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Integrating Design into the Entire Electrical Engineering Four-Year Experience

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Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

New Developments in ECE

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer

Page Count

18

DOI

10.18260/1-2--32984

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/32984

Download Count

427

Paper Authors

biography

Zvi S. Roth Florida Atlantic University

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Dr. Roth received his BSc (1974) and MSc (1979) both in Electrical Engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and PhD in Systems Engineering (1983) from Case Western Reserve University. Since then he has been a faculty member of the College of Engineering at Florida Atlantic University

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biography

Hanqi Zhuang Florida Atlantic University

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Dr. Hanqi Zhuang is a professor in Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University. His research interests are in Robotics, Computer Vision, and their applications, as well as Engineering Education. He is PI of an education grant on Engineering Design from National Science Foundation, which expires in 2016.

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biography

Ali Zilouchian Florida Atlantic University

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Ali Zilouchian is currently the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University. He is also currently the Director of “CAPTURE” program which is related to increasing pipeline, graduation rate as well as future jobs in the State of Florida related to STEM graduates especially Computer Science and Engineering fields. His recent projects have been funded by DOE, Florida BOG, National Science Foundation, Florida Power and Lights (FPL), Broward County School district and several other sources. His recent research works related to alternative energy applications includes Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) for Solar Systems, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) and battery technology to transportation technology. In addition, he has conducted research on the applications of soft computing methodologies to industrial processes including, desalination processes, oil refineries, fuzzy control of jet engines, and fuzzy controllers for car engines.
Dr. Zilouchian has published one book, and over 143 book chapters, scholarly journal papers, and refereed conference proceedings. He has supervised 20 Ph.D. and MS students to completion during his tenure at FAU. He has taught more than thirty (30) different courses related to engineering technology during his tenure at FAU. In 1996 and 2001, Dr. Zilouchian was awarded for the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at FAU. He has also received many awards including 1998 outstanding leadership award (IEEE, membership development), best organizer award(World Automation Congress, 2002), best paper award( WAC, 2002), 2003 and 2004 College of Engineering Dean’s awards in recognition of his contributions toward achievement of the goals of College of Engineering and Computer Science at FAU. He has served as session chair and organizer of many sessions in the international conferences for the past 30 years. Professor Zilouchian is currently an associate editor of the International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering out of Oxford, UK. Professor Zilouchian is senior member of several professional societies including Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi, ASEE and IEEE.

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Abstract

Integrating Engineering Design into the Entire Electrical Engineering Curriculum

In this paper, the integration of design component into entire undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum program is presented. The implementation of the new curriculum with the integration of design tasks is carried out through adaptation of innovations and recent advances in electrical engineering technology and effective enactment of these state of art techniques to substantially improve the instructional capability of undergraduate instruction. Such a goal is achieved through 4 mottos: start early, be persistent, open more fronts, and cap with a peak. The idea of introducing engineering design in the freshman year is not necessarily new. In addition, the significance of “persistence” in integrating design to engineering curricula has been proposed by several researchers before. However, the refinement of EE curriculum with the integration of design component in all EE courses with emphasis on the overall design experience for capstone project is a transformative approach in EE undergraduate education.

In order to be persistent it is important to include engineering design in freshmen, sophomore and junior years. Certain Computer Science and Computer Engineering courses that require a little less mathematical preparation, such as Intro to Programming, Logic Design and Intro to Microprocessors, are critical to filling the design gap during the sophomore year. Design-rich Electrical Engineering courses, such as Electronics and Control Systems play a major design role during the junior year. Students are exposed to design concepts such as Simulation for design and circuit verification, tweaking of the final design, “divide-and-conquer” as various parts of the circuit are tuned, Mote Carlo and Worst Case Analysis, and many more.

“Opening more fronts” is accomplished by introduction of design-oriented elective courses. The most important ones are courses which directly prepare the students to the quickly looming job market. The design experience that students receive in courses such as Antennas or Photovoltaic Power Systems is already at a level on par with industry. Such design experience must open internship doors for the senior students. The design and implementation of two-semester capstone design project course is also discussed

This paper will present the details of such integration throughout the adapted curriculum for all the courses. Such refinement may provide a national model for possible adaptation by other institutions around the nation.

The collected data and student survey for the past four years? (2014-2018) will be presented to validate the effectiveness and satisfaction of students related to integration of their design experience in comparison with their predecessors and with peers in other institutions.

Roth, Z. S., & Zhuang, H., & Zilouchian, A. (2019, June), Integrating Design into the Entire Electrical Engineering Four-Year Experience Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32984

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