students in their classroom. Thispaper describes three lessons: (1) pipe design layout based on CAD drawings for an industrial bakerykitchen, (2) computer vision systems using optical illusions and cupcake decorating
AC 2010-253: DELIVERING ENGINEERING EDUCATION RESEARCHFINDINGS TO THE PRACTITIONERS: A NEW WORKSHOP MODELAPPROACHCindy Waters, North Carolina A&T State UniversityHelen Chen, Stanford UniversitySheri Sheppard, Stanford University Page 15.344.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Delivering Engineering Education Research Findings to the Practitioners: A New Workshop Model ApproachABSTRACTIn 2008, the Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES) wasdeployed to over 4,500 undergraduate students with the goal of contributing to the understandingof: (1) how students’ engineering knowledge develops and changes over time; (2