Engineering Commons^™

Ethical Reasoning Development In Project-Based Learning, Elizabeth Pluskwik, Puteri S. Megat Hamari

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

This paper will describe the method of ethics instruction in a specific project-based learning program with the aim to improve the current level of moral reasoning skills in the engineering students enrolled in the program. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) have endorsed efforts to improve the teaching of ethics in the engineering curriculum. Criterion 3-f of the ABET outcomes,specifically calls for student attainment of an understanding of ethical and professional responsibility. In response, engineering educators seek to develop curriculum to improve moral reasoning skills, which should lead to increased …

Large Research Center Education And Outreach: Lessons From 5 Years Of Distributed Collaborative Design, Development And Implementation, Sean Brophy, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

Paper from the 121st ASEE Annual Conference, Indianapolis. The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Summation (NEES) completes its tenth year of operation in September 2014. The NEES Center consists of a network of 14 large-scale experimental laboratories that collaborate and share resources in support of research to inform civil engineering practice and reduce losses from future earthquakes. Since the development of the center in 2003, the education, outreach and training (EOT) program has grown from a federation of local outreach activities to an integrated network of “specialists” working together to obtain significant impact towards defined education goals. …

Epics: Broadening The Pathway Into Stem, Mindy Hart, Patrice M. Buzzanell, William Charles Oakes, Carla B Zoltowski

ADVANCE-Purdue Gender and STEM Research Symposium

The Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program was co-founded at Purdue University in 1995 and has since spread throughout the United States and globally with inroads into K-12 education through EPICS High. This presentation offers a synthesis of research findings and interventions gleaned from several datasets about students’ and alumni’s reported experiences with EPICS and the consequences of their participation. In particular, this presentation discusses the ways in which EPICS provides a different vantage point on the underrepresentation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Specifically, researchers have been tackling this issue of underrepresentation for decades with …

The Use Of 3d Printing To Enable High Altitude Balloon Missions, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The 3D printing technology allows the low-cost creation of structures based on user-defined configuration parameters. Unlike other plastic-forming technologies, there is no tooling cost related to the creation of a mold. Because of this, highly-customized structures can be created with a minimum production quantity of one, allowing adaptation to individual mission needs (for a single-HAB mission) or the change of the structure across a multi-unit run (e.g., to test various configurations or as part of a study requiring multiple payloads with different configurations).

This paper considers the mission possibilities enabled by the use of 3D printing for HAB structures. These …

Improving Enrollment In The Construction Management Graduate Program Through Students’ Perspectives, Mouloud Messaoudi

Master of Technology Management Plan II Graduate Projects

Low enrollment and the decrease in graduation and retention rates are challenges facing the growth of the Master’s in Technology Management – Construction Management (MTM-CM) program at BGSU. In addition, the competition between the universities to enroll and retain more in-state, out-of-state, and international students is aggressive. There is a need for a revaluation for the MTM-CM program in order to attract more students in the future. This study is a necessary step to know what the MTM-CM students think about the product delivered to them at BGSU. There was no prior study investigating the satisfaction level of the construction …

Teaching Laboratory Courses Using Distance Learning Technologies, Steve C. Hsiung, John Ritz

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Conducting laboratory activities is essential for teaching and learning in engineering and technology subjects. This article discusses explorations made by a research team to find solutions to enable the distance-learning delivery of laboratory courses on embedded microcontroller technology topics. In addition, this article includes a review of videoconferencing and course management tools, uniquely designed laboratory equipment and supporting curriculum materials, and statistical evidence showing students can learn technical laboratory content in distance-learning environments.

Open Source Software To Enhance The Stem Learning Environment, Maurice E. Dawson Jr., Imad Al Saeed, Jorja Wright, Festus Onyegbula

Maurice Dawson

This chapter examines the use of Open Source Software (OSS) technologies that can be used to improve the learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Explored are the various methods that can be utilized to improve the percentage of STEM majors in the American educational system with resources such as: Open Source as Alternative (OSALT), virtualization, cloud computing, Linux distributions, open source programming, and open source hardware platforms. Increasing the amount of students that pursue STEM majors is important because the projected job growth in the STEM field compared to non-STEM jobs is 33%. OSALT provides cost-effective alternatives to …

Motor Protection Lab Experiment Using Sel-710, Ozro Corulli

Electrical Engineering

Advancements in microprocessor based relay technology for power protection applications provide quicker response times and new methods of mitigation. This project develops a lab experiment for Cal Poly class EE444 - Power Systems Laboratory based on the Schweitzer SEL-710 motor protection relay. Learning objectives for this lab include relay setup, programming, and protection schemes for the following conditions: undervoltage, loss of phase, fault, locked rotor, and thermal overload. Today, utility companies across the globe use SEL relays for primary system protection, putting engineers familiar with their operation in high demand.

Visualizing Mechanics: Improving Student Learning Through Video Demonstrations, Blake A. Wetherton, Olumide A. Awofeso, Carolyn E. Creighton, Adam F. Potrzebowski, Charles M. Krousgrill, Jeffrey F. Rhoads

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Purdue Mechanics Freeform Classroom (PMFC) is a project that seeks to reform engineering mechanics education by integrating content and technology; enhancing communication between students, their peers, and instructors; accommodating a broader range of learning styles; and facilitating greater depths of understanding. In an attempt to increase the PMFC’s efficacy, a series of demonstration videos has been produced. As demonstrated by the popularity and pervasiveness of websites such as YouTube, short videos have the potential to captivate audiences. As such, these videos have incredible promise in educational contexts. In the PMFC series of videos, entitled Visualizing Mechanics, each imitates the …

Development Of Pneumatic Robot For Outreach, Eshamogbo E. Ojuba, John Lumkes

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

To encourage the current generation of high school and middle school students to pursue careers in engineering, it is important to have challenging hands-on engineering activities for them. Such activities should be interesting, compelling, and, most importantly, educative. A mini-excavator was built for fluid power outreach, but this tool only demonstrates fluid power, without showing other important aspects of engineering. The tool being developed is able to demonstrate fluid power, as well as other important aspects of engineering, such as controls, electronics, and programming. This tool is an electronically-controlled device that allows the user control a pneumatic circuit, coupled with …

Issues In Organisation And Management Of Multidisciplinary Group Design Projects, Ken Keating, Claire Brougham, Graham Gavin, Ger Reilly

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Defining Characteristics Of An Integrated Stem Curriculum In K-12 Education, Vinson Robert Carter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to obtain consensus concerning the defining characteristics of integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum. This study utilized a three round modified Delphi study to solicit recommendations from experts of STEM education in order to: 1) create a set of categorical and defining curricular components needed to develop and implement appropriate integrated STEM curriculum; 2) identify the characteristics that set integrated STEM education curriculum apart from single-discipline curricula; 3) discuss the components necessary to gauge whether an initiative, project, or curriculum should be referred to as integrated STEM education; and 4) examine whether …

Why Do Indiana Pre-Service Technology Education Majors Choose The Profession, Traves L. Freeland

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study was to look at the factors that influence pre-service technology education majors to choose to become teachers. The pre-service teachers of three Indiana technology education teacher preparatory programs were given an internet survey to collect demographic data and determine what factors influence current pre-service teachers. The results of this study were compared to the results from a study done by Harris (2007). The findings resulted in similar factors that were the most common identified as being influential. Those factors included personal interest or hobbies, high school or middle school teacher, and past experiences in …

Cleerhub.Org Adoption By Eafit University Engineering Faculty Members: A Longitudinal Study, Diego M. Mendez Mena

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

The main purpose of this study is to identify and comprehend faculty members’ perception of attributes of the diffusion of the technological innovation CLEERhub.org at EAFIT University, College of Engineering, in Medellin, Colombia. Moreover, this work attempts to understand causes and motivators that might lead to innovation adoption or rejection. The Diffusion of Innovations Theory serves as the framework to develop an appropriate assessing instrument that allows accurate measuring of user opinions towards the practice of CLEERhub.org in their educational research work in Engineering. In order to correctly assess user perception of the embracement process of such technological/cyberinfrastructure innovation, the …

An Inverted Teaching Model For A Mechanics Of Materials Course, Jeffery S. Thomas, Timothy A. Philpot

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Instructors at Missouri University of Science and Technology have been offering certain sections of a mechanics of materials course in an inverted format for the past two years. In this format, students learn the concepts outside of class, using a textbook, animations and videos developed by the authors, and work on homework either individually or in groups during the optional class time. Students take eight multiple-choice exams and a final exam that is common to both the inverted sections and the more traditional lecture-based sections. Homework in the inverted sections is assigned but not graded. The in-class exams are given …

Case Methods In Civil Engineering Teaching, Timothy A. Newson, Norbert J. Delatte

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

English: There have been significant changes in undergraduate civil engineering curricula in the last two decades. Key issues for university curriculum committees are selection and transference of appropriate skills and attributes for students to succeed in the industry. Despite significant changes occurring in teaching theories, civil engineering education still relies heavily on deductive instruction. Case-based teaching is one of the most widespread forms of inductive learning and this paper describes the differences between two of the most familiar types: 'case-histories' and 'case-studies'. These methods are presented using the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse as an exemplar. The benefits of …

Asynchronous Use Of Engineering (Materials) Education Videos, Craig Johnson, Arthur D. Morken

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Engineering education delivery is dynamic and increasingly asynchronous. An observation that students had very different levels of knowledge and skills as they progressed through our programs, led the authors to use audio/visual media as a leveling intervention. In this effort the authors collected data to determine if audio/visual media can be used to increase performance in the development of a program related task and guide students to higher levels of learning on Blooms Taxonomy through the development of student created learning aids.

One specific need was reflected in the disparate skills of our majority component of ‘transfer’ students in our …

Using Social Networking Game To Teach Operations Research And Management Science Fundamental Concepts, Ivan G. Guardiola, Susan L. Murray, Elizabeth A. Cudney

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents our experience using the popular game FarmVille by Zynga® to teach the fundamentals of linear programming and integer programming concepts to undergraduate students in an introductory operations research course. FarmVille is a popular game within the social networking website Facebook®. A month-long contest was introduced amongst the students with the goal to be the best individual farmer by striving to reach high levels of revenue, experience, and aesthetic appeal of their own unique farm. The contest is to demonstrate the concepts of problem formulation, solution methods, multiple and competing objectives, implementation of policy, and reformulation. The students …

Building A Framework For Engineering Design Experiences In Stem: A Synthesis, Cameron D. Denson

Publications

Since the inception of the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education in 2004, educators and researchers have struggled to identify the necessary components of a “good” engineering design challenge for high school students. In reading and analyzing the position papers on engineering design many themes emerged that may begin to form a narrative for engineering design in a high school setting. Before educators can provide a framework for engineering design in STEM courses, four questions need to be answered: (a) To what degree should engineering design challenges be open-ended or well-structured? (b) What are the relationships between engineering design …

Education On Conceptual Modeling For Simulation- Beyond The Craft: A Summary Of A Recent Expert Panel Discussion, Durk-Jouke Van Der Zee, Andreas Tolk, Mike Pidd, Kathy Kotiadis, Antuela A. Tako

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Project Based Learning In Introduction To Engineering/Technology Class, Alok K. Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Project based learning (PBL) has a proven record as a teaching tool. Concepts that are often hard to grasp are made easy by the use of project based activities. The constructivism learning theory suggests that people learn better by actively participating in the process of learning. The Introduction to Engineering and Engineering Technology class has been modified to include project based learning kits to engage freshmen early on in the program. The goal is to demonstrate students the link between the scientific principles and their engineering applications. The course is team taught by faculty from various engineering and technology disciplines …

Stem Education And Leadership: A Mathematics And Science Partnership Approach, Chris Merrill, Jenny Daugherty

Publications

The issue of attracting more young people to choose careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has become critical for the United States. Recent studies by businesses, associations, and education have all agreed that the United States’ performance in the STEM disciplines have placed our nation in grave risk of relinquishing its competitive edge in the marketplace (e.g., Rising above the gathering storm, 2007). A Congressional Research Service (2006) report stated that, a “large majority of secondary students fail to reach proficiency in math and science, and many are taught by teachers lacking adequate subject matter knowledge” (Congressional Research …

Transdisciplinary Green Engineering Education At San José State University, Belle Wei, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

Climate change is a pressing issue for the world today. There are an increasing number of technological by-products posing a threat to the stability and quality of the world environment. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global warming appears to be accelerating, resulting in higher increases in global temperature and higher rises in the sea level. To effectively address this problem, there is a need for transdisciplinary, transnational approaches, reflecting the complexity of the problem and the interdependence of people’s lives around the world. Consequently, the Davidson College of Engineering at San José State University …

Applying Six Sigma Methodology To The Admissions Process In Higher Education, Alok Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Time and quality are two important metrics for improving a company's production and profit performance. Six Sigma is one of the most powerful continuous improvement tools that have been used to improve the quality of products and business processes. Six Sigma methodology provides the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the number of defects in any process. It was originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects. Although, originally developed for manufacturing processes, the tool has been effectively applied to improve business processes also. Evaluation of applications for admission in higher education is often …

Introducing Hands-On Simulation Activities In Introduction To Engineering & Engineering Technology Class To Keep Students Engaged, Alok Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Low enrollment and high attrition rates have often plagued Engineering and Engineering Technology programs. Part of this problem can be attributed to the lack of engaging hands-on activities during the first year of instruction. Most engineering and technology programs require students to take natural science, math and some general education courses during the first two years with minimal technical content. To maintain student's interest in the technical career path, it is important that students establish a link between the theoretical knowledge and its application to solve real life problems early in their learning experience. Simulation based activities have a proven …

Forensics And Case Studies In Civil Engineering Education: State Of The Art, Norbert J. Delatte, Kevin L. Rens

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper reviews the state of the art in the use of forensic engineering and failure case studies in civil engineering education. The study of engineering failures can offer students valuable insights into associated technical, ethical, and professional issues. Lessons learned from failures have substantially affected civil engineering practice. For the student, study of these cases can help place design and analysis procedures into historical context and reinforce the necessity of lifelong learning. Three approaches for bringing forensics and failure case studies into the civil engineering curriculum are discussed in this paper. These are stand-alone forensic engineering or failure case …

Mechatronics Education At Kettering University: Development Of Learning- Specific Hardware And Software, Jeffrey Hargrove, Theodore J. Stokes

Mechanical Engineering Presentations And Conference Materials

A series of learning-specific electronic circuit boards and associated software has been developed to support mechatronics education in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Kettering University. The boards are designed to interface to the Toshiba TLCS-900H Microprocessor Trainer and Evaluation Board. The purpose of these boards is to provide mechanical engineering students of mechatronics with robust hardware that readily permits interfacing of sensors and actuators to microcontrollers used in mechatronic applications. Further, the boards feature signal conditioning circuits for use in conjunction with sensors, and driver circuits for operating high-current actuating devices. Supporting software has been written to permit ready use …

An Analytical Study Of The 1971-72 Cooperative Vocational Program In Utah With Comparison To A Guideline For Cooperative Vocational Programs, George C. Ku

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was (1) to develop a guideline for cooperative education; (2) to determine the current status of cooperative vocational education in Utah; and (3) to compare current practices with the established guideline.

This study was completed in two parts. The first part involved the construction and verification of a guideline for cooperative education in Utah; the second, a survey of the current status of cooperative education. A descriptive survey technique was employed to gather data required for determination of the guideline's validity and relevance, and the current status of cooperative education in Utah.

All 13 key …