Butterfield, A. E., & Branch, K. J. (2015, June), Results & Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24674

\bibitem{asee_peer_24674}
  Butterfield, A. E., \& Branch, K. J. (2015, June), \emph{Results \& Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24674

Anthony Edward Butterfield and Kyle Joe Branch.  "Results & Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/24674 Internet.  22 Feb, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_24674}
  Anthony Edward Butterfield and Kyle Joe Branch.
  "Results \& Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/24674 Internet.  22 Feb, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24674
author = "Anthony Edward Butterfield and Kyle Joe Branch"
title = "Results \& Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/24674}
number = {10.18260/p.24674}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -  Results & Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design                               LaboratoryA survey of United States chemical engineering curricula shows that a relatively small number ofdepartments offer their first-year students a laboratory experience focused on core chemicalengineering concepts using hands-on design projects. Furthermore, the first-year chemistry andphysics laboratories taken by engineering students do not typically ask them to exercise the typeof creativity that attracted students to engineering in the first place.In order to bring more active, collaborative, and hands-on learning into our curriculum, wecreated a freshman chemical engineering design course and laboratory. This course is situated inthe second semester of our curriculum, after a more traditional lecture-based introduction tochemical engineering course, which we have used as a benchmark for our results.In the design laboratory, individual freshmen first use interactive browser-based simulations tofamiliarize themselves with the relevant theory and data analysis. They are then put into teams,which are given design goals and access to a wide variety of inexpensive materials and tools.Such design goals include, for example, building a process to automatically create homogenousalginate beads for drug deliver, or building a photobioreactor to grow algae effectively. Studentsthen validate their designs and compare their data to that predicted by theory. Students aretrained on the use of Arduino microcontrollers and Matlab to enable them to collect data from avariety of sensors. The course also includes a collaborative assignment on our seniors’ finalproject, for which our freshmen create resumes and apply. The semester is then capped with aproposal and final project of their own design.We have collected three semesters of results from student surveys, pre- and post-tests, anddetailed usage data from online simulations. The data indicate the pedagogy used in this coursehas been greatly successfully on multiple fronts. Students report remarkably high levels ofsatisfaction when compared to control surveys from more traditional lecture-based courses. Theyindicate that the collaborative methods used have helped them make social connections withinthe department. Student learning has been demonstrably improved and their skill sets havebroadened. The prototyping, teamwork, communication, and data-analysis skills that studentshave gained early in the curriculum have also greatly increased the value of our freshmen tofaculty research programs and others who hire our students as interns.
AU  - Anthony Edward Butterfield
AU  - Kyle Joe Branch
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Results & Lessons Learned from a Chemical Engineering Freshman Design Laboratory
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/24674
DO  - 10.18260/p.24674
ER  -