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Full-Text Articles in Engineering Education

Using Technology To Support Student Learning In An Integrated Stem Learning Environment, Dazhi Yang, Sally J. Baldwin Jan 2020

Using Technology To Support Student Learning In An Integrated Stem Learning Environment, Dazhi Yang, Sally J. Baldwin

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper provides the first review and illustration of technology-use strategies for supporting student learning in different integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning environments. An integrated STEM learning environment may focus on integrating and learning science and mathematics or integrating and learning engineering and technology simultaneously for multiple levels of learners. An integrated STEM learning environment breaks down disciplinary boundaries and allows students to apply multidisciplinary knowledge in solving problems. This study illustrates four technology-use strategies to support student learning in an integrated STEM learning environment: a) providing authentic learning contexts, b) offering web-based inquiry environments, c) expanding …


An Examination Of The Role Of Spatial Ability In The Process Of Problem Solving In Chemical Engineering, Sheryl Sorby, Gavin Duffy, Norman Loney Jan 2020

An Examination Of The Role Of Spatial Ability In The Process Of Problem Solving In Chemical Engineering, Sheryl Sorby, Gavin Duffy, Norman Loney

Articles

Engineers often communicate with one another through drawings or sketches and understanding technical information through graphical representations is a skill necessary for engineering practice. Well-developed spatial skills are known to be important to understanding technical drawings and are therefore, important to success in engineering. Unfortunately, of all cognitive processes, spatial skills show robust gender differences, favouring males, which could contribute to the underrepresentation of women in engineering. In this research, we administered a test of spatial cognition to students enrolled in a common 3rd year course in chemical engineering . In a second session, students were given a set of …


Opportunities In Manufacturing Of Advanced Materials For Second Career-Seeking Students, Oleksandr Kravchenko, Konstantin Cigularov, Tancy J. Vandecar-Burdin Jan 2020

Opportunities In Manufacturing Of Advanced Materials For Second Career-Seeking Students, Oleksandr Kravchenko, Konstantin Cigularov, Tancy J. Vandecar-Burdin

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Many non-traditional students face similar challenges including lack of institutional support network, challenges to connecting with other students on campus, which may negatively affect degree persistence rates. The lack of financial support has been acknowledged nationwide as a barrier for STEM students including second-career seeking (SCS) students. The term career is defined as an occupation or course, which relates to a range of aspects of an individual’s life, learning and work and is undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress. We target academically talented SCS students at Old Dominion University (ODU) with demonstrated …


Implementing Stel, Marie Hoepfl, Thomas Loveland, Philip A. Reed Jan 2020

Implementing Stel, Marie Hoepfl, Thomas Loveland, Philip A. Reed

STEMPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble: How A Hands-On Engineering Project Affects High School Girls' Science/Engineering Self-Efficacy, Interest And Career Considerations, Jennifer Corbett Ferguson Jan 2020

Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble: How A Hands-On Engineering Project Affects High School Girls' Science/Engineering Self-Efficacy, Interest And Career Considerations, Jennifer Corbett Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Engineering education as part of the K-12 curriculum can be an effective instructional tool and its benefits include improved science and mathematical achievement as well as an increased interest and understanding of the engineering field, especially for female students. However, there is a serious lack of research-based engineering curriculum being used at the middle and high school levels and lessons most often rely on building or construction competitions. Over the past decade or two, many well-known colleges have implemented a reverse engineering instructional unit known as Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble projects within their introductory engineering courses. These units have been shown to improve …


Why Do I Have To Know This? Engineering In A Globalized Society, Caleb Cunningham Jan 2020

Why Do I Have To Know This? Engineering In A Globalized Society, Caleb Cunningham

Honors Theses

Through a pilot comparative study, this thesis examines the problem-solving of chemical engineering students and chemical engineering faculty. Specifically, the thesis examines the extent to which individuals include global factors (cultural, social, environmental, and economic) into their engineering solutions as specified by ABET. Several hypotheses were investigated in this pilot study: (i) having a study abroad experience would increase the likelihood that participants included the global factors of interest, (ii) the type (PUI, Research Intensive, Unique) of institution students attended would impact how individuals approached the problem, (iii) students with similar career aspirations would approach the problems similarly, (iv) having …


Stel Benchmark Verb Alignment To Cognitive, Affective, And Psychomotor Domains, T. Shown, Philip A. Reed Jan 2020

Stel Benchmark Verb Alignment To Cognitive, Affective, And Psychomotor Domains, T. Shown, Philip A. Reed

STEMPS Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Curriculum developers and classroom teachers often need to make sure they are teaching and assessing students at the appropriate levels of the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The STEL benchmarks are written with active verbs to target different levels of these domains. In addition, curriculum developers and classroom teachers want to know whether the benchmarks are at the factual, conceptual, procedural, or metacognitive level of knowledge. The second resource being provided on ITEEA’s interactive STEL website will identify these factors for all 142 STEL benchmarks. This tool was developed to help insure the alignment of the three domains …


Understanding The Demands And Resources For Academic Success Of Second-Career Undergraduate Engineering Students As Compared To Traditional Undergraduate And Graduate Engineering Students, Oleksandr Kravchenko, Konstantin Cigularov, Phillip J. Dillulio Jan 2020

Understanding The Demands And Resources For Academic Success Of Second-Career Undergraduate Engineering Students As Compared To Traditional Undergraduate And Graduate Engineering Students, Oleksandr Kravchenko, Konstantin Cigularov, Phillip J. Dillulio

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Environmental and personal demands and resources can significantly affect the academic success and degree persistence rates of engineering students. The present study adopted a demands and resources conceptual framework to identify and compare the most critical demands and resources, both internal and external, for academic success and well-being of traditional and second career undergraduate students, as well as graduate engineering students. Participants in the current study were 342 engineering students, who completed an anonymous, online survey with 57 items for a 17.1% response rate. They were predominantly white (63.4%) and male (73.4%), with an average age of 25.85 years old …


Cybersecurity Education Through Technological And Engineering Literacy Standards, Philip A. Reed, Steven A. Barbato Jan 2020

Cybersecurity Education Through Technological And Engineering Literacy Standards, Philip A. Reed, Steven A. Barbato

STEMPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


An Initial Look Into The Computer Science And Cybersecurity Pathways Project For Career And Technical Education Curricula, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Murat Kuzlu, Otilia Popescu, Abdul Rahman Badawi, Deborah Kay Marshall, Salih Sarp, Spyridoula Tsouganatou, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Linda Vahala, Hongyi Wu Jan 2020

An Initial Look Into The Computer Science And Cybersecurity Pathways Project For Career And Technical Education Curricula, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Murat Kuzlu, Otilia Popescu, Abdul Rahman Badawi, Deborah Kay Marshall, Salih Sarp, Spyridoula Tsouganatou, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Linda Vahala, Hongyi Wu

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Computer science and cybersecurity have gained the attention of various stakeholders, industry representatives, educators, parents and students who are thinking about their future careers. Teaching computer science courses has moved into K-12 education, no longer introduced in the college classroom. There are various reasons for this trend. One is that in this way more children have access to the curriculum that integrates computer science principles, not just those undergraduate students in specific STEM majors. Other industries need different levels of computer science and cybersecurity education. There are various programs across the nation that are focusing on introducing these topics as …


Partnering Undergraduate Engineering Students With Preservice Teachers To Design And Teach An Elementary Engineering Lesson Through Ed+Gineering, Kristie Gutierrez, Stacie I. Ringleb, Jennifer Jill Kidd, Orlando M. Ayala, Pilar Pazos, Krishnanand Kaipa Jan 2020

Partnering Undergraduate Engineering Students With Preservice Teachers To Design And Teach An Elementary Engineering Lesson Through Ed+Gineering, Kristie Gutierrez, Stacie I. Ringleb, Jennifer Jill Kidd, Orlando M. Ayala, Pilar Pazos, Krishnanand Kaipa

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Major challenges in engineering education include retention of undergraduate engineering students (UESs) and continued engagement after the first year when concepts increase in difficulty. Additionally, employers, as well as ABET, look for students to demonstrate non-technical skills, including the ability to work successfully in groups, the ability to communicate both within and outside their discipline, and the ability to find information that will help them solve problems and contribute to lifelong learning. Teacher education is also facing challenges given the recent incorporation of engineering practices and core ideas into the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and state level standards of …


Broadening Participation Research Project: Charting A Path To Transdisciplinary Collaborative Design, Mason Andrews, Mujde Erten-Unal, Carol L. Considine Jan 2020

Broadening Participation Research Project: Charting A Path To Transdisciplinary Collaborative Design, Mason Andrews, Mujde Erten-Unal, Carol L. Considine

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The National Climate Assessment has identified foundational cross-cutting research capabilities that need to be developed for climate and global change assessment that include the integration of disciplines across approaches and building capacity for climate assessment that includes training, education and workforce development. The NSF HBCU Research Project, Broadening Participation Research Project: Charting a Path to Transdisciplinary Collaborative Design builds on the work of the Coastal Community Design Collaborative, a partnership between Hampton University, and Old Dominion University, which is a cross-university, cross-disciplinary program, in which architecture and civil engineering and technology students develop real world interventions for communities impacted by …


The Influence Of Connecting Funds Of Knowledge To Beliefs About Performance, Classroom Belonging, Dina Verdín, Jessica Smith, Juan Lucena Jan 2020

The Influence Of Connecting Funds Of Knowledge To Beliefs About Performance, Classroom Belonging, Dina Verdín, Jessica Smith, Juan Lucena

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

First-generation college students in engineering accumulate bodies of knowledge through their working-class families. In our ethnographic data of first-generation college students, we identified tinkering knowledge from home and from work, perspective taking, mediational ability, and connecting experiences as knowledge sources brought to engineering. The purpose of this paper was to understand how first-generation college students’ accumulated bodies of knowledge (i.e., funds of knowledge) support their beliefs about performing well in engineering coursework, feeling a sense of belonging in the classroom, and certainty of graduating. Data for this study came from a survey administered in the Fall of 2018 from ten …


Exploring The Relationship Between Teamwork Skills And Team Members' Centrality, Francisco Cima, Pilar Pazos, Ana Maria Canto Jan 2020

Exploring The Relationship Between Teamwork Skills And Team Members' Centrality, Francisco Cima, Pilar Pazos, Ana Maria Canto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The present paper describes an exploratory study of small teams working on a four-month project as part of a graduate engineering program. The research had two primary goals. The first was to utilize the log files from shared repositories used for team collaboration to describe the network structure of the teams. The second was to determine whether the network centrality of any individual team member is associated with their teamwork skills and attitudes towards the collaboration platform. The relationship between teamwork skills, attitudes towards the collaboration technology, and the centrality index was explored using Pearson correlations. A total of 35 …


Nsf S-Stem Project Update: A Pathway To Completion For Pursuing Engineering And Engineering Technology Degrees, Kim Bullington, Cynthia Tomovic, Vukica M. Jovanović, Anthony W. Dean, Rafael Landaeta Jan 2020

Nsf S-Stem Project Update: A Pathway To Completion For Pursuing Engineering And Engineering Technology Degrees, Kim Bullington, Cynthia Tomovic, Vukica M. Jovanović, Anthony W. Dean, Rafael Landaeta

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

This poster showcases the progress of students who are receiving scholarships from the National Science Foundation S-STEM project: A Pathway to Completion for Pursuing Engineering and Engineering Technology Degrees. Thus far, 20 academically high-achieving students who demonstrate financial need have participated in the project. Thirty-six scholarships have been awarded to date, in which a maximum of twelve scholarships are awarded per semester; some students have received scholarships multiple times. Students are from electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, civil engineering technology, and modeling and simulation majors. As part of this S-STEM project, students also receive academic support, mentorship …


Sensing And Measuring The Environment Workshop As Exposure To Engineering Technology For High School Students In A Summer Residential Camp, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Otilia Popescu, Murat Kuzlu, Mujde Erten-Unal, Balŝa Terzić, George Mcleod, Tysha Batts, Cynthia Tomovic Jan 2020

Sensing And Measuring The Environment Workshop As Exposure To Engineering Technology For High School Students In A Summer Residential Camp, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Otilia Popescu, Murat Kuzlu, Mujde Erten-Unal, Balŝa Terzić, George Mcleod, Tysha Batts, Cynthia Tomovic

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Summer programs are the latest trend in extracurricular STEM education programs offered by universities. Efforts are made towards residential summer programs, which have the ability to expose students not only to specially designed STEM activities but to the university campus environment and student life, as well. These types of programs are expected to have better success in getting students engaged and to capture their interest in STEM fields. This paper presents one example of designing and implementing a summer residential workshop in order to expose high school students to the field of engineering technology, specifically to electrical circuits, electrical prototyping, …


Suborbital Payload Testing Aboard Level 3 Rocket Research Platform, Pedro Llanos, Sathya Gangadharan, Nikita Amberkar, Isachi Halphen, Melisa Mastroliberti, Michelle Munasinghe Jan 2020

Suborbital Payload Testing Aboard Level 3 Rocket Research Platform, Pedro Llanos, Sathya Gangadharan, Nikita Amberkar, Isachi Halphen, Melisa Mastroliberti, Michelle Munasinghe

Publications

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) has launched several suborbital scientific payloads aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard in 2017 and 2019. Students continue gaining hands-on experience in rocket design and construction, and payload integration and testing of future and more mature payloads to be launched into space. A Level 3 Rocket is being designed and developed at ERAU to serve as a scaled-down model research platform for launching and testing of payloads that will be later flown in commercial suborbital platforms such as Blue Origin’s New Shepard and PLD space Miura 1 rockets. Computer simulations were conducted to calculate the key parameters …


Introducing Coding Into Teacher Education: An Interdisciplinary Robotics Experience For Education And Engineering Students, Jennifer Kidd, Krishna Kaipa, Sam Sacks, Lilian Almeida Jan 2020

Introducing Coding Into Teacher Education: An Interdisciplinary Robotics Experience For Education And Engineering Students, Jennifer Kidd, Krishna Kaipa, Sam Sacks, Lilian Almeida

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Despite nationwide mandates to integrate computer science into P-6 curriculum, most P-6 preservice teachers (PSTs) are not exposed to coding or computational thinking during their professional preparation, and are unprepared to teach these topics. This study, conducted as a part of an NSF-funded project, explores a teacher preparation model designed to increase PSTs’ coding knowledge and coding self-efficacy. PSTs in an educational technology course partnered with engineering undergraduates (EUs) in a computational methods course and worked side-by-side on robotics activities to develop skill and confidence with basic programming concepts and block coding. Students utilized experience gained from these interdisciplinary partnerships …


"Zooming In" On Robotics During Covid-19: A Preservice Teacher, An Engineering Student, And A 5th Grader Engineer Robotic Flowers Via Zoom, Jennifer Kidd, Krishna Kaipa, Kristie Gutierrez, Pilar Pazos, Orlando Ayala, Stacie Ringleb Jan 2020

"Zooming In" On Robotics During Covid-19: A Preservice Teacher, An Engineering Student, And A 5th Grader Engineer Robotic Flowers Via Zoom, Jennifer Kidd, Krishna Kaipa, Kristie Gutierrez, Pilar Pazos, Orlando Ayala, Stacie Ringleb

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 induced school shutdown dramatically decreased students’ hands-on STEM learning opportunities. An NSF-funded program partnering preservice teachers and undergraduate engineering students to teach robotics to fifth graders was adapted to a virtual format via Zoom. A case study intimately explored one team’s experience as they engineered bio-inspired robots over five weekly sessions. Zoom recordings, written reflections, and lesson slides were analyzed to describe how the virtual context shaped the lesson and influenced the preservice teacher’s experience. All three participants successfully engineered a robotic flower indicating hands-on robotics instruction is feasible in an online format. The virtual context increased the …


Development Of A System Architecture For The Prediction Of Student Success Using Machine Learning Techniques, Tatiana A. Cardona Jan 2020

Development Of A System Architecture For The Prediction Of Student Success Using Machine Learning Techniques, Tatiana A. Cardona

Doctoral Dissertations

“ The goals of higher education have evolved through time based on the impact that technology development and industry have on productivity. Nowadays, jobs demand increased technical skills, and the supply of prepared personnel to assume those jobs is insufficient. The system of higher education needs to evaluate their practices to realize the potential of cultivating an educated and technically skilled workforce. Currently, completion rates at universities are too low to accomplish the aim of closing the workforce gap. Recent reports indicate that 40 percent of freshman at four-year public colleges will not graduate, and rates of completion are even …


Inclusion & Marginalization: How Perceptions Of Design Thinking Pedagogy Influence Computer, Electrical, And Software Engineering Identity, Sarah L. Rodriguez, Erin E. Doran, Rachel E. Friedensen, Elizabeth Martínez-Podolsky, Paul S. Hengesteg Jan 2020

Inclusion & Marginalization: How Perceptions Of Design Thinking Pedagogy Influence Computer, Electrical, And Software Engineering Identity, Sarah L. Rodriguez, Erin E. Doran, Rachel E. Friedensen, Elizabeth Martínez-Podolsky, Paul S. Hengesteg

Faculty Publications

Engineering identity plays a vital role in the persistence of engineering students, yet limited research exists on how particular pedagogical approaches influence engineering identity at the college level. This qualitative case study explored how undergraduate student perceptions of design thinking pedagogy influence computer, electrical, and software engineering identity. The study found that design thinking pedagogy reinforces the recognition of an engineering identity, particularly for those from historically marginalized groups (i.e., women, people of color). Intentional implementation, including organization and framing of design thinking pedagogy, was an essential foundation for fostering student interest in the course and connecting to their role …


Design Of Rubrics For Student Outcomes In 2019-2020 Abet Criteria, Branimir Pejcinovic Jan 2020

Design Of Rubrics For Student Outcomes In 2019-2020 Abet Criteria, Branimir Pejcinovic

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

ABET is the main accreditation body for engineering programs in the United States and they have recently introduced a new set of Student Outcomes. This set was reduced from 11 to 7 items by combining several outcomes into one and adding some new ones. In our electrical and computer engineering programs we decided to design a set of seven general rubrics, one for each ABET outcome. These rubrics could then be used unaltered if course content fits them, or they can be adjusted to fit a particular course. To use a common description for rubrics, we wanted to keep the …


Attitudes Towards Teaching Computational Thinking And Computer Science: Insights From Educator Interviews And Focus Groups, Jorge Valenzuela Dec 2019

Attitudes Towards Teaching Computational Thinking And Computer Science: Insights From Educator Interviews And Focus Groups, Jorge Valenzuela

Journal of Computer Science Integration

In the last three years, integration of both computational thinking (CT) and computer science (CS) into K-12 instruction has become a focus of many schools throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. With this new widespread demand, educational leaders and educators are focusing efforts on understanding the core concepts and practices of CT and CS, looking for logical connections for integrating across curriculum, and seeking strategies for implementing a wide variety of educational technology tools (apps and devices). This phenomenological research study was designed to gather depth information from 14 K-16 educators through both semi-structured interviews and two …


Exploratory Learning Activities In The Physics Classroom: Contrasting Cases Versus A Rich Dataset., Campbell Rightmyer Bego Dec 2019

Exploratory Learning Activities In The Physics Classroom: Contrasting Cases Versus A Rich Dataset., Campbell Rightmyer Bego

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In exploratory learning, students engage in an exploration activity on a new topic prior to instruction. This inversion of the traditional tell-then-practice order has been shown to benefit learning outcomes, especially conceptual knowledge and preparation for future learning, but not always. In three studies, the current work examines whether the type of exploration activity impacts learning mechanisms and outcomes, on the topic of gravitational field in undergraduate physics classrooms. Activities using either contrasting cases (CC) or a rich dataset (RD) are compared in two instructional orders, explore-first (EF) and instruct-first (IF). Learning outcomes measured procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and performance …


Do After-School Robotics Programs Expand The Pipeline Into Stem Majors In College?, Cathy Burack, Alan Melchior, Matthew Hoover Oct 2019

Do After-School Robotics Programs Expand The Pipeline Into Stem Majors In College?, Cathy Burack, Alan Melchior, Matthew Hoover

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

One result of the growing concerns over the numbers of young people moving into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related careers has been the expansion of formal and informal STEM education programming for pre-college youth, from elementary school through high school. While the number of programs has grown rapidly, there is little research on their long-term impacts on participant education and career trajectories. This paper presents interim findings from a multi-year longitudinal study of three national after-school robotics programs that engage students in designing, building, and competing complex robots with the goal of inspiring long-term interest in STEM. Focusing on …


Weather Courtyard: Reflections On Interactive Stem Learning Spaces, Ryan Day Oct 2019

Weather Courtyard: Reflections On Interactive Stem Learning Spaces, Ryan Day

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

In this article, the author discusses his experiences in service-oriented engineering developing an interactive weather station for DCES students. Day details this process and the lessons learned over the course of the project development, as well as the project’s influence on his aspirations for a career in civil and environmental engineering. To provide substantive takeaways from the project, he concludes by reviewing the benefits of interactive STEM learning spaces in the instructional environment and links them to the impacts of the weather station project on the community.


Argument-Driven Engineering In Middle School Science: An Exploratory Study Of Changes In Engineering Identity Over An Academic Year, Lawrence Chu, Victor Sampson, Todd L. Hutner, Stephanie Rivale, Richard H. Crawford, Christina L. Baze, Hannah S. Brooks Oct 2019

Argument-Driven Engineering In Middle School Science: An Exploratory Study Of Changes In Engineering Identity Over An Academic Year, Lawrence Chu, Victor Sampson, Todd L. Hutner, Stephanie Rivale, Richard H. Crawford, Christina L. Baze, Hannah S. Brooks

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

The goal of this study was to examine how the use of a new instructional model is related to changes in middle school students’ engineering identity. The intent of this instructional model, which is called argument-driven engineering (ADE), is to give students opportunities to design and critique solutions to meaningful problems using the core ideas and practices of science and engineering. The model also reflects current recommendations found in the literature for supporting the development or maintenance of engineering identity. This study took place in the context of an eighth-grade science classroom in order to explore how middle school students’ …


Exploring Intercultural Wonderment As A Mediator For Global Perspective Development In Engineering Students, John A. Schneider Oct 2019

Exploring Intercultural Wonderment As A Mediator For Global Perspective Development In Engineering Students, John A. Schneider

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediatory role intercultural wonderment plays in global learning during engineering students' international experiences. Engberg and colleagues have posited a connection between the programmatic components of an international experience (i.e., study abroad) and global learning, with international wonderment serving as a conduit for that connection. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected under an NSF multi-institutional grant that focused on identifying ways global preparedness can be developed in and out of formal curricula. Data included semi-structured, student interviews, student background data, and global perspective scores as measured by the Global Perspective Inventory (GPI). …


Teaching Wind Energy To Engineering And Education Undergraduates Through Community Engagement, Maija A. Benitz, Li-Ling Yang Oct 2019

Teaching Wind Energy To Engineering And Education Undergraduates Through Community Engagement, Maija A. Benitz, Li-Ling Yang

Engineering, Computing & Construction Management Faculty Publications

Rhode Island's adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards in 2013 [1] established a pressing need to provide elementary schools with support for integrating engineering in our local district's classrooms. Wind energy was identified as an appropriate instructional topic, both for its relevance to Rhode Island [2], and for its strength as a tool for studying the engineering design process. Education and engineering undergraduates collaborated to educate local fourth graders about engineering design and wind energy. While supporting the need for engineering education in the community, this project also deepened learning for both education and engineering students at Roger Williams …


Exercises Integrating High School Mathematics With Robot Motion Planning, Ronald I. Greenberg, George K. Thiruvathukal Oct 2019

Exercises Integrating High School Mathematics With Robot Motion Planning, Ronald I. Greenberg, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper presents progress in developing exercises for high school students incorporating level-appropriate mathematics into robotics activities. We assume mathematical foundations ranging from algebra to precalculus, whereas most prior work on integrating mathematics into robotics uses only very elementary mathematical reasoning or, at the other extreme, is comprised of technical papers or books using calculus and other advanced mathematics. The exercises suggested are relevant to any differerential-drive robot, which is an appropriate model for many different varieties of educational robots. They guide students towards comparing a variety of natural navigational strategies making use of typical movement primitives. The exercises align …