Vancouver, BC
June 26, 2011
June 26, 2011
June 29, 2011
2153-5965
Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies
13
22.271.1 - 22.271.13
10.18260/1-2--17552
https://peer.asee.org/17552
543
Nancy K. Lape is an Assistant Professor of Engineering and Director of the Patton and Claire Lewis Fellowship in Engineering Professional Practice at Harvey Mudd College. She received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research focuses on energy-efficient composite gas separation membranes, chemical transport across human skin, and engineering education.
Prof. David Money Harris received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering and his M.Eng. and S.B. degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. His professional interests include integrated circuit design, computer arithmetic, and hands-on engineering education.
Matthew is a senior engineering major at Harvey Mudd College, focusing on electrical and computer engineering. He is planning to continue his education in graduate school, focusing on robotics and the interface between the digital and physical worlds.
Madeleine Ong is a senior general engineering major at Harvey Mudd College, focusing on digital and chemical engineering. Her technical interests include digital circuit design, VLSI, computer architecture as well as physical chemistry and transport phenomena.
Zachary Dodds has been a professor of computer science at Harvey Mudd College since 1999. His interests include vision-based robotics and computer science education.
Autonomous Vehicles: A Hands-On Interdisciplinary Freshman CourseThe authors have recently developed a new first-‐semester freshman elective, Autonomous Vehicles, as a hands-‐on interdisciplinary introduction to mechanical, chemical, electrical, and computer engineering, computer science, design, controls, and energy. Course goals include exposing students to many facets of engineering and computer science to aid in major choice, developing practical technical skills relevant to subsequent projects, generating enthusiasm for future studies, and developing teamwork, design, presentation, and technical writing skills. Through a series of labs, the students design, build, test, and optimize autonomous robots to compete in a “Capture the Flag” style game. These labs cover C programming, drawing and 3D printing a robot chassis, assembling a customized microcontroller circuit board, building sensor circuits, machining and characterizing hydrogen proton exchange membranes (PEM) fuel cells, and generating and detecting Gold codes. This paper will describe the course structure and content and summarize assessment results from the Fall 2010 pilot course.
Lape, N. K., & Harris, D. L., & Keeter, M. J., & Ong, M. S., & Dodds, Z. (2011, June), Autonomous Vehicles: A Hands-On Interdisciplinary Freshman Course Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--17552
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