Engineering Commons^™

The Next-Gen Crop Nutrient Stress Identification With High-Precision Sensing Technology In Digital Agriculture, Zhihang Song, Ziling Chen, Xing Wei, Jian Jin

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Crop yields are facing significant losses from nutrient deficiencies. Over-fertilizing also has negative economic and environmental impacts. It is challenging to optimize fertilizing without an accurate diagnosis. Recently, plant phenotyping has demonstrated outstanding capabilities in estimating crop traits. As one of the leading technologies, LeafSpec, provides high-quality crop image data for improving phenotyping quality. In this study, novel algorithms are developed for LeafSpec to identify crop nutrient deficiencies more accurately. Combined with UAV system, this technology will bring growers a robust solution for fertilizing diagnosis and scientific crop management.

An Intervention To Promote Growth Mindset And Stem Self-Efficacy Of High School Students: Exploring The Complexity Of Beliefs, Amy Kramer, Emily Dringenberg, Carter Morris, Darcy Mccarthy

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The marginalization of women in engineering is a persistent problem. The overall goal of our collaborative project was to promote interest and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), particularly for high school girls. We took an action research approach with a local high school science teacher to develop, implement, and research the impact of a classroom-based intervention designed to encourage growth mindset and STEM self-efficacy beliefs using mixed methods. We analyzed pre- and postsurvey data collected using a control-treatment design to determine the impact of the intervention on high school boys’ and girls’ self-efficacy and mindset beliefs. We …

Recognition Of Design Failure By Fourth-Grade Students During An Engineering Design Challenge, Ron K. Skinner, Danielle B. Harlow

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The practice of persisting and learning from design failures is essential to engineering design and offers unique ways of knowing and learning for K-12 students. To understand how students engage in the practice of persisting and learning from design failures, we must first understand how, if at all, they recognize that a design failure has occurred. We studied a classroom of fourth-grade students engaged in an engineering design challenge and examined the ways in which design failure occurred and how students recognized, neglected to recognize, or misinterpreted design failure. We found that, in addition to anticipating failure, conducting fair tests, …

Exploring Narratives Of Researcher Development For Student Researchers Abroad, Kirsten A. Davis, Teirra Holloman, Jessica Deters, David B. Knight

School of Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Background: Research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students have the potential to provide significant learning experiences, but most research of these experiences focuses primarily on their outcomes. To better design such experiences for a diverse range of students, it is important to understand student narratives of researcher development and identify significant experiences in their development as researchers.

Purpose: In this study, we explored narratives of researcher development for seven US civil engineering students in an eight-week research experience in Australia. Through these narratives, we sought to identify categories of significant experiences to characterize the early stage of the researcher development …

A New Paradigm Of Reliable Sensing With Field-Deployed Electrochemical Sensors Integrating Data Redundancy And Source Credibility, Ajanta Saha, Sotoudeh Sedaghat, Sarath Gopalakrishnan, Jose Waimin, Aiganym Yermembetova, Nicholas Glassmaker, Charilaos Mousoulis, Ali Shakouri, Alexander Wei, Rahim Rahimi, Muhammad A. Alam

Department of Chemistry Faculty Publications

For a continuous healthcare or environmental monitoring system, it is essential to reliably sense the analyte concentration reported by electrochemical sensors. However, environmental perturbation, sensor drift, and power-constraint make reliable sensing with wearable and implantable sensors difficult. While most studies focus on improving sensor stability and precision by increasing the system’s complexity and cost, we aim to address this challenge using low-cost sensors. To obtain the desired accuracy from low-cost sensors, we borrow two fundamental concepts from communication theory and computer science. First, inspired by reliable data transmission over a noisy communication channel by incorporating redundancy, we propose to measure …

School Personnel Lived Experiences Related To High School Engineering Education And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Justina R. Jackson, Katherine L. Boice, Stephen Cochran, Brooke Skelton, Jeffrey Rosen, Marion Usselman

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This study investigated the teaching experiences of three school personnel at a public high school during the 2020–2021 school year as they implemented a unique science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) unit with in-person and virtual students in their engineering classes during the Covid-19 pandemic. A research team interviewed two teachers and one administrator at the school to better understand the nuances of pre-college engineering during a pandemic year and how changes in school and district policy affected the instructional delivery of STEAM projects. Narrative analytic methods were utilized to understand each participant’s experience and an inductive content thematic …

Flight Testing Gls Approaches Enabled By Wide Area Corrections In Kerkyra, Greece, Thomas Dautermann, Thomas Ludwig

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Many airports with a high value to commercial air traffic have spatial or budgetary constraints which prevent the installation of a precision approach system. We previously designed a low-cost precision approach system which combines the advantages of both ground-based and satellite-based augmentation systems by using a converter between them in order to allow GAST-A approach types. We installed, operated, and flight-tested such a system at Kerkyra Airport using an A320 aircraft. During these, we recorded data from a commercial multimode receiver as well as GPS raw data in order to prove the feasibility of the system. Data were analyzed using …

Model-Based Evaluation Of Energy Systems For Multirotor Uav Based On Batteries And Fuel Cells, Mika Suwe, Martje Eigenseer, Claudia Werner

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

In this study, two multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) energy systems are comparatively evaluated via a modelling process, namely a battery electric system and a hybrid fuel cell and battery system. Technical, economic, and ecological evaluation parameters are considered. The evaluation is performed on three different mission types: a 10 km delivery mission, a 3000 m2 facade inspection, and a nine-minute drone show, to represent the transport, monitoring, and event sectors. Results are calculated via a modelling process first simulating the required power profiles for each mission and then simulating both energy systems’ operational behavior during each mission. The resulting …

The Impact Of Girl Scout Engineering Experiences On The Identity Development Of Middle Schoolers, Abigail M. Clark, Rachel Kajfez

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Despite years of recruitment efforts, women remain significantly underrepresented throughout engineering. While research into precollege engineering education has expanded, it has primarily focused on formal learning settings, even though students spend significantly more time outside of the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, including the time spent outside of the classroom in informal environments. Specifically, programs had to evolve to provide online content and at-home activities. Some programs even shut down completely. Within this context, our study sought to understand the impact of one informal engineering learning experience, a Girl Scout engineering badge, which also shifted online due to the …

Electric Field-Assisted Nanofiltration For Pfoa Removal With Exceptional Flux, Selectivity, And Destruction, Yangyuan Ji, Youn Jeong Choi, Yuhang Fang, Hoang Son Pham, Alliyan Tan Nou, Linda S. Lee, Junfeng Niu, David M. Warsinger

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pose significant environmental and human health risks and thus require solutions for their removal and destruction. However, PFAS cannot be destroyed by widely used removal processes like nanofiltration (NF). A few scarcely implemented advanced oxidation processes can degrade PFAS. In this study, we apply an electric field to a membrane system by placing a nanofiltration membrane between reactive electrodes in a crossflow configuration. The performance of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) rejection, water flux, and energy consumption were evaluated. The reactive and robust SnO2–Sb porous anode was created via a sintering and sol–gel process. The characterization and …

Microcontrollers To Teach Automation Basics, Jonathan Shimon

Symposium on Education in Entertainment and Engineering

Microcontrollers to Teach Automation Basics Introducing students to the fundamentals of automation can be a massive undertaking for faculty. Scenic automation systems can be very complex in order to prepare students for this emerging area of technical theatre it behooves faculty to find innovative ways to fit the foundations and concepts into curriculum. Many automation solutions exist on the market, from plug and play to component level they are all in the thousands of dollar and take up significant space. It would be impractical for each student in an undergraduate program to have their own system. Arduino microcontrollers that incorporate …

Demonstrating Non-Isothermal Vacuum Membrane Air Dehumidification For Efficient Next-Generation Air Conditioning, Andrew J. Fix, Shivam Gupta, James E. Braun, David M. Warsinger

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Vacuum membrane air dehumidification has gained significant interest in recent years as a highly efficient means of air dehumidification. Prior theoretical modeling work by the authors 1 introduced the Active Membrane Energy Exchanger (AMX) concept, which combines active heat exchange and vacuum membrane dehumidification into one non-isothermal system, and found that it could outperform other air conditioning technologies under many conditions. However, no experimental literature exists on combining active heat exchangers and vacuum membrane dehumidification. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the dehumidification (mass transfer) performance of the AMX concept relative to isothermal membrane dehumidification through three …

Adapting A Narrative Curriculum To A Remote Format In The Context Of Socially Distanced Middle School Education Resulting From Covid-19, Jeremiah Pina, Rebecca Mazur, Glenn Ellis, Al Rudnitsky, Beth Mcginnis-Cavanaugh, Sonia Ellis, Isabel Huff, Crystal Ford

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This paper describes the development of two versions of an NGSS-aligned principles of engineering design unit for use in middle schools. By employing a narrative framework that can help students to connect more deeply with the human contexts and consequences of the engineering design process, our goal was to enhance students’ cognitive and emotional engagement in the learning of engineering design concepts. We first detail the design of an initial version of the unit, titled The Survivorama, which used narrative to enrich a primarily traditional, in-person teaching approach. We then describe the adapted version of the unit, titled the Molasses …

Investigation Of Fiber Orientation And Mechanical Properties Of Pyrolysis Recycled Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Composite, Reva N. Simmons, Harry Lee, Garam Kim

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

With increasing demand of carbon fiber reinforced fiber thermoset composites, establishing a sustainable cycle for these materials becomes crucial. Pyrolysis is a process of reclaiming carbon fiber from thermoset composites by thermally degrading the polymer at high temperatures allowing the fibers to be extracted. Carbon fiber reclaimed through current pyrolysis processes for thermoset composites typically loses its original shape and orientation, making it difficult to reorganize the fibers. This study investigated the feasibility of maintaining the fiber orientations for continuous fiber reinforced thermoset composite during pyrolysis by stitching the carbon fiber layup to a conformable copper mesh during the manufacturing …

Board 201: A New Public Dataset For Exploring Engineering Longitudinal Development By Leveraging Curricular Analytics, David Reeping, Matthew Ohland, Kenneth Reid, Hossein Ebrahiminejad, Nahal Rashedi

School of Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Considering the increasing demand for engineering graduates, understanding what is limiting students from completing their degrees has been a consistent question posed in the literature. The nontrivial variance in pathways students take in obtaining an engineering degree, especially in cases where students abandon their studies, suggests that longitudinal datasets can hold a wealth of information to uncover factors contributing to attrition. Accordingly, this project uses existing data to explore curricular factors that create barriers for different students by leveraging a new framework for quantifying the impact of such factors, Curricular Analytics. Curricular Analytics uses network analysis to measure sequencing and …

Board 394: Sustaining And Scaling The Impact Of The Midfield Project At The American Society For Engineering Education (Year 1), Susan M. Lord, Matthew Ohland, Marisa K. Orr, Russell Long, Catherine E. Brawner, Joseph Roy

School of Engineering Education Faculty Publications

A substantial investment by the National Science Foundation (NSF), including awards from Engineering Education and Centers in the Engineering Directorate and the Division of Undergraduate Education in the Education and Human Resources Directorate, has led to the creation and study of the Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD). This large database of student records has yielded groundbreaking research on student pathways by a small interdisciplinary team of researchers. The team has shown that while individual engineering programs may have poor graduation rates, a multi-institutional view reveals that engineering programs as a whole graduate a larger fraction of …

Growing In Stem: Hands-On Education Via Tower Gardening, Jeffrey A. Nowak, Shelby Johnston-Werling

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Sole use of a textbook as the primary source of learning in the middle school setting has been linked to potentially limit students’ conceptual understanding of complex content (Driscoll et al., 1994), while the positive impact of hands-on learning has been well documented (Ekwueme et al., 2015; Satterthwait, 2010). Ideally, when a textbook is used in conjunction with content applied in a hands-on manner, student engagement and understanding of standards-based content are increased. In a grant funded collaboration between the Northeast Indiana STEM Education Resource Center housed at Purdue University Fort Wayne and an East Allen Community Schools middle school …

Impact Of Lubricant In The Performance Of Variable Speed Heat Pumps Working With R290, Rubén Ossorio, Emilio Navarro-Peris, Riley Barta

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Modulating the speed of the compressors and adapting its capacity to the required load has led to a decrease in the annual energy consumption in many applications. However, in the compressor, having adequate lubrication at low speeds usually implies discharging too much lubricant at higher speeds. Although necessary for compressor operation, lubricating oil acts as a contaminant in the rest of the system. Consequently, manufacturers have to consider the oil circulation rate (OCR), as it limits the speed range of the compressor. In a previous study, a compressor was tested over its speed range (30 – 110 Hz), working with …

Improving Developers' Understanding Of Regex Denial Of Service Tools Through Anti-Patterns And Fix Strategies, Sk Adnan Hassan, Zainab Aamir, Dongyoon Lee, James C. Davis, Francisco Servant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Regular expressions are used for diverse purposes, including input validation and firewalls. Unfortunately, they can also lead to a security vulnerability called ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service), caused by a super-linear worst-case execution time during regex matching. Due to the severity and prevalence of ReDoS, past work proposed automatic tools to detect and fix regexes. Although these tools were evaluated in automatic experiments, their usability has not yet been studied; usability has not been a focus of prior work. Our insight is that the usability of existing tools to detect and fix regexes will improve if we complement them …

An Empirical Study Of Pre-Trained Model Reuse In The Hugging Face Deep Learning Model Registry, Wenxin Jiang, Nicholas Synovic, Matt Hyatt, Taylor R. Schorlemmer, Rohan Sethi, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal, James C. Davis

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are being adopted as components in software systems. Creating and specializing DNNs from scratch has grown increasingly difficult as state-of-the-art architectures grow more complex. Following the path of traditional software engineering, machine learning engineers have begun to reuse large-scale pre-trained models (PTMs) and fine-tune these models for downstream tasks. Prior works have studied reuse practices for traditional software packages to guide software engineers towards better package maintenance and dependency management. We lack a similar foundation of knowledge to guide behaviors in pre-trained model ecosystems.

In this work, we present the first empirical investigation of PTM reuse. …

Teachers' Instructional Strategies In Integrated Stem Education, Yousef Alrashdi, Paul A. Asunda

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (iSTEM) education has been regarded as a model that provides students with skills necessary for future careers and enhances the economy of nations. Although there is a considerable body of research on the effective educational approaches in iSTEM education including problem-based and project-based learning, the ways teachers implement these approaches remain ambiguous due to a paucity of consensus about how to effectively use iSTEM approaches in classrooms (Thibaut et al., 2018). Additionally, there is a need for further investigation to understand teachers’ instructional strategies and practices in iSTEM education (Bush, 2019). To fulfill this …

Integrated Stem: Impact Of Engineering Design And Computer Science In Stem Labs, Jason Morphew, Ruben Lopez, Amir Bralin, Ravishankar Chatta Subramaniam, Sanjay Rebello, Carina Rebello

Indiana STEM Education Conference

By integrating physics laboratories with engineering design and computer science, students apply physics principles to ill-structured and complex problems, engage in knowledge transfer, and gain interest in STEM. The introductory physics labs at Purdue have been updated to include engineering design and computer science principles that ground physics in authentic problems. Integrated labs have been evaluated using student perception post-surveys, student course performance, interviews, and case-study observations. Preliminary results indicate that integrated physics labs promote transfer, enhanced metacognitive skills, student interest, and motivation.

Engineering Technology Programs And Technical Standards: Investigating Library Access And Course Integration, Margaret Phillips, Paul B Mcpherson, Danielle Leclerc

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Due to ABET accreditation requirements and industry expectations, integrating technical standards into Engineering Technology (ET) curricula is crucial for student success. However, previous studies have shown that faculty report access and knowledge challenges in working to integrate standards into ET course content. Additionally, academic librarians have long acknowledged there are many issues with providing access to standards to campus users, such as high costs and extensive digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. The purpose of this study is to conduct an environmental scan of library websites at institutions with ET programs to investigate library-provided access to standards and to survey ET …

Data Quality Checking Guide, Wei Zakharov

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

A data quality checking guide has been developed to facilitate undergraduates on the critical aspects of data quality assessment. The goal is to become competent data consumers and data generators as well. This checking guide encompasses six fundamental dimensions: Data Credibility, Timeliness, Information Completeness, Data Accuracy, Data Consistency, and Data Deduplication. These dimensions are frequently cited in scholarly references on data quality. Each dimension plays a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and usability of data. Scenarios of students' work are also discussed.

Innovation In Quantum Pedagogy, Application, And Its Relation To Culture (Iqparc), Zeynep Gonca Akdemir, Dongyang Li, Muhsin Menekse, Mahdi Hosseini, Erica W. Carlson, Nicholas Dang

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Innovation in Quantum Pedagogy, Application, and its Relation to Culture (IQ-PARC) is a team of Purdue faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students who collaborate and work for the National Defense Education Program (NDEP) for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education, outreach, and workforce initiative programs. We promote a STEM-literate workforce by providing learning opportunities for youth to understand basic principles and applications of quantum concepts through a variety of both face-to-face and online activities. This research brief describes accomplished tasks in the K-12 education space (e.g., quantum-infused middle school curriculum unit) and shares upcoming plans within the project timeline.

Wave-Powered Batch Reverse Osmosis Buoy, Austin Howse, Camden Frieling, Cooper Ford, Imaan Qazilbash, Joel Veihl, Mariya Savchenko, Ryan Vulich, Sultan Alnajdi, Abhimanyu Das, Antonio Esquivel-Puentes, Ali Naderi Beni, David M. Warsinger, José Garcia-Bravo

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

As populations grow across the world, the availability of freshwater at a reasonable cost has become a growing concern to many nations. An estimated 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water [5]. Many of these areas also exist in coastal communities which get burdened by severe weather storms. During these occasions, access to clean drinking water drastically decreases. Combining this with the potential for ocean energy, access to clean drinking water can be derived with a potential solution. The ocean contains abundant resources that comprise of untapped wave-powered energy, unharvested salt water to be turned potable, …

Why Representation Matters: Using Stem Education To Promote Opportunity, Sheramie Velazquez

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Research has highlighted how Black and Brown professionals continue to be underrepresented in the various science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The lack of exposure to diverse STEM professionals, a challenging and relevant STEM curriculum, and belief in the brilliance of Black and Brown scholars’ abilities to succeed in STEM are vast contributors to the continual diversity underrepresentation in STEM-based classes and careers. Girls STEM Institute (GSI) was founded to create a space where girls of color-who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM-can become exposed to challenging and relevant STEM curricula, which is taught by diverse educators who share similar …

Proceedings Of The Eighth Annual Indiana Stem Education Conference: “Advancing Stem With Students”, William S. Walker Iii, Lynn A. Bryan Ph. D., S. Selcen Guzey, Elizabeth Suazo-Flores

Indiana STEM Education Conference

No abstract provided.

Centering F.A.M.I.L.Y. In Black Girls Stem Learning, Crystal Morton, Lawren Nelson, Idaila Wilmoth

Indiana STEM Education Conference

The Fostering and Maximizing Interdisciplinary Learning Year-round (F.a.M.I.L.Y) was a one-year pilot study that provided Black girls and their caregivers with an opportunity to complete collaborative, life-enriching, multidisciplinary, and socially transformative STEM experiences to explore how these learning experiences impact Black girls and their caregivers' enjoyment of STEM, interest in STEM content and careers, and understanding of STEM as a tool for personal and social change. Seven families for a total of 11 scholars and seven caregivers participated in the study. We hosted 10 online learning sessions and one end-of-year face-to-face session. …

Girls Excelling In Math And Science (Gems): Stories Of The Original Gems Girls, Meredith Chasse, Grace Gochnauer, Bima Sapkota, Jill Newton, Laura Jones

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) is an afterschool club started in 1994 by a parent, Laura Reasoner Jones, who was dismayed to hear her 10-year old daughter Julie opt herself out of attending a magnet school because “Math is hard.” Julie’s math performance had been good in school, therefore Laura wondered what else might be causing her self doubt. Laura decided to address the issue. Collaborating with Julie’s teacher, she started the first GEMS club for Julie and her friends in fifth and sixth grade. During the following 25 years, GEMS clubs have operated globally to provide resources …