Digital Commons Network^™

Taking Professional Development From 2d To 3d: Design-Based Learning, 2d Modeling, And 3d Fabrication For Authentic Standards-Aligned Lesson Plans, Darran R. Cairns, Reagan Curtis, Konstantinos A. Sierros, Johnna J. Bolyard

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

There is currently significant interest in 3D fabrication in middle school classrooms. At its best 3D printing can be utilized in authentic design projects that integrate math, science, and technology, which facilitate deep learning by students. In essence, students are able to tinker in a virtual world using 3D design software and then tinker in the real world using printed parts. We describe a professional development activity we designed to enable middle school teachers who had taken part in a three-year Math Science Partnership program to authentically integrate 3D printing into design-based lessons. We include some examples of successful design-based …

Exploring Problem-Based Learning For Middle School Design And Engineering Education In Digital Fabrication Laboratories, Monica M. Chan, Paulo Blikstein

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

This is a research study of design and engineering classes that use a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in digital fabrication makerspaces in two middle schools. In these studies, teachers employ a PBL approach and provide an ill-structured problem scenario to facilitate design and engineering lessons in the FabLab (fabrication laboratory). Students in each school tackled different challenges that they defined for themselves in groups. This study provides examples of student-student interactions separated into key themes—defining specifications with teammates, personal exploration, and communication about discoveries. This study also provides examples of teacher-student interactions, and themes include demonstrations with tangible objects, discussing …

Alumni Spotlight: Mihai Avram

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Mihai Avram published an article in volume 3 (2013) of the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research during his time spent completing his baccalaureate degree.

Interview: Betty Nelson, Eliza Van

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Betty M. Nelson served over 30 years in various staff positions, including Dean of Students from 1987–1996. She is currently one of Purdue’s Dean of Students Emerita and continues to make an impact on the University’s progress.

A Sturdy Glass Ceiling: Representation Of Women On Screen And Behind The Scenes Of Hollywood’S Top 100 Films Throughout The Years, Kara R. Miller

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

My research analyzed the representation of women in the film industry, both on screen and behind the scenes. Specifically, I compared the number of women on and off screen for the top 100 films of 2017 (as of September) to the data collected by Martha Lauzen for the top 100 films of 1980,1990, 2000, 2010, and 2015. This comparison graphically depicts the representation of women in film over the years. The positions analyzed were producers, executive producers, directors, cinematographers, writers, and editors.

In addition to researching representation in these roles, I examined what factors, if any, are more likely to …

Food For Thought: Restaurants And Place Making, Tania Chakraborty

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

A bare geographic space is like a brand-new home that hasn’t been lived in yet. As people begin to inhabit these spaces, they build into it to make it representative of themselves, much like we design and set up our houses to turn them into homes. This is how a place goes from just being a location to something that has a deeper meaning to its inhabitants. We look to create into the spaces we inhabit our own little corner of what is familiar to us, so that we can call a space our own. This is the essence of …

Noise Source Identification In An Under-Determined System By Convex Optimization, Tongyang Shi, Yangfan Liu, J Stuart Bolton

Publications of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories

Previously, it was shown that the iterative optimization procedure Wideband Acoustical Holography (WBH) can efficiently identify noise sources in under-determined systems: i.e., when the number of measurements is less than the number of equivalent source parameters that need to be determined. However, experience suggests that the WBH method also has its limitations. First, when sound sources are closely spaced, WBH has difficulty in separating them, especially at low frequencies. Secondly the solution obtained from WBH is often highly localized: that is, the WBH solution develops around the strongest source, thus tending to under-estimate the level of nearby weaker sources. To …

Geotechnical Engineering Education In Nigeria: Reflecting On University Versus Industry Reality, Ifeanyi Okpala, Jiliang Li

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

In Nigeria, a developing nation striving for a sustainably built environment, the academics and practicing engineers jointly play a major role in shaping Geotechnical Engineers. From undergraduate studies to Industrial Work Experience, there is a need to appraise the ecosystem to ensure that learning is experiential and devoid of bottlenecks while individuals graduate from the university to face industry realities.

A Redesigned Engagement And Recruitment Strategy Forengineering Technology Programs At A Regional Campus, James D. Burns, Randall J. Budreau, Gene L. Harding, William M. Pace, Megan E. Prygoski, John A. Piller

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

While enrollment in engineering programs is generally strong nationwide, maintaining or increasing enrollment in Engineering Technology programs at smaller regional campuses can be challenging. The problem appears to be multi-faceted, with the rising cost of education and a strong regional job market two of the likely factors that are keeping students from pursuing a college education. This paper presents a summary of the initial work done at a Statewide location of a large national university to redesign how we engage and recruit students from our surrounding counties. Our eventual goal in redesigning the processes is to leverage our ability to …

Tethered Picosatellites: A First Step Towards Electrodynamic Orbital Control And Power Generation, William A. Bauson

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

University students routinely design and launch small satellites into space, giving students the opportunity to gain experience in a wide variety of STEM disciplines. This paper describes work in progress on one such project, “MagnITO-Sat,” which consists of two picosatellites connected by a conductive tether. The ultimate aim of the tether is to provide electrodynamic thrust generation and power generation. This project will test three major components of the system: 1) the tether deployment mechanism; 2) the high-voltage biasing to enable current flow through a “phantom loop” formed by the conductive tether and the ionosphere; and 3) an optical (near-infrared) …

Integration Of Art Pedagogy In Engineering Graduate Education, Andres Tovar, Joel C. Najmon, Anusha S. Rao, Justin L. Hess, Grant A. Fore, Jiangmei Wu, Sohel Anwar

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

The integration of STEM with the Arts, commonly referred to as STEAM, recognizes the need for human skill, creativity, and imagination in technological innovations and solutions of real-world technical problems. The STEAM paradigm changes the dominant “chalk and talk” lecture and “closed-ended” problem-solving orientation of traditional engineering pedagogy to a hands-on, studio-based, and open-ended creative learning approach, typical in art education. A growing body of literature has provided evidence of the favorable impact of situating STEAM in K-16 education. The long-term objective of this work is to promote creativity in engineering students by integrating learning methods and environments from the …

Teachers As Guides: The Role Of Teachers In The Facilitation Of Technology-Mediated Learning In An Alternative Education Setting In Western Kenya, Dhinesh Radhakrishnan, Jennifer Deboer, Samuel Kimani

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

In this study, we investigate the perception of teachers’ changing roles in a class utilizing tablet technology and a mobile learning platform. Deploying educational technology has been shown to shift students’ perception of the role played by their teacher. At the same time, the teachers also experience the need for change in their teaching style to integrate this technology. It is important to identify shifts in students’ and teachers’ understandings in order to achieve the potential of the technology’s affordance. Therefore, we seek to understand the change in teachers’ perceived roles in a technology-mediated learning environment by asking three key …

Assessment Of The Impact Of Summer Steam Programs On High School Participants’ Content Knowledge And Attitude Towards Steam Careers, Marcelo Caplan

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

For the past five years, the Science and Mathematics Department at Columbia College Chicago, in collaboration with After School Matters (ASM) from the city of Chicago, offers two, six-weeks summer programs for high school and rising high school students interested in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) fields. During this period (June through August), 80 students spend six weeks on the college campus participating in one of the two following programs: 1) 30 students participated at the Junior Research Scientists and 2) 50 students participated at the Comed Youth Ambassadors. Both programs were designed by faculty and staff …

“Re-Invent The Wheel”, A Bridge Between In-Seat And Online Learning, Hadi Alasti

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

This paper introduces “re-invent the wheel” as a pedagogical approach. “Let them re-invent the wheel” is a teaching strategy that lets the in-seat instructor prepare one’s own students for research and online learning, to familiarize them with ethics and to prepare them for higher education as well as market. In this approach, the instructor assigns brief and non-essential parts of the course to the students to have them learn by their own and return their findings and understanding documented, where it makes the students practice in brief writing-assignments and work with software that improves their computer literacy, which are essential …

Tackling Mathematical Difficulties In Transport Theory Education: Insight From Semiotics, Abdel-Rahman Hassan

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Transport theory involves the study of phenomena most relevant to engineering such as fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and diffusion. These phenomena appear in almost every engineering artifact, from drug delivery to the nuclear reactor. In several disciplines, core courses are dedicated to this science. I have studied and taught transport theory in several engineering disciplines: nuclear engineering, materials science, and biomedical engineering. Here, I reflect on this experience and describe a source of difficulty that runs throughout that experience.

Can An Engineering Competition Catalyze Curriculum Innovation?, Ryder C. Winck, Alan Jern, Carlotta Berry, Yosi Shibberu

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

This article describes the ongoing efforts of a multidisciplinary group of faculty at an undergraduate institution to form a team and compete in the IBM AI XPRIZE competition. We describe the advantages and disadvantages of faculty participation in major engineering competitions over more traditional professional activities at undergraduate engineering institutions. Our discussion is focused on the benefits to three major groups: undergraduate students, faculty, and academic institutions. We use examples from our one year of experience in the competition and from the literature to illustrate these benefits. Already observed benefits from the competition include increased student engagement, development and introduction …

Using A Lightboard To Enhance And Retrofit An Existing Course, Nicholas S. Rosasco

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

IT 642 is a graduate information technology course that addresses a mix of technical and conceptual topics that has been delivered in both in-person and on-line formats. After several semesters of the course being offered in both on-line and in-person formats, the lack of human connection between instructor and students became a concern with the online versions. The need to bridge this gap became an opportunity to use Birdwell and Peshkin’s Lightboard design for video teaching. The experiences of the staff and faculty involved confirms the low barrier to entry they describe for using this technology and also demonstrate utility …

Designing An Escape Room Game To Develop Problem Solving And Spatial Reasoning Skills, Stephany Coffman-Wolph, Kimberlyn Gray, Marcia Pool

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

This paper describes the process of developing, piloting, and evaluating an educational and entertaining "escape room" style game for fifth grade students. The goal of this educational game is to supplement review of coursework and improve problem solving and spatial reasoning skills. The authors targeted problem solving and spatial reasoning skills because even college level students struggle with these skills, and students who have stronger abilities in these areas perform better across a variety of STEM courses. By allowing students the ability to practice and develop problem solving and spatial reasoning skills at an early age, the authors anticipate participating …

Introducing Cfd Numerical Analysis In Fluid Dynamics To Junior Engineering Students, Khaled Zbeeb, Blair Mcdonald, Il-Seop Shin, Prathivadi Ravikumar

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Western Illinois University engineering faculty introduce ANSYS workbench during Fluid Dynamics, a junior level core-engineering course in many engineering programs. Traditionally, advanced analytical software is not introduced until the senior year or in graduate courses. However, since the methods of teaching engineering have evolved dramatically toward using advanced technological tools and software, the use of ANSYS workbench software in the junior year is now quite natural. Using advanced numerical software provides students with better understanding and visualization of a flow field. The current generation of students is accustomed to watching videos and animations to grasp a concept or an idea. …

Bringing Contemporary Issues And Topics Into An Electromagnetics Course, Rebecca L. Thomas

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Electromagnetism describes foundational principles in the field of electrical engineering. However, in a typical course, the connection to modern engineering topics can easily be missed while focusing on complex mathematics, physics and the mechanics of vector algebra. A final project in an electromagnetics course at Valparaiso University was developed to highlight the continued significance and applicability of this field of study. For this assignment, student pairs selected and presented a reputable article reporting on a contemporary issue directly related to an electromagnetic device, concept or system that was of interest to them. This project provided students with an opportunity to …

Recruiting Vr Troopers: Bringing Introductory Programming Projects To Life In Virtual Reality, Stewart J. Thomas, Ruth E.H. Wertz, Jeffrey Will

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Classes in introductory programming often focus on solving small, succinct problems that can typically be completed in few lines of source code. While useful for learning the basics of algorithm implementation and language syntax, this method suggests to learners that all programming problems exist in isolation and are self-contained. In contrast, most programming assignments faced by fresh graduates are large in scope and require use of many pre-built libraries and extensions. As a result, students are not entirely prepared to write code that will function within a larger system. To address this problem, an introductory C programming course at Valparaiso …

Evaluations Of Interactive Learning Tools Among Engineering Students: Effects Of Grit And Gender, Il-Seop Shin, Eun Go, Colin Ross Harbke, Prathivadi Ravikumar, Blair Mcdonald, Khaled Zbeeb

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

This study explores what determines engineering students’ evaluations of interactive learning tools (ILTs). Engineering students (n = 323) from large U.S. universities who had used McGraw-Hill’s SmartBook and Connect participated in the study. This study confirms that grit and gender are important factors in opinions and attitudes toward such tools. Specifically, among males, those with higher grit found ILTs as more useful and usable. Moreover, higher levels of grit were related to favorable attitudes toward ILTs. Interesting to note was that females reported more favorable evaluations on ILTs overall. These findings suggest strategies for the use of interactive learning tools …

Validity Evidence For The General Engineering Self-Efficacy And Engineering Skills Self-Efficacy Scales With Secondary Students, Andrew Jackson

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Self-efficacy has been related to student achievement, motivation and persistence. Self-efficacy beliefs, confidence in one’s capabilities to complete the task, are intuitively related to task choices—why would we attempt something when we know we will be unsuccessful? Yet, self-efficacy is domain specific and requires measurement instruments which are situated in the domain. Two scales for engineering self-efficacy have recently been developed for undergraduate students, with validity evidence relating self-efficacy responses to persistence and achievement in engineering. Evidence supports the validity of these scales and is promising for researchers and practitioners. However, the impact of self-efficacy begins much earlier than college. …

Cross-Scene Trajectory Level Intention Inference Using Gaussian Process Regression And Naive Registration, Debasmit Das, C.S. George Lee

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technical Reports

Human intention inference is the ability of an artificial system to predict the intention of a person. It is important in the context of human-robot interaction and homeland security, where proactive decision making is necessary. Human intention inference systems at test time is given a partial sequence of observations rather than a complete one. At a trajectory level, the observations are 2D/3D spatial human trajectories and intents are 2D/3D spatial locations where these human trajectories might end up. We study a learning approach where we train a model from complete spatial trajectories, and use partial spatial trajectories to test intention …

Mass Spectrometry Image Creator (Msic): Ion Mobility / Mass Spectrometry Imaging Workflow In Python, Stephen Creger, Julia Laskin, Daniela Mesa Sanchez

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful characterization technique that enables identification of compounds in complex mixtures. Acquiring mass spectra in a spatially-resolved manner (i.e. over a grid), allows the data to be used to generate images that show the spatial distribution and relative intensities of every compound in a sample. These images can be used to monitor and identify biomarkers, explore the metabolism of compounds within tissues, and much more. However, the limitations of mass spectrometry can result in ambiguous compound identifications. Another characterization tool, ion mobility spectrometry (IM) can be integrated into existing MS routines to address this problem; …

Tool For Correlating Ebsd And Afm Data Arrays, Andrew Krawec, Matthew Michie, John Blendell

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Ceramic and semiconductor research is limited in its ability to create holistic representations of data in concise, easily-accessible file formats or visual data representations. These materials are used in everyday electronics, and optimizing their electrical and physical properties is important for developing more advanced computational technologies. There is a desire to understand how changing the composition of the ceramic alters the shape and structure of the grown crystals. However, few accessible tools exist to generate a dataset with the proper organization to understand correlations between grain orientation and crystallographic orientation. This paper outlines an approach to analyzing the crystal structure …

Remote Sensing Of Soil Moisture Using S-Band Signals Of Opportunity: Model Development And Experimental Validation, Marvin Jesse, Benjamin Nold, James L. Garrison

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) is a vital aspect in meteorology, hydrology, and agriculture. There are currently some methods in passive and active remote sensing at L-band, but these methods are limited to a sensing depth of approximately 10 cm. Observing RZSM (water in the top meter of soil) will require lower frequencies, thus presenting significant difficulties for a spaceborne instrument, because of the required antenna size, the presence of radio-frequency interference (RFI), and competition for spectrum allocations (in the case of active radar). Bistatic radar using Signal of Opportunity (SoOp) (e.g. digital satellite transmitters) provides an opportunity for remote …

Remote Sensing Using I-Band And S-Band Signals Of Opportunity, Kadir Efecik, Benjamin R. Nold, James L. Garrison

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Measurement of soil moisture, especially the root zone soil moisture, is important in agriculture, meteorology, and hydrology. Root zone soil moisture is concerned with the first meter down the soil. Active and passive remote sensing methods used today utilizing L-band(1-2GHz) are physically limited to a sensing depth of about 5 cm or less. To remotely sense the soil moisture in the deeper parts of the soil, the frequency should be lowered. Lower frequencies cannot be used in active spaceborne instruments because of their need for larger antennas, radio frequency interference (RFI), and frequency spectrum allocations. Ground-based passive remote sensing using …

Deep Machine Learning For Mechanical Performance And Failure Prediction, Elijah Reber, Nickolas D. Winovich, Guang Lin

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Deep learning has provided opportunities for advancement in many fields. One such opportunity is being able to accurately predict real world events. Ensuring proper motor function and being able to predict energy output is a valuable asset for owners of wind turbines. In this paper, we look at how effective a deep neural network is at predicting the failure or energy output of a wind turbine. A data set was obtained that contained sensor data from 17 wind turbines over 13 months, measuring numerous variables, such as spindle speed and blade position and whether or not the wind turbine experienced …

Investigating Dataset Distinctiveness, Andrew Ulmer, Kent W. Gauen, Yung-Hsiang Lu, Zohar R. Kapach, Daniel P. Merrick

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Just as a human might struggle to interpret another human’s handwriting, a computer vision program might fail when asked to perform one task in two different domains. To be more specific, visualize a self-driving car as a human driver who had only ever driven on clear, sunny days, during daylight hours. This driver – the self-driving car – would inevitably face a significant challenge when asked to drive when it is violently raining or foggy during the night, putting the safety of its passengers in danger. An extensive understanding of the data we use to teach computer vision models – …