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Combining Ordinary Differential Equations with Rigid Body Dynamics: Teaching a Second-year Engineering Dynamics Course to Two-year College Graduates

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Conference

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Publication Date

June 26, 2016

Start Date

June 26, 2016

End Date

June 29, 2016

ISBN

978-0-692-68565-5

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Teaching & Learning Dynamics, Vibration, and Mechanics More Broadly

Tagged Division

Mechanics

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/p.26514

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/26514

Download Count

1596

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Paper Authors

biography

Roes Arief Budiman P.Eng. University of Calgary

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Received PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at University of Toronto in 2001. Currently a Senior Instructor at University of Calgary and have been teaching Probability & Statistics for Engineers course in the past three years. Maintain a small research group (1 PhD, 1 MEng) on pipeline failure and reliability.

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Vishash Kumar Sharma

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Abstract

Students graduating with a two-year technical diploma from vocational colleges are entering a new Energy Engineering Program in Spring 2015 Term at Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary. The program provides a path for students with hands-on skills to pursue an engineering bachelor degree. The need to reduce the program completion duration and to provide mathematics courses with sufficient practical aspects has led the School to design a second-year course that combines ordinary differential equations with rigid body dynamics. This course, named ENER 340, has a prerequsite of another course, ENER 240, which combines differential and integral calculus with particle dynamics. We - the ENER 340 instructor team - find that even with such prerequisite course that exposes the students to more elementary concepts of particle dynamics and calculus, students struggled with developing problem solving skills further to solve rigid body dynamics. We find that teaching ordinary differential equations is much easier than teaching rigid body dynamics due to clear logical procedures for solving the former. Students also find it easier to learn the former. We consider several topics that can help blend the two course subjects better based on our teaching experience. We also find that such course blending initiative requires slower teaching and learning speed to allow students to digest the course material better. In addition, a more dedicated textbook that combines both topics is required.

Budiman, R. A., & Sharma, V. K. (2016, June), Combining Ordinary Differential Equations with Rigid Body Dynamics: Teaching a Second-year Engineering Dynamics Course to Two-year College Graduates Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26514

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