A Smart Assembly Undergraduate Laboratory

Author(s):  
James Long ◽  
John C. Anderson ◽  
Wangping Sun

Smart assembly is a term that is being used to describe the concept of integration of virtual and real time tools and methods to achieve gains in productivity, lead time, quality, and agility in the manufacturing arena. This paper describes efforts and successes in planning and implementing a laboratory to teach undergraduate engineering students these tools and allow for applied research. Between 1973 and 2004 the percentage of goods consumed in the US that are produced in the US has dropped from 83% to 24%. Much of this decrease has been driven by globalization. Goods can be manufactured for 30 to 50% less in China, for example, than in the US. This poses a very real threat to the manufacturing base of the US. An alternative business model that places the production closer to the customer is gaining favor as at least partial solution to this problem. This model is driven by automation and systems engineering to decrease cost and increase flexibility. The lab at Oregon Institute of Technology will use a collection of small robots and standard material handling devices to model physical systems. Discrete event simulation programs will be developed that allow engineers to quickly and easily model changes. This project is a collaboration of the Manufacturing and the Computer Software Engineering Technology programs. It is being driven by a series of faculty and student projects.

Author(s):  
Rod D. Roscoe ◽  
Samuel T. Arnold ◽  
Ashley T. Clark

Instruction and coursework that link engineering and psychology may enable future engineers to better understand the people they are engineering for (e.g., users and clients) and themselves as engineers (e.g., teammates). In addition, human-centered engineering education may empower engineering students to better solve problems at the intersection of technology and people. In this study, we surveyed students’ conceptions and attitudes toward human systems engineering. We aggregate responses across three survey iterations to discuss students’ knowledge and beliefs, and to consider instructional opportunities for introductory courses.


Author(s):  
Stuart O. Parsons

Approximately ten cases have been documented of people falling out of the side exit doors of moving passenger trains throughout the US. Most of these individuals were elderly passengers and the events usually happened late at night. Amtrak has classified most of these accidents as individuals with mental disorders or suicidal tendencies. Legal actions at the present time have been dismissed by the courts due primarily to the lack of any witnesses to the events. An investigation was conducted of a passenger car allegedly involved in one of these accidents. A number of recommendations were made including: 1) a systems engineering study of the problem, 2) an interlock system which would prevent the side exit door locking handle from being activated while the train is in motion, 3) an “All Green Board” at the engineer's station to indicate that all doors on the train are locked before starting the train, 4) a protective translucent cover installed over the regular door handle to indicate the criticality of opening this door, 5) a new warning sign on the exit doors which follows the ANSI standard, and 6) a training program, related to this dangerous situation, for all Amtrak operational personnel.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Lizeth Ramos ◽  
Arturo Valderruten

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a research that was developed with eight groups of students of undergraduate programs of the Language Institute at Santiago de Cali University. The research was developed with four groups of students who used a mobile application developed jointly by foreign language professors, a software development professor and systems engineering students, as a support tool for individual practice of English level 1 (Test groups) and an equal number of groups of students who did not use the application (Control groups). No mobile applications already available in the market were used because none of them fit the sequence of topics that the course develops along the semester, thus, it was necessary to design an application tailored to the different themes, grammar and vocabulary requirements that were developed by the students. In both cases, a written test was performed at the beginning and end of the course in order to establish the benefit that the application could offer to the students in the test groups. The results indicate that the frequent use of the mobile application might have a positive impact on the development of both listening and linguistic competencies of English.


Author(s):  
T. J. Joyce ◽  
P McCormack

Bioengineering is a multidisciplinary subject which necessitates that engineering students, who typically have no knowledge of medicine, must quickly and effectively gain a thorough understanding of the complexities of human anatomy. Teaching on a Bioengineering module at Newcastle University’s School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering employed a combination of Primal Pictures anatomical software, bespoke teaching materials and peer to peer learning. This allowed Bioengineering students to quickly construct an understanding of anatomical principles which they used in individual, assessed projects on total joint replacement. Anonymised, written feedback gathered from the students revealed overwhelmingly positive learning experiences and assessed projects indicated deep knowledge of the anatomical descriptions necessary to understand and work with the science of joint replacement.


Author(s):  
Fionnuala Farrell ◽  
Michael Carr

Abstract Over the last number of years we have gradually been introducing a project based learning approach to the teaching of engineering mathematics in Dublin Institute of Technology. Several projects are now in existence for the teaching of both second-order differential equations and first order differential equations. We intend to incrementally extend this approach across more of the engineering mathematics curriculum. As part of this ongoing process, practical real-world projects in statistics were incorporated into a second year ordinary degree mathematics module. This paper provides an overview of these projects and their implementation. As a means to measure the success of this initiative, we used the SALG instrument to gain feedback from the students. The SALG online tool - Student Assessment of their Learning Gains - https://salgsite.net/; is a free course-evaluation tool that enables third-level educators to gather feedback specifically focused on what the students gained through the learning exercise they experience. It can be used to measure students’ learning gains. Pre-developed surveys are available which can be modified and are stored in a repository for ease of access. Results are anonymous and there is the ability to download comments and basic statistical analysis of responses. Feedback from the survey points to a large increase in understanding of the material coupled with an increase in confidence. In addition we outline some of the limitations of our initial implementation of this approach and what we hope to improve on for the next academic year.


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