AC 2008-508: MIND LINKS 2008: RESOURCES TO MOTIVATE MINORITIES TOSTUDY AND STAY IN ENGINEERINGMaria M. Larrondo Petrie, Florida Atlantic University Maria M. Larrondo Petrie, is a Professor of Computer Engineering and the Associate Dean of Academic and International Affairs in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA. In ASEE she is on the boards of the Minorities in Engineering Division and the Women in Engineering Division, and the Web Master and past Secretary Treasurer of the International Division. She is Vice President of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), and Co-Chair of the IFEES
AC 2008-1079: MATLAB PROGRAMMING FOR VISUALIZING NUMERICALITERATIVE DYNAMICSS.K. Sen, Florida Institute of TechnologyGholam Ali Shaykhian, NASA Page 13.871.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 MATLAB PROGRAMMING FOR VISUALIZING NUMERICAL ITERATIVE DYNAMICSAbstract Presented here are the fundamental principles of discrete dynamical system andchaos from the point of view of numerical iterative algorithms. Also included is thevisualization of some of such dynamical systems using Matlab programs. Such avisualization has a profound impact on our conceptual clarity and knowledge of the realworld scientific and engineering problems.1. IntroductionThe
don’texist.The use of online-based, “open book, open mind” approach is being recognized in the literatureas a potential method of examination for distance courses in the faculties of engineering, science,and technology1,3. Faculty may have to develop new methodologies, and structure or restructuretheir course differently to accommodate and facilitate the effectiveness of online examinationmethods. Some very recent studies documented the practicality and effectiveness of distancelearning methodologies3. Results from an early study of the desirability and feasibility of usingdistance learning indicated that this teaching and methodology has a useful role in distancelearning4. The case for employing project-based learning methods as opposed to more
AC 2008-573: CONTRIBUTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS TOENGINEERING GRADUATE SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATESAli Mehrabian, University of Central FloridaDiala Gammoh, University of Central FLoridaAlfred Ducharme, University of Central FloridaAhmad Elshennawy, University of Central Florida Page 13.334.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Contribution of International Students to Engineering Graduate Schools in the United StatesAbstractMany academic institutions in the United States have been looking for more expansion andexposures worldwide. They have been promoting their graduate programs to around the globe tothe students who seek educational
AC 2008-227: HOT SPOT MINIMIZATION OF NOC USING ANT-NET DYNAMICROUTING ALGORITHMAlireza Rahrooh, University of Central Florida ALIREZA RAHROOH Alireza Rahrooh is a Professor of Electrical Engineering Technology at the University of Central Florida. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Univ. of Akron, in 1979, 1986, and 1990, respectively. His research interests include digital simulation, nonlinear dynamics, chaos, control theory, system identification and adaptive control. He is a member of ASEE, IEEE, Eta Kappa Nu, and Tau Beta Pi.Faramarz Mossayebi, Youngstown State University FARAMARZ MOSSAYEBI Faramarz Mossayebi is an Associate Professor
paying for. The student said that he didn’t think of it in that way, but it Page 13.1363.3was clear that many people are willing to pay for peace of mind in general. What is interesting about the list is its variety. Perhaps one-third of the list would bethought of as the traditional purview of the engineer. The other entries represent the wide varietyof things of value to the college junior. The students might now have begun to think that it’s justpossible that thermodynamics is more widely applicable than they had realized. But they werealso somewhat skeptical. At this point, the class returned to consideration of what might bethought
demonstrated both the shortcomings ofgraduates in their ability to write and the demands of the workplace for improved performance.2However, what has been stated with insufficient clarity is what is the specific purpose of writing,and, therefore, how can one more effectively address this issue in a curriculum?We, like other programs, have both lofty and practical intents with our writing requirements.They are to enlarge and enrich the mind, to capture nuances as well as grand and complexconcepts and to convincingly demonstrate achievements. The challenge becomes one of havingstudents see writing as an integral part of their work as engineers, or their engineering practice
AC 2008-236: STRATEGIES OF ASSESSING MULTI-DISCIPLINARYCOLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCESSamantha Richerson, Milwaukee School of Engineeirng Samantha J. Richerson, PhD is the program director of the Biomedical Engineering program at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. She received her PhD from Louisiana Tech University in 2003 and taught for two years at Bucknell University. She moved to MSOE in 2005 and became Program Director in 2007. Her research interests are in effective teaching and learning methodologies as well as the effects of diabetes on balance and biomedical signal and image processing.Deepti Suri, Milwaukee School of Engineering Deepti Suri, PhD is the program director of the Software
AC 2008-1596: ENGINEERING STUDENTS’ CONCEPTIONS OFSELF-DIRECTED LEARNINGJonathan Stolk, Franklin W. Olin College of EngineeringJohn Geddes, Franklin W. Olin College of EngineeringMark Somerville, Franklin W. Olin College of EngineeringRobert Martello, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Page 13.527.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Engineering Students’ Conceptions of Self-Directed LearningAbstractResearchers have developed numerous theories and developmental models to describe self-directed learning, lifelong learning, and self-regulated learning. The literature includes a largebody of research that illustrates the cognitive, metacognitive
AC 2008-1987: A BLANK SLATE: CREATING A NEW SENIOR ENGINEERINGCAPSTONE EXPERIENCEMark Chang, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Mark L. Chang is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.Jessica Townsend, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Jessica Townsend is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. Page 13.8.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 A Blank Slate: Creating a New Senior Engineering Capstone
AC 2008-1144: INTERNATIONALIZATION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATIONMichael Mariasingam, University of Wisconsin - Madison Michael A. Mariasingam, Research Associate in the College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison, taught electronic engineering for many years in different countries before his graduate studies in continuing and vocational education at UW–Madison. His PhD dissertation focused on quality criteria and benchmarks for online degree programs. Mariasingam helped establish new programs and faculties of engineering in Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Zimbabwe. He served as chairman, Department of Electronic Engineering and then acting dean, Faculty of Engineering, at
AC 2008-1177: PUTTING THE ENGINE BACK IN THE ENGINEERFred Cady, (Retired) Montana State University Fredrick Cady is a Professor Emeritus in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Montana State University. He has been involved with ABET accreditation for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering programs at Montana State University for 20 years. He is interested in improving the quality of engineering education and has authored four microcomputer textbooks. He has a Ph. D. in electrical engineering from the University of Canterbury, NZ and is a senior member of IEEE.John McLellan, Freescale Semiconductor John McLellan is a applications engineer for the University
underrepresented groups for the country to maintain, letalone increase, its technological capability.13 Thus messages that effectively encouragegirls and underrepresented minorities to consider careers in engineering could be crucialto U.S. success and leadership in the future.This paper reports on messaging research conducted by the National Academy ofEngineering (NAE) with support from the National Science Foundation.Message DevelopmentIn the lexicon of marketing, messages are a key component of branding. A brandassociates specific traits in a person’s mind that induce behavior. At one time, brandswere associated only with consumer products, such as dish soap, cereal, or new cars.Branding is now applied more broadly, to organizations, to entire
software for solving these same boundary value problems. Atthe Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), the undergraduate curriculum culminatesin a senior-level capstone design experience wherein students integrate their accumulatedlearning with design intent foremost in mind. While all students have been exposed to the Page 13.730.2Manuscript Submission for the 2008 ASEE Annual Conference and ExpositionJune 22-25, 2008 Pittsburgh, PAcommercial finite element software, as many as half of these students exercise itsubstantially in some element of their capstone design projects.Recently, Chalice Engineering [2
considerations are all raised in the Canadian context, each in its own wayalso has implications in the global sense, particularly as engineers are increasingly mobile. Thechallenge for the CEAB will continue to be to facilitate innovation within universities, whileremaining fully mindful of the “public interest” obligation of the profession.AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to acknowledge the work done by J.-Y. Chagnon, ing., and W.G.Paterson, P. Eng., former chairs of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board for theirground-work in developing a version of this paper for an earlier time period.1 http://www.engineerscanada.ca/e/prog_publications_3.cfm , accessed 26 February, 2008.2 http://www.abet.org/history.shtml, accessed 26 February
, also known as an Engineering Intern (EI) or an Engineer-in-Training (EIT). This exam is offered twice yearly, in April and October, by the NationalCouncil of Examiners of Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) and it has jurisdictions in eachstate.Our engineering program is an ABET accredited program. One of our educational objectives isto produce graduates who are competent enough to pass the FE exam, leading to professionalregistration. To be able to assess this objective, the program requires students to take the FEexam prior to graduation, preferably after all relevant technical courses have been taken andwhile the information they have studied is still fresh in their minds. In reality, some studentsattend the FE exam without any preparation
think they work (outside)? SM05: No. They probably work in an office. R2: Office. Do what? SM05: Umm… Create the things and then tell… Like create ‘em in their mind then jot it down and then tell the other people to go… R2: What kind of other people? SM05: Like the workers… They tell the foreman and foreman tells the workers. R1: Chain of command, right? SM05: YeahOne student also indicated tools that engineers use to do their job. The term “tools” is used hereas any form of equipment or material that engineers use to do their job. R1: What does the engineer do in particular about planning that? SM09: Make all the roads so they don’t get all… well they make them so they won’t
offended by this author’s grading of the paper.These last two incidents were the genesis of this paper. In thinking about these two incidentswhich this author saw as very problematic, remembrances of the way engineering economytopics were treated in other courses taught were brought to mind. The following discussion ofthese remembrances is only a partial list based on limited time spent going through some of thetexts used in the 58 courses mention on this author’s curriculum vita.An Innocuous ExampleIn one human factors text2 there is a section on cost/benefit analysis (not benefit costs as theequation is done). The example given ignores the time value of money – it uses the initial cost toperform the human factors analysis and then looks at the
backgrounds.More troubling to the college was the disproportionate number of minority students who wererepresented in this group.Pre-Engineering ClassIn the spring of 2006 the college instituted a one-hour Introduction to Engineering class for thestudents in the pre-engineering designation. This class has enrolled 65-85 students in threeofferings since this time (spring 2006, fall 2006, and fall 2007). This course is taught in one large Page 13.82.3lecture section. This course was established with several goals in mind. First, the course wasdesigned to give these students a better idea of the nature of the different engineering disciplines.The course was
13.1397.7 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Figure 7 Degree of Importance Employers Give to these Qualities It does not look like most employers and industry leaders consider the knowledge ofcodes and standards as essential requirement for hiring engineers and expecting best performanceout of them. With this in mind, the best ways to use in exposing students to codes and standardsmay widely vary in importance and urgency from one program to another.5. Toward Creating Best Practices Figure 8 is an illustration of elements to be taken
Aircraft aerodynamics and structures. I enjoyed the Instuctor's lectures. This course didn't make me stress out like all others which made learning much more enjoyable. At the beginning I was closed minded to the topics. As the class went on I started to see that the topics fit in with my degree program. I can't see the relevance of any of the material to electrical engineering. Proceedings of the 2008 American Society for Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Annual Conference Copyright © 2008, American Society for Engineering EducationThe last comment is common and there are still a significant number of students who do not seethe use or need for
implementation, assessment, and continualimprovement of computer simulations in basic University courses. Costanzo and Gray suggestthat exercises including interactive simulations must be structured with sustainability in mind toensure permanent inclusion into the engineering curriculum6. Moreno presents an evaluation ofthe “guided feedback hypothesis,” contrasting the effects of corrective feedback (cf) withexplanatory feedback (ef), on novice learners using the same interactive botany “game”simulation7. The ef group produced higher game scores, rated the game more helpful, andindicated more interest than the cf group7. Hall et al. 8 compared the performance of two groupsof students from a Mechanics of Materials course in computerized courseware
design projects is that first-year students lack technical Page 13.494.6sophistication. With this in mind, the first set of seven design projects was developed inconjunction with Engineers Without Borders (Canada). These projects involved relatively low-tech engineering solutions that would benefit disadvantaged communities in developingcountries. The remote setting also emphasized the importance of understanding the conceptualside of design. Students were required to understand the client needs, opportunities, and benefitsand make realistic conclusions about the cost, feasibility, and impact on the community.In previous years, during the second
their designers. One of the unfortunate consequences of such omissions is adisconnect in the minds of many students between their perception of what they currently are andwhat they aspire to be professionally.At the First Year Engineering Workshop entitled “Dialogue II on Engineering Education: theRole of the First Year,” held in July 2007 at the University of Notre Dame, David Billington, Sr.,made the argument for the need to humanize engineering. In his presentation, he opined thatentering students relate more to historical examples than to abstract principles. Among thepoints raised were that students should study outstanding engineers because the human elementof engineering is missing from their classes; that ideas and personalities are
curriculumauthorities state the attitudes and dispositions that should be promoted by study in a particularengineering course.17 More recently discussion has focused on the moral purpose of theoutcomes of studies in particular areas of engineering, as for example the impact of design onthe environment or genetic engineering.18 There is not however much debate about the moregeneral effect of beliefs and attitudes on a student’s general philosophical disposition or habitof mind.19Finally in this context Grimson showed how a philosophical viewpoint derived from formalphilosophy and philosophies could contribute to design. He used the example of the design ofone of Britains most famous nineteenth century buildings – The Crystal Palace20. Hecharacterised
curriculum was formed in the crucible of the cold war.8 Since that time, Page 13.684.2radical changes in transportation, communication, and computer technology9 leave us in a verydifferent world. Popular books such as The World is Flat,10 A Whole New Mind,11 and The Riseof the Creative Class12 suggest that returns to innovation and creativity are especially importantin a world where routine analysis and engineering tasks can be outsourced globally for dimes onthe dollar. Scientific discovery and the integration of technology in everyday life are occurringat an increasing rate. These trends demand a more direct involvement of engineers in
survey using the Web Monkey system which we will continue to use for the rest of theproject.Platform Research and ChoiceThe first requirement for the InTEL platform is portability. The software should be easilyaccessible to students, and the best solution to this is to allow exercises and work to be done onthe web. The second requirement is visual capacity and the ability to perform physicalsimulation. Finally, we desired platforms that were non-proprietary and open source. With theserequirements in mind, we chose to implement the software in Java, using the Java MonkeyEngine as a stable graphical engine. We selected the Open Dynamics Engine as a system forconducting physical simulations.Exercise Design and DevelopmentWe clarified our goal of
would a very time-consuming taskand realizing that there are many excellent technical writing resources on the market, weexamined several existing reference books about technical writing. After staffing, we chose areference that was complete, written with both budding and experienced engineers in mind, andprovided numerous images of properly formatted portions of reports, memorandums, and othercommon written products required of an engineer.4 We also provide students with a copy of ashort, useful article written for students and faculty by an engineering professor.5Several Universities have addressed this same issue in their Engineering programs through aformal writing across the curriculum program and writing to learn assignments
; “Developing Globally- Minded Engineers through Education and Experience: A Panel Discussion on International Co-op/Internship Program Models,” Proceedings of the 2006 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Chicago, IL, June, 2006.9. Groll, Eckhard A. and E. Daniel Hirleman, “Undergraduate GEARE Program: Purdue University’s School of ME Contribution to Educating Globally Sensitive and Competent Engineers,” Proceedings of the 6th ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education, Istanbul, Turkey, October, 2007.10. Freeman, Sarah; Douglas Matson; Grant Sharpe; and Chris Swan, “International Citizenship and Global Service Leadership – The Role of Interdisciplinary Teams in Engineering Education,” Proceedings of the 2006 ASEE
approach was needed. The desire was to create aworldwide network of engineering educators and engineering education stakeholders that couldattempt to answer such formidable basic questions and drastically raise the horizon of target andambitions: i.e., to pass from the day by day engineering education issues and problems 2 to the“actual impact” on the worldwide development and socioeconomic growth. IFEES was bornwith the vision to contribute significantly to changing the world (within the context of its missionand competences), i.e. to the extent that engineering education can contribute to these changes.With this in mind, IFEES is developing partnerships with major organizations worldwide dealingwith social development and education. A primary