Seattle, Washington
June 14, 2015
June 14, 2015
June 17, 2015
978-0-692-50180-1
2153-5965
Engineering Economy
Diversity
13
26.541.1 - 26.541.13
10.18260/p.23855
https://peer.asee.org/23855
508
Weihang Zhu is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, Lamar University, USA since 2005. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University (2003), USA and his M.S. (2000) and B.S. (1997) in Mechanical and Energy Engineering at Zhejiang University, China. His research interests include Engineering Education, Computer haptics, CAD/CAM, high performance computing, meta-heuristics, multi-axis NC surface machining.
“Engineering Economics Career” Mobile App Development Process and Student Satisfaction Abstract: This paper presents the mobile app development process and students’ satisfactionof a newly developed app for an Engineering Economics course. The new mobile app wasdesigned based on the formative assessment of our apps that were developed and used inclassroom settings for the past two years. The newly designed app is named, ‘EngineeringEconomics Career,’ simulates the growth of an engineering economist in a virtual company. Theapp integrates various components including e-book, calculator, reference tables, conceptualquestions and practical problems. The E-book is a summary of the key concepts of EngineeringEconomics. The calculator provides functions to solve basic engineering economics problemswith formulas. The tables allow the users to compute discrete compound interest factors. Themain interface is a Career game. Through this game, a user will encounter challenges withconceptual problems and also calculation problems in order to make a few financial decisions.As users successfully go through challenges, they will progress through five stages: Intern,Engineer, Senior Engineer, Head of Engineering and Chief Operation Officer. Each stage willhave a selected number of conceptual and calculation problems. While a user can accept allstages, one must finish all problems in each stage in order to be promoted to the next stage byearning some points. A user can work on a problem repeatedly in order to gain more points,which will indicate how much effort a user spends in each stage for their learning. Sets ofproblems range from simple questions on time values of money to more complex concepts, suchas Sensitivity Analysis, Monte Carlo Simulation, and Supply Demand Equilibrium. From theproblem interface, users may access topics of their interest in the E-book and use the calculatorand interest tables to help themselves. This app has been developed for both Apple iOS andGoogle Android platforms, and they have been released in the Google Play and Apple App Store.This app is intended to give students more opportunity to learn and practice concepts ofEngineering Economics whenever and where they want using their mobile devices.
Zhu, W., & Marquez, A., & Yoo, J. (2015, June), Development of “Engineering Economics Career” Mobile App Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23855
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