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Teaching Engineering Design Through a Wearable Device Design Competition (Evaluation)

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Pre-College: Organizing Instruction Around a Theme

Tagged Division

Pre-College Engineering Education Division

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--28912

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/28912

Download Count

628

Paper Authors

biography

Elena Nicolescu Veety North Carolina State University

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Elena Veety received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, in 2011. Her research focused on liquid crystal polarization gratings for tunable optical filters and telecommunications applications. Since 2011, she has been a Teaching Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University.
Currently, she is the Education Director for the NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST).

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biography

Jesse S. Jur North Carolina State University

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Dr. Jesse Jur is an Assistant Professor of Textile Engineering, Chemistry & Science at NC State University’s College of Textiles, a position he has held since 2011. A graduate of The University of South Carolina, he received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from N.C. State and has spent the last 12+ years researching primarily at the nanoscale. His research now focuses on applying the use of innovative materials methods to create functional electronic-textiles. Through this research, Dr. Jur is the technology leader for Human Factors and Integration in a National Science Foundation Nano Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST), led by North Carolina State.

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Hannah Kimrey Elliott

biography

James Edward Lamberth III William G. Enloe Magnet High School

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I was born on April 9th, 1983 to Jim and Rose Lamberth in Leasburg, NC. I spent my adolescent years living in Timberlake, NC. I graduated from Person High School in Roxboro, NC in 2001. In 2005 I graduated from North Carolina State University with a B.S. in Science Education and a B.A. in Chemistry. I student taught at Garner Magnet High School in the Fall of 2005. I have been teaching at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, NC since January of 2006 where I have taught earth science, physical science, astronomy, and chemistry. I have been married to Leslie Harris Lamberth of Elizabeth City, NC since August 2014.

In the summer of 2014 I was accepted into the Kenan Fellows Program to work with and learn about Dr. Gail Jones and Dr. Jess Jur’s work at the ASSIST (Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies) Center at North Carolina State University as an RET 1 (Research Experience for Teachers.) The ASSIST Center’s goal is to create a wearable, self-powered, multi-modal health monitoring device. The following year I was brought back as an RET 2 to work with Hannah Elliott, Dr. Elena Veety, and Dr. Jess Jur to design, market, and implement the Wearable Device Challenge in local middle and high schools. I am currently a part time employee of the ASSIST Center working as an educational outreach liaison to continue the work with the Wearable Device Challenge.

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Abstract

The One Health Wearable Device Design Competition was developed at the ASSIST Center. It is rooted in the research and innovation ecosystem of the Center and its vision: to have a transformational impact on the way doctors and patients manage wellness through wearable, self-powered health and environmental monitoring systems.

At its core, the program teaches middle and high school teachers and students how to apply the Engineering Design Process to solve real world problems through a project based approach. The prompt presented to participants is: Design a wearable device for a human, animal, or both, to address a “One Health” related issue. The One Health Initiative brings light to issues at the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health. This prompt encourages creativity in the brainstorming process to address issues that may be relevant to the participants, their families, or their communities. Within this prompt, we consistently see an amazing range of creative and critical issues that participants choose to address, issues as diverse as the participants themselves: health and safety of farm workers and farm animals, first responder exposure, hydration and UV exposure for athletes, monitoring of specific health conditions like sleep apnea, asthma, seizures, and many more.

Through these projects participants learn a variety of essential technical and professional skills while being exposed to the research and educational opportunities of the university. Among these are: engineering design process, electronic circuits, computer programming, sensors, energy harvesting, prototyping, human factors in engineering design, communication, and teamwork.

The program focuses on teachers and students at both the middle and high school level. It starts with the training of teachers through a 5-week intensive research experience in which teachers complete the design challenge while simultaneously developing lesson plans they will use to teach the material in their classrooms. Teachers implement the program in their schools and have students complete the challenge. Finalist teams from each school present their design at an annual competition. Throughout the process, representatives from the Center make classroom visits or host tours in order to support the teachers’ implementation. To date over 40 teachers have completed the summer training.

The assessment and evaluation plan consists of: (i) direct assessment of skills, (ii) self-assessments through pre- and post- surveys, and (iii) evaluation of programmatic factors. Teams completing the Challenge (teacher or student) are evaluated via a judging rubric at the culmination or the project. This rubric aims to assess technical competencies via demonstration of working prototype, familiarity with the engineering design process, oral and written communication skills. Teachers are also surveyed during the summer program and at the completion of the annual competition in order to gauge factors such as self-efficacy in teaching certain concepts, as well as feedback about their experience in the program to guide continuous improvement of our methods.

Ongoing work aims to expand access to the competition state-wide through teacher workshops and online resources that give teachers access to the tools and training needed to implement the challenge in their own classroom.

Veety, E. N., & Jur, J. S., & Elliott, H. K., & Lamberth, J. E. (2017, June), Teaching Engineering Design Through a Wearable Device Design Competition (Evaluation) Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28912

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