Collection

2004 GSW

Authors

M-A Demuynck; D. E. Edwards; M. M. Holt; R. H. Cox

associatedobjectives of the partnership are 1. To establish scholarship programs to assist women and minority students with the expenses of college at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. 2. To establish mentoring, internship, and support programs that includes faculty members from both universities and industry professionals. 3. To provide a smooth transition from an undergraduate degree in mathematics or computer science at TWU to a graduate degree in engineering at TTU, including visits from TWU to TTU and visa versa, specially designed curriculum materials, and smooth admissions experiences. 4. To develop a model program for (i) undergraduate programs that are unable to offer engineering degrees but would like to

Collection

2004 GSW

Authors

Lloyd Heinze; James Gregory

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Zhenyu Zhang; Yeshwanth Sampath; Dr. Rita Caso; Amy Collins

, and admission status defined as native vs. transfer.Native students were admitted to a university as freshmen and remained therethenceforth, while transfer students have transferred from another institution--mostlyfrom a community college. In addition, the study examines characteristics for a specialsubpopulation of URM students who are subdivided into those who practice concurrentenrollment and those who do not.Across the different population subdivisions (i.e., women/men, URM/non-URM,transfer/native, and concurrently enrolled/not concurrently enrolled), five nullhypotheses are posited for testing: Hypothesis 1—a uniform relationship between earlycollege GPA and pre-college academic preparation; Hypothesis 2—no differences incourse load per

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Thomas J. Krueger; Ted Aanstoos; Ronald E. Barr

engineeringprograms. The eleven ABET outcomes, commonly referred to simply as (a) through (k), arelisted in Table 1. The original intent was for this ABET list to serve as an example, from whicheach engineering program would fashion their own set of outcomes. In some cases, this didhappen; but in other cases, programs just stayed with (a) through (k).The Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-ME) opted toestablish their own set of program outcomes, as listed in Table 2. In this case, if a programestablishes their own outcomes, then they must map to the ABET (a) through (k) outcomes.Such a mapping for the UT-ME outcomes to ABET outcomes is included in Table 2. While theUT-ME outcomes map completely to the ABET outcomes list

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Scott Starks; Sally Blake; Eric MacDonald

their applications. The program encourages the participation ofunderrepresented minority and female students. Securing financial support for the program is amajor challenge and limits the ability of the program to reach more than the 300 studentspresently served. A student may participate in TexPREP for a maximum of three summers.Students are organized into three groups (Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3) based upon years ofprogram participation.Program GoalsThe goals for El Paso TexPREP program are the following: • To acquaint student participants with professional opportunities in engineering; • To reinforce the mathematics preparation of these students at high school and college levels; • To increase the number of competently prepared

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Sarah J. Smith

principles to Engineering Education through case studies • Identify breaches in ethics within the student population • Present ethics statements of leading transnational organizationsThinking beyond the University, how can students become better prepared to workethically and effectively in the corporate world? Social responsibility includesparticipating in the communities in which people work. Yet, perhaps even moreimportant, is how to work within ethical parameters yet achieve adequate profitability ofthe firm for its stakeholders (employees, stockholders, investors). Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference 1 Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

S. Easwaran

+ b). Similarly, the operation ofmultiplication (denoted by an operation symbol x) is another mathematical operation that takesany two numbers (a and b) and produces a third number (c = a x b).Likewise, discrete convolution (denoted by an operation symbol *) is defined as a mathematicaloperation that takes any two digital signals or sequences (represented as {x[n]} and {h[n]}) andproduces a third digital signal or sequence ( {y[n]} = {x[n]} * {h[n] } ). Here, in general terms,any digital signal or sequence is represented by {s[n]}. It is a collection of sequentially indexedand ordered set of numbers, i.e., {s[n]} = {…, s[-1], s[0], s[1], s[2], ..., s[k], …} where s[k] is thevalue of the discrete signal or sequence at index “k”. The operation

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

S. Ozcelik; R. Sosa; M.A. Faruqi; M. Abudiab

volumetricflow rate. Once the dynamic equations of the two fluid heights were complete, the Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest 1 Annual Conference Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Educationdynamics of the proportional control valve could be constructed. By generating thedynamics of the system we were able to represent the motion by a system of first-orderordinary differential equations, known as state-space representation.An important concept that should be inspected is the controllability of a system. A systemis completely output controllable if the construction of an

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

S. Ozcelik; M. A. Faruqi; M. A. Abudiab

identifyingsituations where students perceptions vary. This can lead to various misconceptions. Overcomingthese misconceptions is very critical to success in restructuring the knowledge base of thestudents.Secondly, exploration. This phase is for the participants to begin planning a study that will enablethe knowledge necessary to overcome the misconceptions in phase 1.Thirdly, explanation. In this phase, the student is trying to collect the data throughexperimentation, then make the necessary data summaries that will enable him or her toovercome misconceptions. The new knowledge gained through experimentation must beintegrated with other experiences stored in their knowledge base so the sum is useful forexplaining other observed phenomena.Fourthly, action

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Ross Kastor; Robert Askew; Richard Bannerot; Paul Ruchhoeft; Elena Poltavtchenko; Colley Hodges; Chad Wilson; Cari-Sue Wilmot

and to allow for more feedback from theinstructor. Currently, the course is required for all Electrical and Computer Engineeringmajors, and it has been added to Civil Engineering’s curriculum, as well. If the otherthree departments in the College adopt the course, plans are to teach eight sections asemester. Assessment in ENGI 2304The UH Writing Center conducted end-of-the-semester surveys in all four sections ofENGI 2304 in Fall 2004. The results of the surveys are presented in Tables 1 and 2.Table 1 provides the summary of responses to 22 statements related to the students’feelings about their success in achieving the course outcomes. Table 2 contains self-reported data concerning the students’ familiarity with

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Rosa Jeanette De Leon; Randall D. Manteufel; Alfred Vitela

construction. An evaluation of theEngineering Building at the University of Texas at San Antonio has been conducted to determinewhat it will take to make it the first LEED certified green building on the UTSA campus. This studywas prompted by (1) recent indoor air quality issues in the building, (2) recent roof leaks whichrequired renovation and mold remediation within the building, (3) the planned departure of twoengineering departments (Electrical and Civil) from the building in the Fall 2005, and (4) the UTSA’scommitment to renovate the building for continued use by the Mechanical Engineering department.This study focuses on the LEED certification process for existing buildings, especially the pointawarding schedule and different levels of green

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Roop Chanda; Mohammed E. Haque

. Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright  2005, American Society for Engineering Education Development MethodologyThe research aims to develop a web-based model, which systematically shows animated 3-dimensional construction sequence of a framed steel structure. Hot links are embedded within thevirtual 3D model of the framed steel structure at the steel joints to pop-up VRML navigationwindows for real-time views of steel joints. The steps listed below are followed for the study andcreation of the model. A flow chart for the sequence of steps is shown in Fig.1

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Robert A. McLauchlan; Ranjeet Agarwala; Laura Lopez; Kenneth Nix; Guadalupe Fernandez; Chad Jurica

asked to complete emotional skills assessment profile to gain valuable personalinformation about themselves and their emotional skills. The data was used to predict theoverall success of student using neural networks, over three potential problem areas oflife, which a person would need to overcome to foster academic success. Emotional Intelligence ModelThe emotional intelligence model was based on a survey3, which was divided into fourparts, with each part containing its own sub category. Part 1 was titled InterpersonalCommunication under Stress and dealt with three key emotional skills. These skills were:assertion, anger control and management, and fear control and management. HonestCommunication and managing

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Rita Caso; Kristi J. Shryock; Jo Howze; Jeffrey Froyd; Arun R. Srinivasa

curricula have been identified as significant opportunities forimprovement in four-year curricula, and many institutions have addressed the opportunity indifferent ways. At Texas A&M University (TAMU), at least four challenges were identifiedwith respect to first-year curricula in the Dwight Look College of Engineering. These challengesare not unique to TAMU and avenues for addressing these challenges might be applicable toother institutions. First, despite the innovations introduced during TAMU’s participation in theFoundation Coalition [1], retention of engineering students after one year still requiressignificant improvement [2-6]. Second, engineering students require clearer understanding ofthe value and relevance of science and mathematics

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Richard Bannerot

Testing or test of concept occurred on October 11th: propel two of three golf ballsthrough one, large opening. The Final Testing occurred on November 3rd. A summary ofthe project and the requirements for the Final Testing is given in Figure 1. Twelve teamsof four students and two teams of three students each worked on the project. ResultsAs noted above 20% of the project grade was based on its performance during the FinalTesting. Twenty-five per cent is based on an assessment of the design concept and theartifact by the instructor. Both of these aspects of the evaluation process will beaddressed in this Results section. Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Richard Bannerot

students tend to favorhands-on projects, and the pre-college opportunities for such learning experiences arebecoming scarce. Females, in particular, appear to have had limited opportunities in thisregard. Details of the project and examples of the results are given. The students wererequired to provide grading feedback to the instructor and to complete a short surveyintended to determine how they felt about their projects. As interesting result of thisfeedback was that while the females initially felt they were severely disadvantaged(compared to the males), their grading and grades were less than 1% and 2% differentfrom the males, respectively. On the other hand the females’ self-reported learning wasconsiderably higher than that reported by the

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Richard Hoehn; Dr. Saleh M Sbenaty

for their team’s role in the case study.Thus, these working students became a valuable resource to other students in the team andenriched the learning process as a whole. The participating students filled a questionnaire.Preliminary analysis of the students’ response supported above conclusion. IntroductionIn the US Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) 1 evaluates the quality,content, and success of the undergraduate engineering and engineering technology programs.Two commissions within ABET are called the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC)and the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) for Engineering programs andTechnology programs respectively. As a coordinator of the

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Ray Bachnak; Mike Englert

. The following figure shows a blockdiagram of the overall process. Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Processes Fluke Data Wireless to be Sensors Logger Modem monitored Wireless Personal Modem Computer Software Figure 1. Overall system diagramC. DataOriginally, a simple measurement of room temperature was proposed. However

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Raviganesh Singh; Matthew Siik; Ioana C. Finegan; Gowri V. Kumar

Vibating Beam Technique Material Measurement System, manufactured byDampingTechnologies, Inc was used to analyze the dynamic characteristics (dampingand dynamic stiffness of VGCF nanocomposites. The VGCF nanocomposites obtainedfrom the MiniMax injection molder were rectangular bars of length 76.2 mm, width 12.7mm, and thickness 4 mm. The temperature was 20oC, and the frequency 100 Hz. Proceedings of the 2005 Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Damping and Stiffness Results of VGCF Nanocomposites In Figure 1, the predicted complex longitudinal moduli of VGCF/PP nanocompositesis

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Randall D. Manteufel; Ramon Rodriguez; Kerry O’Connor; Jason Torres

voltage andfrequency to the electric motor driving the pump. This laboratory demonstration is the first of itskind at UTSA and exposes students to the new industry standard of controlling fluid flow inpiping systems that has become widely used in fan/pump/compressor applications. The mainadvantage to controlling motor speed is the elimination of the wasteful throttling associated witha control valve, thus reducing overall pumping costs. Understanding how the VFD works anddemonstrating its energy saving are the main focus of the new experiment.The experimental set-up is “hands-on” allowing the acquisition of data to (1) understand how theVFD operates, (2) understand the effect of slowing pump speed for a centrifugal pump, and (3)calculate energy

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Rafic Bachnak; Korinne Caruso; cody ross; Carlton Prewitt

% Minority.According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Science Foundation,however, among engineering professionals, 88% are White, 6% are Asian, and only 6%are minority [1]. To improve minority representation in engineering and engineeringtechnology programs, institutions of higher education have used a number of approaches,such as the increase of visibility of the engineering profession, mentoring students, andacademic support [2]. Strategies to recruit and retain students include hands-onapproaches [3, 4], field trips [5, 6], summer workshops [7], and software trainingprograms [8].This paper discusses a project that uses all these methods to attract underrepresentedstudents to science and engineering as well as the 2004 summer program

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Phillip I. Wilson; John D. Fernandez

rectangular groups of pixels. The contrast variances between the pixel groups are usedto find relative light areas and dark areas. Areas with contrast variances form features, as shownin figure 1, which are used to detect the desired objects within the image5. These features can beeasily scaled by increasing or decreasing the area of the pixels being examined. This allowsfeatures to be used to detect objects of various sizes. Figure 1. Haar features The simple features of an image are calculated using an intermediate representation of animage, called the integral image8. The integral image is an array containing the sums of the pixelvalues to the left of a pixel and above a pixel at location (x, y

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Pete Hylton

entitledManaging Technical Risk,1 when he said “ The risks associated with science basedcommercial innovations are real and often hard to quantify and circumscribe. These risks Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Educationcontribute to business failures, but more importantly to underinvestment in the earlystages of research and to opportunities foregone.” Although it is generally the high-techindustries that have begun to implement TRM processes, the benefits should beapplicable to any industry, regardless of level of technology. Early identification,assessment, and mitigation of

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Paul R. Corder

, engineering science, and engineeringprinciples. Undergraduate university education attempts to provide the exposure to andexperience with these tools to provide a reasonably rounded person capable of beingproductive in society. This educational process provides a framework to which thestudent can add additional capabilities or skills to enhance his/her own engineeringsuccess potential. All undergraduate mechanical engineering students at Lamar University takeMEEN 3320, Mechanical Design I and MEEN 4323, Mechanical Design II. Themechanical design texts introduce the Design Process in their first chapter in a variety ofways. The Design Process can be summarized as follows: 1) Recognition of Societal Need

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Nripendra N Sarker; Mohan Ketkar

likely that a student makes a numerical score closer to 100 in one measure and nottoo well in the other measure. Making good scores in all measures gives comfort to the students.However, doing not so well in a measure may be the reasons to lose confidence in improving inother measures to still make a better grade in the course. Multiple measures in a course makethis problem more complicated for the students.Until now there is no known software available for students to monitor their own progress duringa semester. Microsoft Excel allows developing efficient utility programs as needed. Sarker andKetkar 1 described a detailed method of developing EXCEL spreadsheet to process raw gradesfrom various measures in a class. They also showed how to

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Mythili Vajjalla; Kashinath Kumar; Enno “Ed” Koehn

may be rubble such as concrete, bricks and asphalt, wood and woodproducts, plaster, metals, plastics, and insulation. These materials commonly referred toas Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris comprise approximately 15 to 30 percentof all waste disposed of in landfills. In addition, purchasing decisions associated with theconstruction projects can affect the amounts of waste generated, as well future energyrequirements 1.Air quality: Construction projects can have a significant impact on indoor environmentalquality (IEQ) through the introduction of pollutants such as particulates, offensive odors,toxic chemical vapors, microbial, and combustion products5. The quality of air maydeteriorate, in part, due to the dusts and odors produced

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Monty Smith; Mitty Plummer; Leticia H. Anaya

assemble in stands8:15 a Commencement for Year 2004 !8:30 a – 12:00 a DC BEST Tournament begins12:00 a – 12:45 p LUNCH on your own (approximate time)12:45 p – 1:00 p Halftime Report1:00 p – 4:00 p DC BEST matches in simultaneous games, continued4:00 p DC BEST Championships4:15 p Awards Ceremony5:00p 2004 DC BEST Championship concludes. All teams remove their banners ALL TEAMS RETURN PARTS ISSUED!Fig. 1. 2004 DC BEST Game Day Schedule Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Mohan Ketkar

for their team’s role in the case study.Thus, these working students became a valuable resource to other students in the team andenriched the learning process as a whole. The participating students filled a questionnaire.Preliminary analysis of the students’ response supported above conclusion. IntroductionIn the US Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) 1 evaluates the quality,content, and success of the undergraduate engineering and engineering technology programs.Two commissions within ABET are called the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC)and the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) for Engineering programs andTechnology programs respectively. As a coordinator of the

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Mirley K. Balasubramanya; George D. Tintera; Alexey Sadovski

passed into the participant’s hand wastaken as a measure of their reaction time. The students readily made a qualitativeobservation that the farther the rule fell, the slower the reaction time. When challengedthey admitted that the measurement was not really time, so it was hard to measure howmuch faster one person was than another.Connecting time to distance where an object moves by gravity alone is easily done bymeans of the formula y = (1/2) g t2, where t is the elapsed time, y is the distance fallenand g is the gravitational constant (9.8 m/s2 = 980 cm/s2). The students were eager tofind their reaction times made ready use of the model to do so.Once the students had determined their reaction times in terms of seconds, they were ableto relate

Collection

2005 GSW

Authors

Mary Mary; Emee Ermel

Conference Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering EducationIn UT’s College of Engineering, several professors had used a software package developed in themid-1980s to familiarize students in an undergraduate fluid behavior course with PVTmeasurements. While the old simulation (see Figure 1) was powerful and filled a vitalcurriculum need, the user interface was dated and very difficult to use. All actions wereaccomplished using function keys, and students had to manually record the data collected. Figure 1: Old PVT SimulationAlthough the old simulation’s effectiveness was questionable, research and emerging trends