Engaging Students in Real-World Engineering: Building an SLA Printer using a Scaffolded, Team-based Approach (Resouce Exchange)

Stephanie Elaine Ott-Monsivais; Joe Muskin

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: PCEE Instructional Showcases
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
Page Count: 3
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--56368
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/56368
Download Count: 1

Paper Authors

biography

Stephanie Elaine Ott-Monsivais University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

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Stephanie Ott-Monsivais serves as the Director of Undergraduate Programs for the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a dedicated instructor and mentor, committed to fostering a welcoming and supportive academic community where all students are empowered to succeed. Through her efforts in community building and student-centered initiatives, she works to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Passionate about curriculum development, outreach, and advancing engineering education, she continually strives to enrich the student learning experience and promote engagement across the department. Her excellence in teaching and advising has been widely recognized. She has appeared on the List of Instructors Ranked as Excellent a dozen times and on the Engineering Council’s Outstanding Advisors List five times. She was honored with MechSE Staff Awards for Exemplary Service in 2021 and 2024, named a Kay Kappes Golden Shamrock in 2022, received the Excellence in Undergraduate Advising Campus Award in 2023, and was selected as a participant in the Emerging Women Leaders Forum for the 2024–2025 academic year.

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Joe Muskin University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Abstract

Pre-college exposure to engineering often creates misconceptions, with competitions frequently used to engage students. While fun, these contests can give the wrong message—suggesting that students who don't win may not be suited for engineering. Additionally, these contests can lead to anxiety and disengagement for those who struggle with competition, overshadowing the fact that engineering is a collaborative process aimed at meeting specific requirements. In real-world engineering, redesigns and refinements are a common and often essential part of the engineering design process. We developed a curriculum unit that introduces students to engineering, solving a real-world problem and creating a seemingly complex device that all students succeed in finishing. The unit is appropriate for a weeklong summer program or a month-long high school science and engineering course module. In this scaffolded module students design a device for additive manufacturing. Our approach ensures all students can succeed by focusing on designing to meet specific requirements, not to win a competition. The project is team-based and allows for built-in redesign opportunities, which reflects both the collaborative and the iterative process of real-world engineering. Additive manufacturing has become a major method of creating new objects, and perhaps the most familiar additive manufacturing method to students is 3D printing. The types of 3D printers most students are familiar with are filament printers. These use motors to control movement along three axes and to extrude the filament at a precise rate as it melts. However, other methods of 3D printing exist, including stereolithography (SLA). If a data projector is used to project light in the X and Y dimensions, then the only movement required by a motor is in the Z dimension; leading to a much easier 3D printer for students to design and construct. This setup makes the challenge more accessible while still teaching students essential skills like Arduino programming, motor control, rotary-to-linear motion, and system design, as well as how to consider the trade-offs inherent in their many design decisions. Each team's final product is unique but works effectively, showcasing the collaborative, creative problem-solving inherent in engineering while promoting the exchange of ideas based on the differences of the designs. The unit aligns with Next Generation Science Standards related to engineering (HS-ETS1-2, HS-ETS1-3) and concepts related to chemical reactions and energy transfer (HS-PS1-2, HS-PS4-3, HS-PS4-4). This unit has been used multiple years as a summer camp at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as in engineering and technology classes in Illinois. Evaluations of the unit have been extremely favorable, with over 80% of over 200 participants reporting a significant increase in engineering interest and 95% reporting at least some increase.

Citation
Format

Ott-Monsivais, S. E., & Muskin, J. (2025, June), Engaging Students in Real-World Engineering: Building an SLA Printer using a Scaffolded, Team-based Approach (Resouce Exchange) Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . 10.18260/1-2--56368

TY - CPAPER
AB - Pre-college exposure to engineering often creates misconceptions, with competitions frequently used to engage students. While fun, these contests can give the wrong message—suggesting that students who don&#39;t win may not be suited for engineering. Additionally, these contests can lead to anxiety and disengagement for those who struggle with competition, overshadowing the fact that engineering is a collaborative process aimed at meeting specific requirements. In real-world engineering, redesigns and refinements are a common and often essential part of the engineering design process.

We developed a curriculum unit that introduces students to engineering, solving a real-world problem and creating a seemingly complex device that all students succeed in finishing. The unit is appropriate for a weeklong summer program or a month-long high school science and engineering course module. In this scaffolded module students design a device for additive manufacturing. Our approach ensures all students can succeed by focusing on designing to meet specific requirements, not to win a competition. The project is team-based and allows for built-in redesign opportunities, which reflects both the collaborative and the iterative process of real-world engineering.

Additive manufacturing has become a major method of creating new objects, and perhaps the most familiar additive manufacturing method to students is 3D printing. The types of 3D printers most students are familiar with are filament printers. These use motors to control movement along three axes and to extrude the filament at a precise rate as it melts. However, other methods of 3D printing exist, including stereolithography (SLA). If a data projector is used to project light in the X and Y dimensions, then the only movement required by a motor is in the Z dimension; leading to a much easier 3D printer for students to design and construct. This setup makes the challenge more accessible while still teaching students essential skills like Arduino programming, motor control, rotary-to-linear motion, and system design, as well as how to consider the trade-offs inherent in their many design decisions. Each team&#39;s final product is unique but works effectively, showcasing the collaborative, creative problem-solving inherent in engineering while promoting the exchange of ideas based on the differences of the designs.

The unit aligns with Next Generation Science Standards related to engineering (HS-ETS1-2, HS-ETS1-3) and concepts related to chemical reactions and energy transfer (HS-PS1-2, HS-PS4-3, HS-PS4-4). This unit has been used multiple years as a summer camp at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as in engineering and technology classes in Illinois. Evaluations of the unit have been extremely favorable, with over 80% of over 200 participants reporting a significant increase in engineering interest and 95% reporting at least some increase.
AU - Stephanie Elaine Ott-Monsivais
AU - Joe Muskin
CY - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DA - 2025/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Engaging Students in Real-World Engineering: Building an SLA Printer using a Scaffolded, Team-based Approach (Resouce Exchange)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/56368
DO - 10.18260/1-2--56368
ER -