Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Timothy B. Whitmoyer; David T. Vader

in Mission (SIM)1 facilities in West Africa. The purpose of this trip was to look forpotential areas for project collaboration between SIM and the Messiah College Department ofEngineering. SIM was a logical partner for our department because of their long-termcommitment to aiding developing countries and experience in supporting overseas projects.The immediate result of this trip identified a need for electrical power at a medical dispensary inthe rural village of Mahadaga, Burkina Faso. In January of 1998, a team of faculty and studentsreturned to Mahadaga to install a photovoltaic solar array. In the course of the visit, the teamdiscovered a second area for project collaboration with SIM: irrigation of the vegetable gardensand mango

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Medard Gabel

everyone’s learning andthe depth of the program’s results.Participants in the Design Science/Global Solutions Lab pay to come to the program, typicallyput in between ten and twelve intense hours per day, receive no academic credit for their work,produce valuable work, and have an enjoyable time.The success of the program is a result of a combination of factors: 1. It is focused on real world problems. 2. Participants develop real solutions to those problems. 3. Participants present their ideas and solutions to people and institutions in positions capable of implementing the solutions. 4. The intense, all-consuming 10+ hours per day is spent working collaboratively in teams. 5. The high expectations that the Lab’s facilitators have

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Sunghoon Jang; Kenneth Markowitz; Aparicio Carranza

cultivate a mentor network, enabling CUNY graduatestudents who are only a subway ride away, to become role models for STEM undergraduates atCity Tech. The goal is to increase the number of students receiving associate and bachelor’sdegrees within science, technology, engineering and math, by conducting the following activities: 1. Development and institutionalization of two three-credit courses, one in the sciences and math, the other in engineering technologies, that emphasize academic preparation through development of laboratory techniques, communication, team work and creative thinking skills. 2. Academic year mentoring of undergraduates by teaching assistants in STEM, and block programming of the summer cohort in

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

William Hornfeck; Ismail Jouny; John Nestor

notion thatmulticultural teams should be the goal when organizing project work. Students, when allowed tochoose team members, are more likely to form rather homogeneous groups. Educators cancontrol this by being more proactive in the process of not only team assignments, but in teambuilding exercises. It is likely that, with diverse student teams, two benefits accrue: (1) moreinteresting approaches to problems, and (2) students graduate better prepared to work inenvironments where multicultural groups are more the norm.C. Global Environmental IssuesThe issue of global warming and attendant climate change, although a serious threat tohumankind, is at the same time a challenge to technologists and actually brings the idea of globalenvironmental

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

M. Minnucci; J. Ni; A. Nikolova; L. Theodore

possible energy transformation into work.Thus, thermal energy stored at high temperatures generally is more useful to society than that available at lowertemperatures. This implies, as noted above, that thermal energy loses some of its “quality” or is degraded when it istransferred by means of heat transfer from one temperature to a lower one. Other forms of energy degradation includeenergy transformations due to frictional effects and electrical resistance. Such effects are highly undesirable if the useof energy for practical purposes is to be maximized (1-3). The second law provides some means of measuring this energy degradation through a thermodynamic termreferred to as entropy, and it is the second law (of thermodynamics) that serves

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Ossama Elhadary

pens are safer to bid on then new ones that nowadays areeasily replicated. It is also clear from the research that the relative value of the starting bid has amuch higher impact on the auctions for new pens versus auctions for used ones again clarifyingthat there are subtle difference in the way buyers approach these two auctions. In this researchthe author used the relative starting bid variable instead of the traditional starting bid variablethat was used in previous research arguing that the value of the starting bid is perceiveddifferently based on the perceived value of the item in the auction.1) IntroductionGuth, Mengel and Ockenfels9 reported that “Internet transaction fraud is 12 times higher than in-store fraud.” Jin and Kato7 also

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Hu J. Cui; Seong W. Lee; Alexander K. Kinyua

. Biodiesel is a domestic, renewable fuel for diesel engines derived from naturaloils like soybean oil, and which meets the specifications of ASTM D 6751.Biodiesel can be used in any concentration with petroleum based diesel fuel inexisting diesel engines with little or no modification. Biodiesel is not the samething as raw vegetable oil. It is produced by a chemical process which removesthe glycerin from the oil. Biodiesel is a fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters oflong chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, designated B100,and meeting the requirements of ASTM D 6751. 1, 2 Biodiesel Blend is a blend ofbiodiesel fuel meeting ASTM D 6751 with petroleum-based diesel fuel,designated BXX, where XX represents the volume percentage

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jenn Rossmann; Karina Skvirsky

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows: The Art and Science of Flow Visualization Jenn Rossmann1 and Karina Skvirsky2 1 Mechanical Engineering and 2Art Departments Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042AbstractThe flow of fluids explains how airplanes fly, why a curveball curves, why atheroscleroticplaque clogs arteries, why Jupiter’s red spot is growing, and how hurricanes form. Yet it isdifficult to see fluids flowing: you can’t see the wind, or ocean currents, without the techniquesof flow visualization. Flow visualization reveals an invisible world of fluid dynamics, blendingscientific

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

AS Ward; MN Gooseff; RY Toto; SE Zappe

Higher-Order Learning Through Virtual Laboratories in Fluid Mechanics: Lessons Learned AS Ward1, MN Gooseff1, RY Toto2, SE Zappe2 1 – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 2 – Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802AbstractStudent achievement of Bloom’s higher-order cognitive skills (analysis, evaluation, andsynthesis) is recognized as being necessary in engineering education, yet is difficult toachieve in traditional lecture formats. Laboratory components supplement traditionallectures in an effort to

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Alfred A. Scalza

and manage emotions; another component of personality. This is a very complex issue which we have just started to try to measure with EQ testing. • Cultural Intelligence: an awareness of cross-cultural differences. In our global society, this has become more and more important but it remains difficult to measure.More and more, we are trying to understand our students and their abilities to learn in these fourcategories but measuring all but cognitive intelligence has remained allusive.8Generally, we know, after years of study of cognition, motivation and human development, thefollowing four key concepts that apply to college students: 1. Knowledge is constructed, not

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Carl A. Erikson

engineer. 7 Basic Steps in the Engineering Design 7 Basic Steps in Writing a Paper Process1] Idea – “Let’s build a Dog House” 1] Assignments, creative thoughts, free writes2] Design – get plans, specifications 2] Basic Format - Intro (Thesis), Body (3points), Conclusion3] Materials – wood, nails, paint 3] Words! Use of Dictionary & Thesaurus are helpful4] Tools – saw, hammer, ruler, paint brush 4] Mind, Library, research, word processor, writer’s reference5

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

XingYing Cheng; Daren Wilcox

, Prof. Arvind developed Bluespec version 1which used the Haskellish syntax. The version 1 is much like TRAC which is written in thepython Programming language. In 2001, the new version which is also the current version ofBluespec was launched. This version is based on Haskell syntax. Haskell syntax is derived fromO’Haskell which is an object-oriented, concurrent extension of the functional programminglanguage. It was developed at Oregon Graduate Institute and Chalmers University ofTechnology. The new version Bluespec contains full Haskell functionality at compile time,monads for handling state1. Besides, Bluespec is the only ESL synthesis solution for controllogic, complex data paths and algorithms. It has delivered high-level ESL synthesis

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Stephanie Parker; J. Kemi Ladeji-Osias

improve the detection of hazards due to terrain, air traffic, and runway obstacles byintegrating data from weather radar, infrared video or Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) with existingaircraft sensors 1. Within this project, our laboratory has focused on the use of dedicated FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware for computationally intensive algorithms. When images andvideo are acquired, some manipulation and processing must occur before they are displayed. In order tomaintain real-time feedback to the pilot, dedicated hardware can be used instead of software solutions.This article evaluates a design method for a real-time processing system based on Field Programmable GateArray (FPGA) and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) structure. To

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Anil B. Shrirao; Raquel Perez-Castillejos

thencasted in PDMS, yielding microfluidic devices with a height of ~ 60 µm—or multiples of 60 µm,if several layers of tape were stacked. This technology makes it possible to create microfluidicdevices with any planar (2D) design that the students can draw on a paper. After the drawing isfinished, it takes only 1 hour to fabricate a microfluidic device with the shape of that drawing.We believe that this technique will enable the study of microfluidics in educational settingslimited in their access to cleanroom facilities. We present a demonstrator that illustrates thepotential of this technique in standard teaching labs.IntroductionIn this paper, we describe a method to fabricate microfluidic devices using only bench-topmaterials and tools (Scotch

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Beth Richards; Karen Walsh

ABET as well as essential forstudents’ future success in the workplace.BackgroundThe University of Hartford has significant history of collaboration between the first-yearrequired engineering curriculum and the first-year required writing curriculum. Since 2000, thesecourses have been paired in First Year Interest Groups (FIGS) in which instructors plan andimplement shared objectives and course activities, to emphasize the essential relationshipbetween engineers and written and spoken literacy.1 Although writing instructors andengineering instructors must give first priority to departmental objectives, critical thinking andanalytical skills cut across both disciplines, and shared or linked assignments (called “integratedlearning blocks”) are

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

William D. Jemison; Christopher T. Nadovich

(PV) is the best known solar energy technology and it has beenaround for a long time - the seminal paper that theoretically analyzed silicon PVcell energy conversion efficiency was written by William Schockley (who alsowon the Nobel Prize in 1956 as one of three inventors of the transistor). Mostcommercial PV products have efficiencies in the 10-15% range, significantly lessthan the 30% theoretical maximum predicted by Schockley. The PV industry hasbeen trying to achieve a cost of $1/Watt-peak for over 30 years and much ofcurrent industry activity is focused on low-cost PV technologies and reducingmanufacturing costs. Moreover, a large percentage of the installed PVinfrastructure can be attributed to significant subsidies and tax

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Vladimir De Delva; Keith McIver; Katherine Whitaker; Stephanie Farrell; Mariano J. Savelski; C. Stewart Slater

pharmaceutical industry whichcould be incorporated into an introductory freshman or sophomore chemical engineering course.Many of the problems are appropriate for the freshman level and do not require mastery offreshman math and science content. More advanced problems do use concepts from freshmancalculus 1 and 2. chemistry 1 and 2, and physics. The problems were designed to be used as in-class examples or homework problems. The formatting, layout, style and focus of the problemspresented in this paper are based on those of Felder and Rousseau’s Elementary Principles ofChemical Processes1, a widely-used textbook for these types of courses. However, coursestaught with a different textbook may still use the problems developed since they cover topicssuch

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Orla LoPiccolo

Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) each with diagrams of construction details but without supplemental video. The test group was given 2 separate but identical lectures, each with diagrams of construction details, and 1 short topic specific supplemental video per topic. Quizzes conducted in both groups showed that the test group scored higher on questions on these topics than the control group, and the difference in quiz scores between the 2 groups was statistically significant. These results suggest that topic specific videos are a valuable educational tool when accompanied by visual handouts. Key words: Assessment, SIPs and ICF, video-based learning

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

James D. McGuffin-Cawley

work is dividedand weekly meetings are held to review progress for critical review and informationsharing.Implementation: To introduce the conceptual approach the initial phase of the courseutilized three illustrative examples. The first was a set of references from the UnitedStates Geological Survey and the National Academies [1-8]. Key figures from thesereferences clearly establish that the U.S. economy is intensive in its use of mineral-derived materials. Consider Figs. 1 and 2 from ref. 1, and Fig. 3 derived from data in ref.3. Figure 1. U.S. flow of raw materials by weight, 1900–98. The use of raw materials dramatically increased in the United States throughout the 20th century ( from ref. 1, cited as modified from Matos and Wagner

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Paterne Sissinto

and unwanted camera movements. Different works on object detection with stable background in real time video led to manyalgorithms. The most commonly used are the Running Gaussian Average, the Mixture ofGaussians, the Kernel Density Estimation and the Eigen Background techniques. An exhaustivecomparison of all the techniques is not provided here. Following is an attempt to summarizechallenges on accuracy and speed encountered by the authors of the experiments on thesemethods.6, 7, 8, 9Table 1: Accuracy and speed of some background subtraction techniques Methods Accuracy Speed Running Gaussian Detection of a lot of noise (false alert Fastest due to simplicity in Average

Collection

2010 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Peter J. Shull; Jessica M. Crandall

commonly used manufacturing process for products made from sheet metal. The covert orintended collateral goal was to help students understand alignment or misalignment of students’beliefs of what constitutes quality work and what the costumer (the instructor) wants. Theexercise covers one class period plus 20 minutes of the subsequent class period.Day 1, Part 1The exercise requires students to create five 3-D objects from sheets (2-D) of cardboard (filefolders) given standard engineering drawings of the objects. There were three deliverables (seeFigure 1): 1. Layout drawing of the object—this is a ¼ scale 2-D drawing of what will be drawn on the folder paper, cut out, and then folded into the 3-D object; 2. Actual 3-D object made

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Matthew R. Stein

(Figure 1), a classroom where students sit at work tables facing a whiteboard lecture area. The room is equipped with standard electronic equipment including power supplies, oscilloscopes, multimeters and soldering irons. The majority of students bring their own a laptop computer, as seen in Figure 1, and a few desktop PCs are available for students who

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Jerald D. Cole

classroomexperience. The bandwidth requirements for asynchronous text-based communications needed to support LMSs arecertainly lower—the opportunity cost being a loss of the sense of teacher presence. When it comes to presence, theproverb “out-of-sight; out-of-mind” seems apropos.Three issues have limited the adoption of synchronous conferencing solutions in education:(1) Many instructors are indoctrinated into prevailing models of asynchronous instruction, such as threaded discussion and email. They are not acculturated to and/or aware of the alternative.1(2) Channel capacity has proven to be a deterrent given the high cost of upgrading aging university network infrastructures to levels capable of supporting the traffic imposed by real-time dynamic

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

S Claudina Vargas

curriculum revolves around creating learning environmentsthat motivate students engage themselves continuously in learning and discovering. [Thisinternalizes three fundamental truths: (1) human understanding and knowing have theirown dynamics, and students’ mental models are driven by these dynamics; they areevolving pictures and the ways in which they evolve are important. (2) Humanunderstanding and knowing grow from within the individual; knowledge-building can beguided and motivated, but it cannot be implanted or impose from outside. (3) Fuzzinessand unreliability can never be fully eliminated from the human perception of reality, fromour thinking and understanding, and from our experience of life; consequently, theseelements cannot be completely

Collection

2011 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Kanti Prasad

the finished chip along with its real time testing. This comprises of four distinctand disparate phases namely-Phase 1: Chip design – This basically involves the design of thechip based on specifications provided by the customer, Phase 2: Mask Set – It involves theconversion of design’s layout and placement into set of masks e.g. diffusion, contact, andmetallization masks etc., Phase 3: Mask Transfer – This involves transferring the mask set onto awafer substrate such as Si or GaAs etc., Phase 4: Packaged Chip – This incorporates inscribing,dicing, bonding and encapsulating chip in a plastic or ceramic package, depending on customer’srequirement. Most of these phases require industrial involvement to a great extent.The author proposed an

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Peter Thomas Tkacik

. Like a professional race shop, jokes are often made about the unreasonable stressplaced on orderliness and cleanliness. This has significant beneficial effect on the marketing of theprogram. For a real shop, this orderliness positively affects the marketing to team sponsors and visitors.For the school, the effect is the same; however, the sponsors may be the same but the visitors are potentialnew motorsports candidates.A student visitor may have only changed oil on the family minivan but sees his/her comrades preparingfor the next race and is thrilled by the excitement and ease of participation. 2Figure 1. Large numbers of students are engaged by the shop facilitiesThe shop is a new facility

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Roy T.R. McGrann

processes whose form and function achieve clients’ objectivesor users’ needs while satisfying a specified set of constraints.” 1 Computer-aided engineering (CAE)software packages such as Pro/Engineer (Pro/E) 2 are among the modern engineering tools available toassist engineers to generate and evaluate their designs.In this paper, we begin in the Introduction with a description of the mechanical engineering curriculumat Binghamton University. The process that we have developed in the department for continuousimprovement (Departmental Course Review Process and ABET Accreditation) will be presented next.Following this will be a description of the CAE course and how it fits into the overall departmentalreview process.In the second section, the

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Kanti Prasad

four distinct and disparatephases namely-Phase 1: Chip design – This basically involves the design of the chipbased on specifications provided by the customer, Phase 2: Mask Set – It involves theconversion of design’s layout and placement into set of masks e.g. diffusion, contact, andmetallization masks etc., Phase 3: Mask Transfer – This involves transferring the maskset onto a wafer substrate such as Si or GaAs etc., Phase 4: Packaged Chip – Thisincorporates inscribing, dicing, bonding and encapsulating chip in a plastic or ceramicpackage, depending on customer’s requirement.At UMass Lowell, the author founded the Microelectronics/VLSI program in 1984, at thetime, when only design tool available was DLAP (intense programming tool in

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Qing Li

predict or explain students’ success orfailure in engineering education. Characteristics contributing to better engineering education outcomes havebeen identified. However, different researchers have examined different characteristics of engineering studentswithin the scopes of their own research interests, no universally agreed upon definition of engineering students’characteristics exists in the current literature. In this paper, a comprehensive review and analysis of the existingresearch on the measurement of the characteristics of engineering students is presented. Specifically, attentionhas been given in addressing the following questions: 1). what characteristics of engineering students have beenmeasured? 2). what research questions

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

David Evanko; Arend Dorsett; Chiu Choi

applications of feedback control techniques.1. IntroductionThe ball-on-beam balance system is a classic example of feedback control systems. The problem is tomaintain the position of a ball at the center of a beam on which the ball rolls along freely. The ball willreturn to the center position after it has been displaced from this location. This system is an effectiveeducational tool for teaching feedback control principles. Some of these systems are commerciallyavailable[1,2,3].The set-up of our ball-on-beam system is shown in Fig. 1. The beam is a 55” long, grooved aluminumbeam that a regular rubber ball can roll along freely. The beam is mounted at the center to a servo motor,which can tilt the beam in clockwise and counter-clockwise directions