Engineering Commons^™

A Project-Based Learning Approach In Teaching Simulation To Undergraduate And Graduate Students, Gokhan Egilmez, Dusan Sormaz, Ridvan Gedik

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

In this study, application of experiential learning into graduate and undergraduate curricula of a industrial system simulation course is presented. Simulation has been among the courses against which students feel uncomfortable or frightened due to heavy software use, prerequisite of probability, and statistics knowledge, and its application requirements. To minimize this fear and improve student’s understanding about the subject matters and have them develop ample skills to build complex models, a project-based learning approach is proposed and used in undergraduate and graduate teaching settings. To achieve the project-based learning goals, a 15-week curriculum is designed to have a balanced lecture …

Effectiveness Of Gamification Activities In A Project-Based Learning Classroom, Eleanor Leung, Elizabeth Pluskwik

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effectiveness, and student's self-reported engagement with gamification tools on a student's learning of technical concepts when used in a project-based learning (PBL) engineering classroom environment. Gamification, as defined in this study, is the use of game-based elements such as online audience response systems with automated feedback in non-game situations. By adding gamification to the classroom, we hope to further build on the active and collaborative learning environment that our PBL program already provides. Five gamification activities were implemented during the Fall 2017 semester with junior and senior student engineers enrolled in …

Board 30: Enhancing Core Chemical Engineering Courses With Computationally-Intense Course Modules, Kevin Dahm, Ravi P. Ramachandran, Nidhal Carla Bouaynaya

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

This paper will present two new course modules that have been developed for junior-level Chemical Engineering core courses: Chemical Reaction Engineering and Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics II. As currently offered, both of these courses integrate simulation and computer lab activities in which students devise models of key physical systems, and then interrogate the model to study cause-and-effect in these physical systems. These activities are designed to be completed in one 165 minute lab period. While these labs are an integral part of the courses, the single-period scope limits the complexity of the models that can be used.

The course modules described …

Encouraging A Growth Mindset In Engineering Students, Megan Frary

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A person’s “mindset” guides a great deal of how one approaches life -- and especially how students approach education. While someone with a fixed mindset believes that their intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, someone with a growth mindset believes that their intelligence is changeable and can grow as they learn more. Most people’s mindset lies along a spectrum with these two extremes at either end. In addition to other outcomes, the mindset that a person has determines how they interpret mistakes they make; whereas someone with a fixed mindset thinks mistakes result from their innate lack of ability, someone with …

Flipping A Hardware Design Class: An Encouragement Of Active Learning. Should It Continue?, Nader Rafla, H. Shelton Jacinto

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper we aim to present the lessons learned from flipping the classroom of an entry-level graduate course on digital hardware design. This digital hardware design course uses hardware description languages (HDLs) for programming and requires students to learn relevant concepts and methodologies to successfully design, simulate, synthesize, and verify digital circuits created using hands-on projects and in-class activities. In addition, students in the digital hardware design class get exposure and gain familiarity with an industrial design suite to enhance their knowledge of real-life design cycles.

Typically, students struggle with provided in-class activities, assignments, and projects in any digital …

Using Veterans’ Technical Skills In An Engineering Laboratory, Noah Salzman, Thad B. Welch, Harish Subbaraman, Cameron H. G. Wright

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

After years of dissatisfaction with student knowledge and ability to use electrical test and measurement equipment (T&ME), a veteran with significant expertise using this equipment was placed in a Circuit Analysis Lab. This paper reports on this trial and its assessment results. Based on the overwhelming success of this program, this one-semester trial was extended for a second semester.

Senior Civil Engineering Students’ Views On Sustainability And Resiliency, Noah Salzman, Bhaskar C. S. Chittoori, Sondra M. Miller, Thomas A. Robbins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, civil engineering education and workforce development have evolved to include a greater emphasis on sustainability and resiliency. Sustainability balances economic, ecological, and societal needs by being responsive to community impact, human health, and the environment. Resilient infrastructure lasts, retaining functional and structural capacity and supporting interconnected transportation, energy, water, and social systems after a distress event. While many undergraduate civil engineering programs address sustainability, it tends to be limited to individual courses, and resiliency concepts are rarely incorporated. To address these shortcomings, we are incorporating sustainability and resiliency conceptual threads and activities throughout our curriculum, from our …

Work In Progress: Progress Of The Nsf Red Revolution, Noah Salzman

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The National Science Foundation (NSF) REvolutionizing engineering and computer science Departments (RED) program is an important initiative in engineering education. The goals of RED are to “enable engineering and computer science departments to lead the nation by successfully achieving significant sustainable changes necessary to overcome longstanding issues in their undergraduate programs and educate inclusive communities of engineering and computer science students prepared to solve 21^st-century challenges.” In 2015, six RED projects were funded followed by seven in 2016 and six more in 2017, bringing the total number of projects to 19. In addition, NSF funded REDPAR (RED Participatory …

Second Year Of Using The Sidekick Basic Kit For Ti Launchpad With Elementary School Students, Tara N. Kimmey, Cameron H. G. Wright, Thad B. Welch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper describes a second year, follow-on study in which 4^th and 5^th grade students were exposed to engineering-related topics using a microcontroller, input/output circuitry, sensors, and the associated software coding needed to achieve a desired functionality of the hardware. The first year study was described in a paper presented at the 2017 ASEE Annual Conference. This second year study took students to the “next level,” and showed very promising results.

Growing Entrepreneurial Mindset In Interdisciplinary Student Engineers: Experiences Of A Project-Based Engineering Program, Elizabeth Pluskwik, Eleanor Leung, Andrew Lillesve

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

Engineering education models have recently embraced the entrepreneurial mindset as a desired outcome of undergraduate engineering education. Interdisciplinary active learning strategies have been suggested as an effective pedagogy for engaging student engineers in undergraduate engineering education. Recent research suggests that active, social learning in context can lead to improvements in learner innovation, problem-solving, curiosity, retention and accessibility of knowledge, value-creation, and other desired learning outcomes. Much of the recent adoption of active and collaborative learning, self-directed learning, problem-based and project-based learning (PBL), peer to peer learning, and other similar learning strategies are aimed at developing innovative and entrepreneurial mindset skills, …

Work In Progress: Flexibility And Professional Preparation Via A Multidisciplinary Engineering Curriculum, Noah Salzman, Vicki Stieha, Amy J. Moll, Joann S. Lighty

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper reports on one institution’s work-in-progress to build innovation and creativity into a flexible, ABET accredited undergraduate Engineering B.S. degree that provides a variety of choices to undergraduate engineering students. The new Engineering Plus degree has a core set of required foundational courses in engineering, a multi-year design sequence, and allows for self-defined pathways. The new curriculum also offers three defined degree pathways that have been chosen based on an examination of student “fate” data: secondary education, pre-medical, and environmental studies, with additional pathways planned for the near future. The fate analysis examined the paths of students who were …

Work In Progress: Institutional Context And The Implementation Of The Redshirt In Engineering Model At Six Universities, Ann Delaney, Donna C. Llewellyn, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Low-income students are underrepresented in engineering and are more likely to struggle in engineering programs. Such students may be academically talented and perform well in high school, but may have relatively weak academic preparation for college compared to students who attended better-resourced schools. Four-year engineering and computer science curricula are designed for students who are calculus-ready, but many students who are eager to become engineers or computer scientists need additional time and support to succeed. The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 as a collaborative effort to build on the success of three existing “academic Redshirt” programs …

4-D Printing Of Pressure Sensors And Energy Harvesting Devices For Engineering Education, Tzu-Liang Bill Tseng, Aditya Akundi, Hoejin Kim

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper elaborates on the development of laboratory project modules in the Industrial manufacturing and systems engineering department at The University of Texas El Paso based on Four-Dimensional (4D) printing technology. These modules are aimed at introducing the students to interdisciplinary manufacturing and emerging dimensions in manufacturing technology. 4D printing is a new dimension in additive manufacturing wherein, the 3D printed structures react to the change of parameters within the environment such as temperature, and humidity, resulting in shape change or in functionality such as electricity output, and self-healing. Recently 4D printing of simple devices for pressure sensors application were …

A Study Of Scalability And Cost-Effectiveness Of Large-Scale Scientific Applications Over Heterogeneous Computing Environment, Arghya K. Das

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in large-scale experimental facilities ushered in an era of data-driven science. These large-scale data increase the opportunity to answer many fundamental questions in basic science. However, these data pose new challenges to the scientific community in terms of their optimal processing and transfer. Consequently, scientists are in dire need of robust high performance computing (HPC) solutions that can scale with terabytes of data.

In this thesis, I address the challenges in three major aspects of scientific big data processing as follows: 1) Developing scalable software and algorithms for data- and compute-intensive scientific applications. 2) Proposing new cluster architectures …

Engaging Children In Design Thinking Through Transmedia Narrative (Rtp), Glenn W. Ellis, Isabel Huff, Al Rudnitsky, Beth Mcginnis-Cavanaugh, Sonia K. Ellis

Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper presents the implementation of Imaginative Education (IE) pedagogy for creating a transmedia learning environment that engages children in learning about engineering design. IE uses narrative to engage learners' imaginations; helps them master the cognitive tools necessary for progressing to higher levels of understanding; and helps them structure what they learn in meaningful ways. Included in the paper is an introduction to IE pedagogy and the use of transmedia in education; an overview of the online learning environment called Through My Window (TMW) that we have developed for middle school children; and a detailed look at a learning adventure …

Valuing Women’S Contributions: Team Projects And Collaborative Writing, Jennifer C. Mallette, Harold Ackler

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Team projects offer opportunities for student engineers to learn how to work on a team and produce collaborative written reports. However, research has shown that women often do more writing during these projects, and that their writing labor is unrecognized or undervalued, particularly when the technical work is viewed as more essential. In this paper, we examine the results of a study focused on the writing component in a year-long senior capstone materials science and engineering (MSE) course sequence. This course requires students to complete projects for clients and produce a written report, among other deliverables. To focus more on …

De-Risking Transdisciplinary Research By Creating Shared Values, Donna C. Llewellyn, William L. Hughes

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Lessons Learned Paper describes a yearlong faculty development pilot program that was designed to help a team of faculty de-risk their pursuit of wicked research problems. Wicked problems are extraordinarily difficult to solve due to their incomplete, contradictory, and at times changing requirements. They often include multiple stakeholders with competing interests and worldviews. As a result, they are risky by definition because they are difficult to fund, publish, and collaborate on. Presented here, a team of eleven faculty, from six different academic units, explored their personal and professional values during an initial off-site two and a half day retreat. …

The Crux: Promoting Success In Calculus Ii, Doug Bullock, Janet Callahan, Jocelyn B. S. Cullers

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the 2013-14 school year, Boise State University (BSU) launched a major overhaul of Calculus I. The details of the reform, described elsewhere, involved both pedagogical and curricular changes. In subsequent years, we developed several assessment tools to measure the effects of the project on students’ grades and retention. The toolkit includes: (1) pass rate and GPA in Calculus I, (2) longitudinal analysis of pass rates and GPA in subsequent courses, (3) impact of Calculus I on retention in STEM and retention at BSU, (4) all of the above comparing students in reformed Calculus vs traditional Calculus, (5) all of …

An Entirely New Molecular Glue For Mof Using Unusual Structural Transformation Of A Coordination Polymer, Sukwoo Jung, Hangyeol Kim, Junseok Ahn

The International Student Science Fair 2018

In this research, an entirely new molecular glue is reported. This ‘coordination polymer glue’ is synthesized from zinc metal and BDC-NPE(2,5-bis{4-[1-(4-nitrophenyl)ethylamino]butoxy}terephthalic acid). Molecular glue transforms from 1D coordination polymer to a 3D cross-linked framework, resulting in a phase change of solution to solid. The carboxylate group of this glue makes the preformed MOF bind to its framework. Therefore, when the solution of molecular glue is mixed with preformed MOF powder and heated, homogeneous and thin MOF film – MOF/ZnNPE film – is fabricated. The film is irrelevant to the kind of its substrate, and its thermal stability was enhanced in …

Investigation Of The Skin Effect In Alternating Currents, Matthew Liang

The International Student Science Fair 2018

My research is on the investigation of the skin effect in alternating currents. My project is broken down into 4 sub-aims. The first aim would be, to be able to mathematically model the distribution of current in the radius of the wire, which consists of the applications of the Maxwell equation and solving zeroth order differential Bessel equations of the first kind. The next aim would be to computationally plot out the desired current readings as the depth of the wire increases from the surface, using the Matlab software. The third aim that I have would be conducting an experiment, …

Energy Conversion System For Travelers (Ecost), Thipok Bovornratanaraks

The International Student Science Fair 2018

We have innovated “The Energy Conversion System for Travelers” or the ECoST. With the fact that most travelers have wheeled cabin-bags, whilst walking, the wheels will rotate so why don’t we harvest electricity from this kinetic energy? We thus install our innovation, the ECoST, to the bag to generate electricity from the spinning wheels. The electricity is then kept in the storage unit and ready to charge your empty battery devices in an emergency case via a USB port. To make life easy, our ECoST was designed to replicate the power bank charging method; therefore, we can charge …

Using Eeg-Validated Music Emotion Recognition Techniques To Classify Multi-Genre Popular Music For Therapeutic Purposes, Dejoy Shastikk Kumaran

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Music is observed to possess significant beneficial effects to human mental health, especially for patients undergoing therapy and older adults. Prior research focusing on machine recognition of the emotion music induces by classifying low-level music features has utilized subjective annotation to label data for classification. We validate this approach by using an electroencephalography-based approach to cross-check the predictions of music emotion made with the predictions from low-level music feature data as well as collected subjective annotation data. Collecting 8-channel EEG data from 10 participants listening to segments of 40 songs from 5 different genres, we obtain a subject-independent classification accuracy …

Efficient Adjacency Queries And Dynamic Refinement For Meshfree Methods With Applications To Explicit Fracture Modeling, James Olliff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Meshfree methods provide a more practical approach to solving problems involving large deformation and modeling fracture compared to the Finite Element Method (FEM). However meshfree methods are more computationally intensive compared to FEM, which can limit their practicality in engineering. Meshfree methods also lack a clear boundary definition, restricting available visualization techniques. Determining particle locations and attributes such that a consistent approximation is ensured can be challenging in meshfree methods, especially when employing h-refinement. The primary objective of this work is to address the limitations associated with computational efficiency, meshfree domain discretization, and h-refinement, including both placement of particles as …

A Novel Hybrid 2d/Q-2d Finite Element Method For Power/Ground Plane Analysis, Ping Li, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Hakan Bagci

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

By realizing the TMz modal distribution property between the power/ground plate-pairs, the magnetic field actually has only azimuthal components while longitude component is zero. Thus, if the magnetic field wave equation is solved, only a Quasi-2D issue is considered. Furthermore, since the high-order modes are only located in the near region of the anti-pad, thus for the domain far-away from the antipad has only the TEM mode. Thereby, in this region, the magnetic field is invariable along the vertical direction, which consequently is a pure 2D domain. As a result, the conventional 3D computational domain is naturally transformed to a …

Beyond Metrics? The Role Of Hydrologic Baseline Archetypes In Environmental Water Management, Belize A. Lane, Samuel Sandoval-Solis, Eric D. Stein, Sarah M. Yarnell, Gregory B. Pasternack, Helen E. Dahlke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Balancing ecological and human water needs often requires characterizing key aspects of the natural flow regime and then predicting ecological response to flow alterations. Flow metrics are generally relied upon to characterize long-term average statistical properties of the natural flow regime (hydrologic baseline conditions). However, some key aspects of hydrologic baseline conditions may be better understood through more complete consideration of continuous patterns of daily, seasonal, and inter-annual variability than through summary metrics. Here we propose the additional use of high-resolution dimensionless archetypes of regional stream classes to improve understanding of baseline hydrologic conditions and inform regional environmental flows assessments. …

Design And Testing Of A Passive Prosthetic Ankle Foot Optimized To Mimic An Able-Bodied Gait, Millicent Schlafly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently there are nearly 2 million people living with limb loss in the United States [1]. Many of these individuals are either transtibial (below knee) or transfemoral (above knee) amputees and require an ankle-foot prosthesis for basic mobility. While there are an abundance of options available for individuals who require an ankle-foot prosthesis, these options fail to mimic an intact ankle when it comes to key evaluation criteria such as range of motion, push-off force, and roll over shape. The roll over shape is created by plotting the center of pressure during a step in a shank-based coordinate system. To …

Climbing Robots For Steel Bridge Inspection And Evaluation, Hung La

INSPIRE Archived Webinars

Steel structures and steel bridges, constituting a major part in civil infrastructure, require adequate maintenance and health monitoring. In the U.S., more than 50,000 steel bridges are either deficient or functionally obsolete, which likely presents a growing threat to people's safety. The collapse of numerous bridges recorded over the past 16 years has shown significant impact on the safety of all travelers.

In this presentation, the design and implementation of two different climbing robots for steel structure inspection are reported. Based on the magnetic wheel design, the robot can climb on different steel surface structures (i.e., flat, cylinder, cube). The …

Development Of Suspensions Adapted Vero Cell Culture Process For Production Of Viruses, Chun Fang Shen, Claire Guilbault, Mehdy Elahi, Sven Ansorge, Lakshmi Krishnan, Rénald Gilbert, Xiuling Li, Amine Kamen

Vaccine Technology VII

Vero cells are considered as the most widely accepted continuous cell line by the regulatory authorities (such as WHO) for the manufacture of viral vaccines for human use. The continuous Vero cell line has been commercially used, after propagation on microcarriers, for the production of rabies, polio, enterovirus 71 and hantaan virus vaccines. Vero cell culture technologies are also explored for productions of many more viral vaccines over the last two decades. The growth of Vero cells is anchorage-dependent, and cells need to be dissociated enzymatically or mechanically for the process of subcultivation. This process is labor intensive and complicated …

Precipitation Impacts On Groundwater Levels In The Ephemeral Holgate Lake: A Modflow Inquiry, Amory Cervarich

Civil and Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Holgate Lake, an ephemeral lake located in southeast Portland, has a history of flooding and inundating residential areas. The appearance of the lake is hypothesized to be a function of precipitation-driven changes in groundwater levels. A model was developed using MODFLOW-NWT, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) modular hydrologic program, to analyze parameters contributing to the appearance of the lake. The model was most sensitive to changes in aquifer properties including hydraulic conductivity and storativity. The model displayed low sensitivity to changes in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and conductance of surface waters. Results from the analysis contribute to a better understanding of the …

Testing And Packaging For Mems Acoustic Emission Sensors, Ting-Hung Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to improve the structure and dimension of the MEMS acoustic emission sensor. Acoustic emission sensor (AE sensor) based on the piezoelectric transducer is a well-developed technology in non-destructive testing that is widely used to determine permanent damage such as cracks and corrosions in buildings and structures. The AE sensor can be used to monitor cracks in structures and to check leakage in pressurized systems. The location of cracks in a structure or system leakage causes a high-frequency surface vibration while releasing ultrasonic energy. The frequency of this energy is typically between 30 kHz to …