Examining Software Design Projects in a First-Year Engineering Course: How Assigning an Open-Ended Game Project Impacts Student Experience
- Conference
- Location
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Columbus, Ohio
- Publication Date
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June 24, 2017
- Start Date
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June 24, 2017
- End Date
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June 28, 2017
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Computers in Education
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Page Count
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11
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--28316
- Permanent URL
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https://jee.org/28316
- Download Count
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191
Paper Authors
Krista M Kecskemety Ohio State University
Krista Kecskemety is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. Krista received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University in 2006 and received her M.S. from Ohio State in 2007. In 2012, Krista completed her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State. Her engineering education research interests include investigating first-year engineering student experiences, faculty experiences, and the connection between the two.
Allen Benjamin Drown Ohio State University
Allen is a third year Industrial and Systems Engineering Undergraduate student at The Ohio State University who is an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for the Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors (FEH) Program. His interests include Engineering Education, Lean Manufacturing, and Humanitarian Engineering. He will graduate with his B.S.I.S.E in May, 2018.
Lauren Corrigan Ohio State University
Lauren Corrigan is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Ohio State. She has two years of industry experience as an environmental engineering consultant. Her responsibilities included solid waste design, construction quality assurance, and computer aided design in support of various environmental projects. Lauren currently engages in teaching and curriculum development within the First-Year Engineering Program. Her research interests include the retention and success of students in STEM fields, with a particular focus on under-represented populations.
Abstract
Courses that teach programming often include large software design projects intended to synthesize the elements learned in the class. A software design project has been used at a large public university in the first-year engineering honors course to practice using programming elements and prepare students for the second semester course. Prior to Autumn 2014 all sections of the course created a program to detect and compute the frequency of an infrared (IR) signal. In Autumn 2015, six sections of the course changed the design project to be designing and programming a game, four sections assigned the traditional IR project, and two sections gave students the choice. Based on survey results, students who completed the game project indicated greater enjoyment, greater sense of creativity, greater teamwork skill development, greater preparation to their future as an engineering, and preparation for the spring semester project compared to those who completed the IR project.
Kecskemety, K. M., & Drown, A. B., & Corrigan, L. (2017, June), Examining Software Design Projects in a First-Year Engineering Course: How Assigning an Open-Ended Game Project Impacts Student Experience Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28316
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