A Hands-on, First-year Mechanical Engineering Course

Hands-on Explorations as Background Research for First-Year Design Projects

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.5736 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

A. Trivett ◽

J. Rathlin

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Mechanical Systems ◽

Student Experience ◽

First Year ◽

Preliminary Work ◽

Hands On ◽

Design Projects ◽

Mechanical Devices

Collectively and individually, first-yearstudents in Mechanical Engineering lack familiarity withreal mechanical systems. Individual students have notedthat they have not grown up able to simply “take stuffapart”. As a result, the mechanical engineeringundergraduates have minimal skills or knowledge ofcommon mechanical devices. The foundations course forthe Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics at theUniversity of Waterloo has adopted the role of giving newstudents opportunities to interact with hardware in an“Engineering Clinic” environment.This paper will provide a preliminary work-inprogressreport on the activities and the role theseactivities played in the student experience. The paper willreport on the delivery of the activities, and the initialstudent reactions to the hands-on activities in this context.

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Platform Patterns—Using Proven Principles to Develop Digital Platforms

Journal of the Knowledge Economy ◽

10.1007/s13132-021-00772-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Marvin Drewel ◽

Leon Özcan ◽

Jürgen Gausemeier ◽

Roman Dumitrescu

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Early Stage ◽

Use Case ◽

Digital Platforms ◽

Hands On ◽

The Future ◽

Platform Development ◽

Strategic Options ◽

Generic Design ◽

Platform Economy

AbstractHardly any other area has as much disruptive potential as digital platforms in the course of digitalization. After serious changes have already taken place in the B2C sector with platforms such as Amazon and Airbnb, the B2B sector is on the threshold to the so-called platform economy. In mechanical engineering, pioneers like GE (PREDIX) and Claas (365FarmNet) are trying to get their hands on the act. This is hardly a promising option for small and medium-sized companies, as only a few large companies will survive. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are already facing the threat of losing direct consumer contact and becoming exchangeable executers. In order to prevent this, it is important to anticipate at an early stage which strategic options exist for the future platform economy and which adjustments to the product program should already be initiated today. Basically, medium-sized companies in particular lack a strategy for an advantageous entry into the future platform economy.The paper presents different approaches to master the challenges of participating in the platform economy by using platform patterns. Platform patterns represent proven principles of already existing platforms. We show how we derived a catalogue with 37 identified platform patterns. The catalogue has a generic design and can be customized for a specific use case. The versatility of the catalogue is underlined by three possible applications: (1) platform ideation, (2) platform development, and (3) platform characterization.

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Correlating entrance data and first year academic performance of students enrolled in the Integrated Master in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Porto

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education ◽

10.1177/03064190211015650 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 030641902110156

Author(s):

TMGP Duarte ◽

AM Lopes ◽

LFM da Silva

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Secondary School ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Institutional Factors ◽

First Year ◽

Female Type ◽

The University ◽

First Year University ◽

Over Time

Understanding how the academic performance of first year undergraduate students is influenced by home, personal and institutional factors is fundamental to delineate policies able to mitigate failure. This paper investigates possible correlations between the academic performance of students at the end of high school with their achievements at the end of first year university. Data for students in the Integrated Master in Mechanical Engineering (MIEM) program within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto are analysed for the period 2016/2017 to 2019/2020. The students’ performance is measured by two metrics and the students are structured as a whole and by groups, according to their gender (Male/Female), type of secondary school (Public/Private), living place (Away/Home) and the rank of MIEM in their application list of options (Option 1/Option 2–6). The information is organized statistically and possible correlations between the data are investigated. The analysis reveals limited correlation between the two metrics, meaning that all students may exhibit good or poor results at the end of first year in MIEM, independent of their status at entrance. An unanticipated pattern is exhibited for the group Option 2–6, since it shows that, despite entering into MIEM without top application marks, the students in this group can perform as well as the others. This behavior is consistent over time.

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Using an Implementation Trial of an ePortfolio System to Promote Student Learning through Self-Reflection: Leveraging the Success

Education Sciences ◽

10.3390/educsci11060263 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 263

Author(s):

Chris Campbell ◽

Tran Le Nghi Tran

Keyword(s):

Educational Technology ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Reflective Practice ◽

First Year ◽

Assessment Practices ◽

Self Reflection ◽

Large N ◽

New Concepts ◽

Hands On ◽

Implementation Trial

This paper reports on a pilot study that was conducted during a technical trial of a new ePortfolio system at a large Australian university. Students from a large (n = 325) first-year educational technology course were given the opportunity to use the new ePortfolio system weekly as part of their reflective practice at the end of the hands-on tutorial classes and also through a blogging assignment that required six posts throughout the semester. Although the students reflecting on their work and ePortfolios themselves are not new concepts, this paper reports how assessment practices can be improved using ePortfolios and how students can improve their reflective practice through simple and regular use throughout the 12-week semester that the study was conducted. From the class, 208 students responded to the survey with the results being positive. The students were able to use the system easily and did not report many problems with crashing or freezing. The lessons learnt form an important part of this study for future iterations with these reported in the paper.

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Framework of an Active Learning Python Curriculum for First Year Mechanical Engineering Students

2020 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) ◽

10.1109/educon45650.2020.9125259 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Martin Wende ◽

Tim Giese ◽

Serdar Bulut ◽

Reiner Anderl

Keyword(s):

Active Learning ◽

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Engineering Students ◽

First Year

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Development and delivery of a work experience week programme for mechanical engineering

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education ◽

10.1177/0306419020981043 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 030641902098104

Author(s):

A Gonzalez-Buelga ◽

I Renaud-Assemat ◽

B Selwyn ◽

J Ross ◽

I Lazar

Keyword(s):

Work Experience ◽

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Impact Analysis ◽

Legal Term ◽

Stage 4 ◽

Engineering Design Problem ◽

Hands On ◽

University Of Bristol ◽

The University

This paper focuses on the development, delivery and preliminary impact analysis of an engineering Work Experience Week (WEW) programme for KS4 students in the School of Civil, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (CAME) at the University of Bristol, UK. Key stage 4, is the legal term for the two years of school education which incorporate GCSEs in England, age 15–16. The programme aims to promote the engineering profession among secondary school pupils. During the WEW, participants worked as engineering researchers: working in teams, they had to tackle a challenging engineering design problem. The experience included hands-on activities and the use of state-of-the-art rapid prototyping and advanced testing equipment. The students were supervised by a group of team leaders, a diverse group of undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students, technical staff, and academics at the School of CAME. The vision of the WEW programme is to transmit the message that everybody can be an engineer, that there are plenty of different routes into engineering that can be taken depending on pupils’ strengths and interests and that there are a vast amount of different engineering careers and challenges to be tackled by the engineers of the future. Feedback from the participants in the scheme has been overwhelmingly positive.

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Penn State acoustic wave (PAW) kits: Development of “at-home” hands-on activities for first-year graduate level acoustics courses

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/10.0007536 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 150 (4) ◽

pp. A35-A35

Author(s):

Daniel A. Russell ◽

Julianna Simon

Keyword(s):

Acoustic Wave ◽

First Year ◽

Graduate Level ◽

Hands On ◽

Penn State ◽

At Home

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Qualitative Development of Students’ Digital Skills by Integrating a Spreadsheet Software in First Year Introduction to Engineering and Seminar Course

International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) ◽

10.3991/ijet.v16i18.24325 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (18) ◽

pp. 213

Author(s):

Aziatul Niza Binti Sadikin ◽

Azizul Azri Bin Mustaffa ◽

Hasrinah Binti Hasbullah ◽

Zaki Yamani Bin Zakaria ◽

Mohd Kamaruddin Bin Abd Hamid ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Problem Based Learning ◽

First Year ◽

Microsoft Excel ◽

First Year Students ◽

Learning Skill ◽

Hands On ◽

Digital Skills ◽

Data Source ◽

Spreadsheet Software ◽

Development Of Students

The Introduction to Engineering (ITE) and Industrial Seminar and Profession (ISP) courses conducted at School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, are integrated courses which implement the Cooperative Problem-based Learning (CPBL) methods in the same semester. Based on this integrated courses, the main aim of this paper is to investigate the qualitative impact of spreadsheet hands-on seminar on the first year students' digital skill. At the beginning of the semester, students are given sustainability-based project to work on, which requires them to collect and to report the data in a series of presentations and written reports. In order to present those data, they need to use analysis tools such as a spreadsheet software. The students are introduced with some in-depth applications of the Microsoft Excel software through the seminar sessions in the ISP course. With the knowledge that the students gain, they are expected to implement it in the CPBL project. A qualitative approach has been adopted to implement the study. Student’s reflections were used as the data source to identify common attributes that they have managed to gain from seminar sessions. This study has found that all students had primarily learned about digital skills. They perceived hand-on activity during the seminar as a good platform to acquire knowledge on basic calculation and developed learning skill on Excel. Moreover, students recognized the skills they are learning will be useful in other courses and future careers.

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