Engineering Education Commons^™

What Does It Take To Deliver An Active Hands-On Course?, Steve C. Hsiung, Feng Jao

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Distance Education has been implemented widely in different curricula at many institutions; different means have been used to ensure the delivery. This article introduces unique combination of different mechanisms in implementing the active/synchronous distance delivery of hands-on course(s) that is compatible and similar to the face-to-face on-campus course(s).There are three major developmental stages of these online courses - curriculum design, methodologies, and assessment to ensure the effectiveness of distance delivery of technical courses in engineering technology. The processes of curriculum design for the Embedded System Designs are discussed: (a) The development of course and labs modules for hands-on technical courses. …

Use Of Single Stage Model Rockets To Teach Some Engineering Principles And Practices To First Year Engineering And Engineering Technology Students, Hüseyin Sarper, Linda Vahala

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Model rocketry has been called miniature astronautics; a technology in miniature, a hobby, a sport, a technological recreation, an educational tool, and it is all of these things. This paper will describe student projects using model rockets and engines to learn engineering principles for launching rockets and determining the apogee. Model rocketry is a powerful tool for instructors who wish to incorporate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into a fun, engaging, and challenging activity for first year engineering students. The apogee can be determined using four distinct methods: trigonometry using hand held angle measuring tools, onboard altimeter devices, analytical calculations …

Development And Operation Of A Mobile Test Facility For Education, Christopher Davis

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The automotive industry saw a large shift towards vehicle electrification after the turn of the century. It became necessary to ensure that new and existing engineers were qualified to design and calibrate these new systems. To ensure this training, Michigan Tech received a grant to develop a curriculum based around vehicle electrification. As part of this agenda, the Michigan Tech Mobile Laboratory was developed to provide hands-on training for professional engineers and technicians in hybrid electric vehicles and vehicle electrification. The Mobile Lab has since then increased the scope of the delivered curriculum to include other automotive areas and even …

Using Design Hierarchy In A Linear Circuits Class To Illustrate The Scientific Method As A Human Invention, Douglas Deboer

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

There are various ways to classify academic studies. One might make a “two cultures” division, separating academic studies into the humanities and sciences. Or one might have three divisions: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Or one might choose to classify academic studies along the lines of traditional academic disciplines such as theology, law, art, music, economics, social studies, languages, political studies, history, psychology, biology, physics, chemistry, math, etc. In our era of global commerce, where does engineering fit in these types of classification? What should engineers study? In a 2008 presidential debate, candidate Barack Obama said that, “Ensuring that …

Organizing A Student Poster Session In An Asee Section Conference, Steve Eugene Watkins, Les Kinsler, Julia L. Morse, Douglas R. Carroll

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Student poster sessions at conferences can be valuable experiences for undergraduate and graduate students and can enrich the conference program for all participants. Student poster presentations beyond the local campus can provide additional experience in professional communication (especially in preparing succinct abstracts and in effective visual design), can prepare students for future conference participations, and can facilitate student-faculty interaction. Several issues exist when including student poster sessions in engineering education conferences. How can the content of posters be related to an engineering education theme? How are communication principles of audience and purpose incorporated into the session guidelines and review process? …

The Smart Clock, Cory Koehler, Addison Loda, Hannah Posey-Scholl, Isak Rask

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Modern technology continues to change and improve constantly as people find ways to make things faster, smaller, and better - but these changes often leave the elderly behind. This year’s Innovation Challenge asked groups to focus on how to create and improve technology geared towards the aging generations. For our initial research, the Grant High School team and mentors visited an elderly care center and interviewed a few of the residents, asking what types of technology currently improve their lives, and what types of technology could potentially improve their lives.

The Problem: After the interviews, we were able to identify …

A Third-Year Review Of Design And Packaging Of Sensor Systems, M. Brian Thomas, Andrea Mitofsky, Vukica Jovanovic, John Eiler

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Faculty from the Electrical Engineering and Design Engineering Technology Departments at Trine University have developed a joint design module for upper-level courses in their respective disciplines. In this module, student teams collaborate in designing and prototyping the electronics and packaging for a hand-held sensor system. The principal objective of the collaboration is for students to incorporate design factors external to their discipline in a program-focused design project. This effort advances the students' abilities to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams during their senior capstone courses. The design module was introduced in the fall 2011 semester, and was repeated in fall 2012 …

Motor Protection Lab Experiment Using Sel-710, Ozro Corulli

Electrical Engineering

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

Sweet (Small Wind Energy Estimation Tool), Thomas Woolmington, Keith Sunderland

Other resources

Description:

Generic Wind Energy Estimation Model incorporating Turbulence Intensity.

Requirements:

Manufacturer specific wind turbine characteristic

Mean wind speed at a specific height

Site conditions in terms of TI and Surface Roughness

Disclaimer:

This model has been designed as an estimation tool for estimating the wind power yield of a custom turbine for an idealised set of site conditions for a given year.

While the assumptions that are made in this estimation tool are mathematically plausible they should not in any way be interpreted as an alternative to a real world site assessment.

A list of assumptions to which the model …

An Engineering Physics Introduction To Electronics For Ece Sophomores, Steve Eugene Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Electronic devices and circuits are fundamental parts of undergraduate curricula in electrical engineering and computer engineering (ECE). A sophomore-level course that gives a balanced treatment of semiconductor device physics and electronic circuit analysis is described. The course topics are semiconductor physics, diodes, transistors, operational amplifiers, and optoelectronics. The course is a prerequisite for upper-level electronics, semiconductor physics, and semiconductor circuit layout curricula. A stronger link between physical principles and device behavior and an improved sequence in electronics instruction are outcomes.

Elec 2110: Elements Of Electrical Engineering—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Mahmoud Alahmad

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

I have been teaching this class for the last five years. As an introductory course to electrical engineering, there is a lot of material that needs to be covered. All the material is important and relevant, and I try to go in-depth in each topic area. This approach has resulted in overwhelming the students and made them struggle with the course content, application and utilization. As I consider this course for the peer review, I am evaluating the depth of each topic and the opportunity to adjust the approach and method used to introduce new concepts and at the same …

Surveying First-Year Students Prior Conceptual Understanding Of Direct Current Resistive Electric Circuits: An Update, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

There is an increasing diversity of educational background of students entering Level 7 and Level 8 programmes in engineering in Irish third level education. Student reasoning about basic electricity concepts often differs from accepted explanations. The paper reports, analyses and reflects on the results of a multiple-choice diagnostic test to assess student understanding of such concepts (developed by Engelhardt and Beichner (2004) for U.S. high school and college students) taken by four cohorts of students, on the same DIT Level 7 engineering programme, from 2008-12 (n=106) and two cohorts of students, on the same DIT Level 8 engineering programme, from …

Retrofitting A Car Alternator For Low-Speed Power Generation, Yuri Carrillo

Electrical Engineering

This report presents the analysis and methods taken to appropriately modify a car alternator to operate as a low speed generator for wind or hydro power generation. A Toyota car alternator taken from a junkyard is characterized via an Open-Circuit test to evaluate its operating specifications. The car alternator is also measured to determine its physical dimensions. The acquired values are used with the generated voltage equation to determine the machine’s unknown rotor values— the product of the rotor winding factor and the number of rotor windings (kfNf). Using the generated voltage equation with the determined machine parameters, the number …

A Teaching Practice Review Of The Use Of Multiple-Choice Questions For Formative And Summative Assessment Of Student Work On Advanced Undergraduate And Postgraduate Modules In Engineering, Aidan O'Dwyer

Articles

This paper reflects on, reports on and evaluates the use of multiple-choice questions, in both formative and summative assessment modes, on control engineering modules taken by advanced undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students, over four academic years. The material covered by the modules is analytical in nature. The rationale for examining the assessment strategy was the poor performance by students in a closed book traditional terminal examination on one of the advanced undergraduate modules over some years. The change in assessment strategy has improved student learning, as measured by assessment data; student feedback on the assessment methods is broadly positive. The …

Software Education For Changing Computing Technology, Steve Eugene Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Software education has been dominated by procedural-based programming languages such as BASIC, FORTRAN and C, and before that, the assembly languages. The primary reason that this methodology has held such sway in education was that it allowed quick action for the first major users of computers. This approach was the most straight-forward means of utilizing hardware that, over the last 60 years, has gotten faster and more complex through smaller and more densely packed elements. However, traditional advances as described by Moore’s law are now reaching both physical and economic limits. Pure object-oriented programming approaches offer benefits for hardware that …

Energy From The Skies: Empowering Future Generations, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Stella Bondi, Walter F. Deal

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses the development of photovoltaic technology. The first account of the use of solar power during war in western civilization was in the second century B.C. during the battle of Syracuse with Archimedes' famed Death Ray. In the late 1800s and early 1900s many advances occurred including the invention of solar-powered engines, the discovery of the photoconductivity of selenium and its ability to produce electricity when exposed to light, and the construction of the first solar cells from selenium wafers. Photovoltaic technology was born in the U.S. in 1954 when Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson developed …

Work In Progress -- Balancing Prescribed And Project-Based Experiences In Microfabrication Laboratories, Chang-Soo Kim, Steve Eugene Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Student education for microfabrication processes needs to integrate theoretical understanding with process understanding. Instructional challenges exist in designing effective laboratory experiences. The pedagogical issues include linking theoretical lecture concepts to cost-effective laboratories, tailoring the relative time between lectures and laboratories, and balancing the laboratory assignments between prescribed and project-based experiences. We describe the progressive implementations of microfabrication laboratory experiences in graduate courses. The first offering has no laboratory activity. The prescribed laboratory and project-based laboratory components were gradually incorporated. All laboratory experiences were team-based and utilized cost-effective facilities. The assessments indicate that students prefer significant laboratory experience and that learning …

Education Enhancement Using Visualization And Simulation Tools For Basic Circuit Theory Concepts, Jariwala Rajvi Prakashchandra

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

New generation web-technologies and supporting development tools have prompted opportunities for developing new methods of teaching and learning. Web-based visualization and simulation modules developed for ODU's ECE201 Circuit Theory course are presented in this thesis. Visualization and simulation methodology is used to make learning process more interactive and effective. Macromedia FLASH software, which has the extensive graphical animation capabilities, is used to develop visualization modules. Lab VIEW is a leading graphical development tool for science and engineering with a built-in functionality for simulation, data acquisition, instrument control, measurement analysis and data presentation. These capabilities are utilized to develop web-based simulation …

Addressing Student Retention In Engineering And Engineering Technology Through The Use Of A Multidisciplinary Freshman Course, Anthony Dean, Bonita Anthony, Linda Vahala

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The Engineering Fundamentals Division of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology (BCET) at Old Dominion University administers a freshman engineering course sequence, along with four engineering departments (Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering) and the Department of Engineering Technology (which offers degrees in Mechanical Engineering Technology, Civil Engineering Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology). The two course sequence, Exploring Engineering and Technology I and II, involve the five departments in teaching at least one five week module in each of the two courses. Each department generally involves the students in a basic design …

Patterns In Team Communication During A Simulation Game, David M. Baca, Ray Luechtefeld, Steve Eugene Watkins

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development of communication skills is a necessary preparation for effective engineering teamwork. Argyris' "Theory of Action" provides a framework for understanding patterns in team dialogue. Students can benefit from an awareness of these patterns. The theory highlights the detection and correction of errors by sharing information during group collaboration and interactions. Quality decision-making can be enhanced when members of a team develop high degrees of openness and interdependence. Quality decision-making can be diminished when members of a team regulate the information shared within the team. This work analyzes team interactions from simulation games used in an interdisciplinary engineering course …

Designing A Microcontroller Training Platform For Active Distance Learning Engineering And Technology Students, Steve C. Hsiung, James E. Eiland, John R. Hackworth, John Ritz

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

This is an active distance-learning project that addresses the hands-on microprocessor/ mi-crocontroller-related courses. A research team designed a low-cost training system with supporting instructional materials to assist the teaching of these concepts. Individual laboratory activities are being developed to reinforce student learning and skill development in programming concepts. This basic system format eventually will support an array of engineering and technology courses. This project involves two community colleges, Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) and Olympic College (OC), and a four-year university, Old Dominion University (ODU), in a collaborative research team to design and develop a specific PIC microcontroller training system …

A New Approach In Microprocessor/Microcontroller Courses/Laboratories Material Design And Development, Steve C. Hsiung, Jeff Willis

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Courses in microprocessors and microcontrollers are standard parts of the Engineering Technology core curricula. The traditional course material developments include both lectures and associated laboratory exercises. No matter how creative is the curriculum; it is usually budgetary constraints that confine the creativity when developing new curricula. This limits the freedom of the major approach in new course development.

This article demonstrates new course lecture and laboratories material development that starts from ground up with both a hardware platform and simulation software design for microprocessor/microcontroller related courses. It is not only very cost effective, but also does not limit the instructor's …

Implementation Of Problem-Based Learning In Senior Engineering Design-I (Ece 485w), Fawaz Muzaffer Hussain

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Problem-Based Learning is an approach where knowledge is acquired in the context of the problem. Students are provided with the problem specifications and resources that might prove to be helpful in solving the problem. They attack these real world problems in groups, analogous to the practice in the professional engineering world. This mode of teaching was adopted to deliver the Senior Engineering Design — I course (ECE 485W), offered to freshman engineering undergraduate students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Old Dominion University, Norfolk. This thesis documents the various pedagogical methods implemented into the course, which were introduced …

Work In Progress - Automated Discourse Interventions And Student Teaming, Ray Luechtefeld, Steve Eugene Watkins, Ralph E. Flori

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The ability to successfully work in teams is a crucial part of an engineer's workplace success. Engineering education can be improved through a better understanding of how effective teamwork develops. A (patent pending) software tool that "listens" to team conversations and generates automatic interventions into team discourse can effectively mimic the actions of a skilled facilitator. Automated facilitation tools may help students improve their team skills by providing a simplified model for conversational interventions, which students can readily imitate. This paper describes this tool and presents preliminary findings from student reactions to the tool's use.

Development Of A Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Bouzid Aliane, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Michael Collura

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

To operate effectively in today’s workforce engineers need to have a muti-disciplinary perspective along with substantial disciplinary depth. This broad perspective cannot be achieved by merely taking 2 or 3 engineering courses outside of the major, but rather will require a radical change in the way we educate engineers. The faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of New Haven have developed a new approach: the Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral. This curricular model provides the needed mix of breadth and depth, along with the desired professional skills, by providing carefully crafted, well-coordinated curricular experiences in …

Project-Based Introduction To Engineering -- Course Assessment, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Michael Collura, Bouzid Aliane, Jean Nocito-Gobel

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

The School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of New Haven has a newly developed project-based Introduction to Engineering course. This new course plays a central role in the new Multi-Disciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral curriculum as the first semester course for all engineering freshmen. An assessment process was developed to determine the effectiveness of this project-based course, specifically with attention towards assessing attitudes, impact on retention, problem-solving and engineering foundation topics. This paper addresses the particular portion of the assessment process for the individual course projects and their contribution to the last two assessment categories.

Project-Based Introduction To Engineering - A University Core Course, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Bouzid Aliane, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Michael Collura

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

This paper describes a first year engineering course that is taken by both engineering and non-engineering students. The project-based Introduction to Engineering course, EAS107P, fulfills a university core curriculum elective. Although engineering students take the course during their first year, students from other majors typically elect to take the course later in their curriculum. The focus of EAS107P is to have students experience the engineering design and problem solving process in a multi-disciplinary, team-based setting. In addition to learning about design, students develop an interest in the engineering profession and build a foundation of skills for future work. An additional …

Project Planning & Development For Engineering Freshmen, Bouzid Aliane, Michael Collura, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Jean Nocito-Gobel

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

The nature and background of students seeking an engineering education has changed drastically in the last decade, as has the expectations of industrial employers. Many students lack the organizational skills needed for academic success. Similar organizational skills, although more advanced, are required for managing engineering projects. A new course was developed by the faculty at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of New Haven. Through this course, a key component of the Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral, seeks to promote higher retention rates, increase student motivation and begin a confidence-building transition to professional practice. Project management concepts …

Using Open-Ended Design Projects In An Open Lab To Teach Lifelong Learning Skills In An Ic Design Course, David Parent

Faculty Publications

The ABET criterion, recognition for and the ability to engage in life-long learning, is one of the most important, given that we as engineering educators can not teach every concept that students will encounter over the span of a 20-40 year career as an engineer. We believe that one method to teach and verify this critical skill in the area of Integrated Circuit (IC) design, is to have the students learn IC CAD tools by following well crafted tutorials and then complete open-ended IC design projects in an open lab. The project is supposed to be a full custom design …

A Course Assessment Of The Microelectronics Process Engineering Program At Sjsu, Gregory Young, Stacy H. Gleixner, David W. Parent, Yasser Dessouky, Emily Allen, Linda Vanasupa

Faculty Publications

The program assessment strategy of San Jose State University's new interdisciplinary curriculum in Microelectronics Process Engineering is described. Vertical integration of specific class and program learning objectives allows for a clear and efficient method to evaluate the continued growth and improvement of the program. The program assessment process relies on clearly defined and detailed program and course learning objectives that are linked vertically to ABET outcomes. In addition, we discuss briefly the structure of the program and the "hands-on" experience that we provide the students.