Seattle, Washington
June 14, 2015
June 14, 2015
June 17, 2015
978-0-692-50180-1
2153-5965
Mechanical Engineering
17
26.904.1 - 26.904.17
10.18260/p.24241
https://peer.asee.org/24241
618
Professor Sandra Anstaett Metzler received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 1983. Dr. Metzler received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and her D.Sc. in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1997 and 2000, respectively. Dr. Metzler worked in the automotive industry for General Motors, beginning as a high-school intern in the Engineering Test Garage and continuing through her undergraduate career and the first year of professional practice. Dr. Metzler then worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries for approximately 10 years before returning to graduate school at Washington University. Dr. Metzler completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University in Biomedical Engineering, after which she worked in the consulting arena for the past ten years. In 2011 she began teaching Capstone Design in the mechanical engineering curriculum within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University, in addition to continuing her consulting practice. In January, 2014 Dr. Metzler moved to full-time teaching responsibilities at Ohio State, where she continues to teach Capstone Design, as well as several other courses in the Design and Manufacturing group within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Blaine Lilly is an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering at Ohio State University, with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial & Systems Engineering. He has been on the faculty since 1998, and teaches courses in product design engineering and the introduction to mechanical engineering course outlined in this paper.
Implementation of a Novel Second-Year Mechanical Engineering Course to the Curriculum In 2012, the University System of Ohio member universities, which are overseen by the Ohio Board of Regents, moved from operating on a quarter-‐based calendar to a semester-‐based calendar. In conjunction with this change, the Mechanical Engineering curriculum at The Ohio State University was revised, and a new and unique course was added to the required curriculum for students in the major. The course, titled “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering”, encompasses elements of both the spiral curriculum and experiential learning strategies. A prior ASEE paper1 outlined the structure of the course at the time of pilot development, and the student feedback provided by the pilot program participants. Now in its third year of full-‐scale implementation, the course has undergone some modification from its original design. Additionally, exploration has begun within the department in order to incorporate additional elements of the mechanical engineering curriculum into the course in a more comprehensive spiral approach. The key challenges for this course are that it is a required course for all students in the major in a very large department, and that it is a hands-‐on course in which all students are required to complete every aspect of the machining, assembly, and programming of a compressed air motor individually. The course was designed specifically with this requirement to insure that every student was provided the opportunity to directly interact in every aspect of the process, in order to prevent the specialization, uneven participation and resulting uneven skill and knowledge gains that can occur in group project settings. One interesting outcome of the course has been the relatively large percentage of female students who completed the course and then applied and were selected as undergraduate teaching assistants for the course. In a department and discipline where female students remain under–represented overall, they have been participating at high levels in this role. We report here on the evolution of the course from its original pilot program through the first four semesters of full-‐scale implementation, as well as future plans for the course. Our assessment includes detailed feedback from students and teaching assistants who completed the course in the initial two years. Reference: 1. Abrams, Lisa, James William Aultschuld, Blaine W. Lilly, Daniel A. Mendelsohn “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering: A Course in Progress”, 2012 ASEE Annual Confernce, AC 2012-5238.
Metzler, S. A., & Lilly, B. W. (2015, June), Implementation of a Novel Second-year Mechanical Engineering Course to the Curriculum Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24241
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