Early Introduction of Robust Design Into the Engineering Curriculum

Volume 6: 15th Design for Manufacturing and the Lifecycle Conference; 7th Symposium on International Design and Design Education ◽

10.1115/detc2010-28221 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

George Platanitis ◽

Remon Pop-Iliev

Keyword(s):

Robust Design ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Random Noise ◽

Taguchi Methods ◽

First Year ◽

Design Activity ◽

Early Introduction ◽

Drag Ratio ◽

Optimal Set ◽

Lift To Drag Ratio

Normally, there is very little opportunity for first-year engineering students to practice robust design techniques given the relatively simple nature of their projects, and they are not exposed to any robust design activity and Design of Experiments (DOE) methodologies until their third year. How can junior engineering students gain a sense of the robustness of their designs? Will the resulting product still be acceptably functional if used in non-ideal environments? The purpose of this paper is to introduce a potential assignment to supplement this need at the first-year level. Introduced as a bonus assignment in Fall 2009, students were charged with the task of designing an aircraft wing by choosing parameter setting combinations that would provide the maximum Lift-to-Drag ratio, simulating results theoretically that would be obtained in a wind-tunnel experiment, while including random noise. All necessary facts and equations were given, leaving students with the task of running calculations and employing Taguchi methods to select an optimal set of parameters. While few students chose to undertake the assignment, those that did it found the application interesting and useful. Example results for this robust design assignment, including final parameter selections for the optimal wing design, are presented in this paper, along with factors where students have shown weaknesses.

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INTERNATIONAL FIELD SCHOOL FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.vi0.14185 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Brian Dick ◽

Thai Son Nguyen ◽

Mackenzie Sillem

Keyword(s):

Engineering Students ◽

Student Response ◽

First Year ◽

Barriers To Learning ◽

Intercultural Effectiveness ◽

Early Introduction ◽

Field School ◽

International Projects ◽

On Line ◽

Field Schools

Engineering graduates increasingly find that they are part of teams that draw a multi-disciplinary membership across a broad range of cultural, socio-economic, and linguistic backgrounds. Although engineering students often have the opportunity to participate in international projects (e.g. co-operative education programs, study abroad), formal international field schools are not typical within engineering curricula, particularly at the first- and second-year level. To provide an early introduction to intercultural perspectives, first-year engineering students at Vancouver Island University (VIU) participated in a field school at Tra Vinh University (TVU) in Tra Vinh Province, Vietnam over a period of three weeks. This field school consisted of a number of cultural and engineering activities, and involved pairing of students at both TVU and VIU for the duration of the experience. To measure student response during the field school, participating VIU students completed the on-line Intercultural Effectiveness Scale questionnaire pre- and post-experience. Students at both institutions also completed reflection exercises throughout the three-week period. This feedback suggested each student pairing continuously developed skills necessary to overcome linguistic, cultural, and technical barriers to learning and growing over their time together. Students described an enhanced understanding of self, and an increased likelihood to further participate in intercultural experiences.

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DESIGN DAYS BOOT CAMP 2.0: IMPROVEMENTS AND CONNECTIONS TO CEAB GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.vi0.13713 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Jennifer Howcroft ◽

Igor Ivkovic ◽

Matthew J. Borland ◽

Maud Gorbet

Keyword(s):

Engineering Design ◽

Learning Outcomes ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Systems Design ◽

Boot Camp ◽

First Year ◽

Design Activity ◽

Graduate Attributes ◽

Design Activities ◽

Intended Learning Outcomes

Engineering design is a critical skill that all engineering students are expected to learn and is often the focus of final year capstone projects and first-year cornerstone projects. In the Systems Design Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo, engineering design is introduced to the students during an intense two-day Design Days Boot Camp. Design Days was originally conceived of and run in Fall 2016. The Fall 2018 version, Design Days 2.0, included substantial improvements focused on adding two additional design activities and a writing activity, strengthening the connection with first year content, and providing a greater variety of team experiences. The methods of achieving the nine intended learning outcomes of Design Days 2.0 are discussed and connected to CEAB graduate attributes. This demonstrates that meaningful learning can be achieved during a two-day boot camp that will starts students on the path towards professional engineering. Other departments are encouraged to use the presented intended learning outcomes, graduate attributes connections, and Design Days 2.0 descriptions as a template for their own design boot camp. Finally, Design Days 2.0 inspired ideas for further improvements including the incorporation of a software-focused design activity, adding budgetary constraints, and providing an opportunity for student reflection.

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Design and implementation of a student-taught course on research in regenerative medicine

AJP Advances in Physiology Education ◽

10.1152/advan.00157.2017 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 42 (2) ◽

pp. 360-367 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Naveed Tavakol ◽

Cara J. Broshkevitch ◽

William H. Guilford ◽

Shayn M. Peirce

Keyword(s):

Regenerative Medicine ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Engineering Students ◽

First Year ◽

Biomedical Sciences ◽

Undergraduate Major ◽

Early Introduction ◽

Introductory Course ◽

Scientific Papers ◽

The University

In the Undergraduate School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at the University of Virginia (UVa), there are few opportunities for undergraduate students to teach, let alone develop, an introductory course for their major. As two undergraduate engineering students (D. N. Tavakol and C. J. Broshkevitch), we were among the first students to take advantage of a new initiative at UVa SEAS to offer student-led courses. As part of this new program, we designed a 1000-level, 1-credit, pass-fail course entitled Introduction to Research in Regenerative Medicine. During a student’s first year at the University, opportunities to build research skills and gain exposure to topics within the field of the biomedical sciences are relatively rare, so, to fill this gap, we focused our course on teaching primarily freshman undergraduate students how to synthesize and contextualize scientific literature, covering both basic science and clinical applications. At the end of the course, students self-reported increased confidence in reading and discussing scientific papers and review articles. The critical impact of this course lies not only in an early introduction to the popularized field of regenerative medicine, but also encouragement for younger students to participate in research early on and to appreciate the value of interdisciplinary interactions. The teaching model can be extended for implementation of student-taught introductory courses across diverse undergraduate major tracks at an institution.

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GET A HEAD START! EXPERIENCES OF RUNNING A SUMMER ONLINE CALCULUS COURSE FOR INCOMING FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.5724 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Shai Cohen ◽

Micah Stickel

Keyword(s):

Engineering Students ◽

Online Courses ◽

Learning Experience ◽

Opportunity To Learn ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

Early Introduction ◽

University Of Toronto ◽

Online Format ◽

The University

One of the great advantages of developing online courses is that it enables the institution to reimagine how they can deliver that content to their students. In recent years, the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto has worked to develop a set of first year calculus courses in an online format. These courses were designed specifically for engineering students to: (a) situate the material in an engineering context through multiple real-world examples and “on-site” videos, (b) place an increased emphasis on the form of the solution, and (c) incorporate a significant experience in mathematical modeling through a self-defined project.In July and August of 2014, the Calculus for Engineers I online course was offered to incoming first-year students that were to start in September 2014. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the experiences related to this unique offering from the perspectives of the students as well as the Faculty administration and course instructor.Of the 900 students that were invited to take the course, 170 initially registered for the course in early July, and of those 48 students completed the course at the end of August. Of the 44 students that passed the course, 20 (48%) decided to continue on with the online offering of Calculus for Engineers II in the fall 2014 term.Overall, students were quite positive about their online learning experience and were glad to have the opportunity to complete a credit before their official start. This allowed them to either take an elective in their first year or have a lighter workload in one of the terms.In their course survey comments, they noted that they appreciated the opportunity to learn and review the material at their own pace, the way in which the instructor connected the mathematics to an engineering context, and having an early introduction to the university learning environment.Delivering an online university-level calculus course to incoming first-year students is an exciting and novel way to enhance the engineering student experience in first year. This paper provides an introductory summary of this approach from the students’, instructor’s, and administrators’ perspectives.

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Introducing First Year Engineering Students to Infrastructure Sustainability Rating Systems

ICSI 2014 ◽

10.1061/9780784478745.091 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Angela R. Bielefeldt

Keyword(s):

Engineering Students ◽

First Year ◽

Rating Systems

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REVERSE ENGINEERING: TENSION RATCHET DISSECTION PROJECT

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.3726 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremiah Vanderlaan ◽

Josh Richert ◽

James Morrison ◽

Thomas Doyle

Keyword(s):

Reverse Engineering ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Measurement Techniques ◽

First Year ◽

Stepping Stones ◽

First Year Students ◽

Final Project ◽

Undergraduate Study ◽

Solid Edge ◽

Part Modeling

We are a group of engineering students, in our first year of undergraduate study. We have been selected from one thousand first year students and have competed and won the PACE competition. All engineers share a common general first year, but we have been accepted into Civil and Mechanical engineering. This project was assigned as the final project in the Design and Graphics course. The project we are tasked with, called the Cornerstone Design Project, is to first dissect a product, discover how it works, dimension each part and create a fully assembled model using CAD software (Solid Edge V20 in our case). As part of discovering how it works we must benchmark it so the device can be compared with competing products. The goal of the project is to develop a full understanding of part modeling and assembly in Solid Edge, learn proper measurement techniques, and learn the process of reverse engineering and product dissection. All of these tasks were stepping stones to help us fully understand how the device, and all its components, work.

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Implementation of the Second-year course in an Engineering Professional Spine

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.13070 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Umar Iqbal ◽

Deena Salem ◽

David Strong

Keyword(s):

Learning Outcomes ◽

Research University ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Employability Skills ◽

First Year ◽

Computer Engineering ◽

Core Courses ◽

Second Year ◽

First Time ◽

Academic Year

The objective of this paper is to document the experience of developing and implementing a second-year course in an engineering professional spine that was developed in a first-tier research university and relies on project-based core courses. The main objective of this spine is to develop the students’ cognitive and employability skills that will allow them to stand out from the crowd of other engineering graduates.The spine was developed and delivered for the first time in the academic year 2010-2011 for first-year general engineering students. In the year 2011-2012, those students joined different programs, and accordingly the second-year course was tailored to align with the different programs’ learning outcomes. This paper discusses the development and implementation of the course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department.

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First-Year Engineering Computing Courses in Canadian Engineering Programs

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.4635 ◽

1969 ◽

Author(s):

Sean Maw ◽

Janice Miller Young ◽

Alexis Morris

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Expected Value ◽

Knowledge Development ◽

First Year ◽

Recent Past ◽

Engineering Programs ◽

Digital Computation ◽

Pedagogical Philosophies ◽

Introductory Computing

Most Canadian engineering students take a computing course in their first year that introduces them to digital computation. The Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board does not specify the language(s) that can or should be used for instruction. As a result, a variety of languages are used across Canada. This study examines which languages are used in degree-granting institutions, currently and in the recent past. It also examines why institutions have chosen the languages that they currently use. In addition to the language used in instruction, the types and hours of instruction are also analyzed. Methods of instruction and evaluation are compared, as well as the pedagogical philosophies of the different programs with respect to introductory computing. Finally, a comparison of the expected value of this course to graduates is also presented. We found a more diverse landscape for introductory computing courses than anticipated, in most respects. The guiding ethos at most institutions is skill and knowledge development, especially around problem solving in an engineering context. The methods to achieve this are quite varied, and so are the languages employed in such courses. Most programs currently use C/C++, Matlab, VB and/or Python.

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