Design is at the core of engineering. Therefore, exposing students to design helps them realize the purpose of engineering, motivates them to see the relevance of learning, and pushes them to higher achievement levels. In addition, experiential learning practices, and new design methods, including design thinking, are reshaping design courses. After carefully considering trends in design theory and practice, we restructured our first-year design experience for mechanical engineering students at Saint Louis University. The paper outlines the overall structure of this innovative course. The course is structured around projects, while activity-based lectures provide the necessary background to execute them. In these projects, students identify customer needs and create, develop, test, and refine innovative concepts with a win-win value proposition for the stakeholders. This paper details the projects and lecture topics to help others develop and implement similar courses. Further, based on the survey of students and external evaluators, the value proposition is the most challenging aspect to learn and incorporate into the project.
The vast majority of undergraduate engineering students struggle to acquire a deep understanding of complex topics presented in mechanical vibrations and control theory courses due to their highly mathematical nature, limited resources on the use of commercially available turn-key laboratory equipment, and lack of innovative teaching tools to improve student understanding. In this study, we developed open-source stand-alone virtual laboratory exercises for vibrations and control theory courses using Matlab Simscape. The virtual labs enable students to change the system parameters, develop a feel of the material, and record and observe the system response through mechanics explorer.
In mature oil fields, the success of gel treatment results depends on the ability of the gel to reduce the high permeable formation without damaging to low permeable formation. Formation damage refers to the extent of damage reservoir rocks face from various drilling techniques and/or chemical treatment during well completion. A dynamic filtration test was used to investigate this effect using distinct core samples, brine concentrations and preformed particle gels. The effect of high pressures applied on the particle gels on various core samples with various permeability ranges was determined. These gels were pushed into the core holder with samples and the core permeability change was calculated. Different constant pressures were used to push the piston behind the gel samples. Then, the gel was flown around the core sample and collected in the outlet container. Various hardware was used to tighten the apparatus and provide connection between brine source, syringe pump, piston accumulator, core holder, and flow outlet container. The damage on the core was evaluated by comparing the original core permeability and the core permeability after gel treatments. Pressure gauges were used to measure the pressure drop across the core samples. The penetration of the particle gels into the low permeable formations can be decreased by the best selection of gel types, particle sizes, and brine concentrations under the reservoir condition. This work results can be used to select the best gel types for the right reservoir condition such as reservoir permeability, and reservoir pressure.
Mechanical engineering concepts such as Heat Transfer and FEM are better understood by visualizing and getting hands-on experience on the problem where many of the students fail. One such process that helps the students to visualize, understand and feel the concepts is to participate in student-level design and development challenges. There are many organizations spread across the world that conduct student-level design and development challenges. In India, Fraternity of Mechanical & Automotive (FMAE) is a private organization that focuses on student development in the automobile sector by conducting various types of student-level motorsport events like the design and development of Quad Bike, Baja Buggy, Formula Student, etc. Taking part in these competitions creates a platform for the students to form a team, design and develop vehicles, and compete against other teams nationally and internationally. It also increases the student’s ability to work in a team, take responsibility for a mission-driven project, and also increase leadership and managerial skills. During the process, the students enhance their skills of in-depth understanding, visualization, and knowledge of various engineering concepts.
To improve the integration of data science into thermal fluids education, a technical elective course is developed to introduce a wide range of machine learning and deep learning algorithms to engineering students, including principal component analysis, multiplayer perceptron, convolutional neural networks (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, reinforcement learning (RL), generative algorithms (GA), and generative adversarial networks for mechanical engineering applications, including visualization-based physical quantity predictions, dynamic signal classification, and prediction, data-driven control of dynamical systems, surrogate modeling, dimensionality reduction, among others. The lectures cover the fundamental concepts and examples of developing machine learning models using Python and MATLAB. To facilitate students’ practice of applying data science in solving mechanical engineering progress, this course has touchpoints in several key areas of mechanical engineering, including fluid mechanics, heat transfer, materials science, design, and dynamics/control. Twenty-five students, including seven undergraduate and eighteen graduate students, took the course and the outcomes are very fruitful and encouraging. A variety of data science algorithms have been leveraged to solve mechanical engineering research problems, including generative designs of air-cooled heat sinks, Gaussian process regression for battery lifetime prediction and femtosecond laser manufacturing parameters, GA for two-phase cooling heat exchanger design, coupled PCA and LSTM for microcapsule deformation prediction, CNN for boiling regime classification and laser-manufactured textures classification, bidirectional recurrent neural networks basecalling of DNA and RNA sequences, coupled PCA and MLP porous medium morphology classification, RL for the control of soft robotics. The course has so far led to 25 student-centered machine learning projects, two conference papers, and an Honors thesis.
This paper focuses on the detection, classification & sorting of good and defective blade/automotive fuses through the utilization of Machine Vision Inspection (MVI). Fuses are an electrical safety device found in most vehicles and serve to protect their wiring and electrical devices against overcurrent. These small-size components are produced in large quantities, through a process involving the encasing of two metal prongs connected by a thin metal strip inside a plastic housing. Due to the nature of working with delicate metals and plastic, during the manufacturing process multiple defects can occur. The purpose of the project was to detect, classify and sort good and defective fuses, while performing part metrology solely on good fuses. Using NI Vision Builder Software, an image acquisition algorithm was written to generate a database of images for all the fuse classes. With this database, further algorithms were constructed to identify each class of fuse as it progressed along the conveyor. Utilizing vision inspection techniques such as pattern matching and distance measurement, the system was able to properly classify the fuses in the database. If the system determined the fuse to be defective, an I/O signal from the smart camera activated a pneumatic system that would remove the fuse. However, when the system classified a good fuse, it was allowed to continue along the conveyor and be collected after part metrology was performed by another algorithm. A graphical user interface (GUI) displayed these inspection statistics in realtime. This project was successful in completing all the defined goals for the system and proved to have an object classification accuracy of over 90%. This MVI system has the proper algorithms to be used in tandem with a high-speed smart camera, for adaptation into a real-world manufacturing application.
Achieving sustainable development education is one of the challenges proposed to reach many countries by 2030, based on SDG4 [1] A case of interest is teaching for development of energy sustainability in educational institutions [2], where student learning was enhanced with demonstrative didactic prototypes. The development project of linkage with society ESD-ESPOL, professor and students of the careers of Engineering in Mechanics and Electronics in Automation are developing a project for training, Developing educational didactic material that allows learning in aspects of sustainability in the subject of renewable energy, to students at the secondary level. This work present objective the development methodology the design of didactic prototypes education. To achieve this goal, students have been developing the design and construction of demonstration didactic prototypes to teach renewable energy associated with solar thermal, photovoltaic, water, and wind. The engineering design process includes the form of the conception of the preliminary model to the development of detailed design that includes the movement of the equipment and data visualization that allows the beneficiary to interact with the prototype based on a working guide. As a result, the appropriate methodology of the process ESPOL students must carry out to develop the functional prototype and begin with the team staggering was determined.
Engineering Research Innovation Commercialization (ERIC) seeks to translate products or services from the research laboratory to the marketplace or the end-user for societal benefit. Research indicates that universities have distinctive capabilities that allow them to play an important role in the process of research innovation commercialization. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), though originally established mainly as teaching and blue-collar trade institutions to educate African Americans, have been gradually commercializing several research innovations through patenting. However, this is significantly lower compared to that of their counterparts (specifically, Predominately White Institutions – PWIs). This according to available research is mainly because HBCUs have been traditionally under-served and under-resourced. Currently several programs such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps and National Science Foundation Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (NSF-CREST) Center for Nanotechnology Research and Education (CNRE)) are being implemented by HBCUs to promote the commercialization of research innovations by training innovators about commercializing innovations. However, little research has been done to assess the level of awareness of engineering undergraduate students at an HBCU about the commercialization of engineering research innovations. This pilot study, therefore, seeks to investigate the level of awareness of engineering undergraduate students at an HBCU about engineering research innovation commercialization. The authors of this study have conducted a similar study that focused only on engineering graduate students in an HBCU. To achieve the purpose of this study, we developed a survey that adopts both binary and ordinal scales of question and administered it to 30 engineering undergraduate students in an ABET-accredited HBCU. After collation and analysis, the results indicate a low level of awareness of engineering research innovation commercialization by engineering undergraduate students at this University. Though at a pilot stage (to be validated by a larger study in different HBCUs), the study recommends that HBCUs initiate new or strengthen ongoing innovation commercialization training programs by including it in undergraduate engineering first-year courses such as “Introduction to Engineering” and related courses to help students become more aware of the opportunities in engineering research innovation commercialization processes.
Many commercial Computer-Aided Design software have been introduced in high schools and undergraduate engineering colleges in the past decades. Basic CAD skills have become the essential engineering skill which all students need to have. Because many colleges offer basic CAD courses as early as freshman course sequences, the size of the class is quite large. That means many assignments for instructors and a lot of time to grade assignments. When instructors grade assignments, they need to open CAD files, check the accuracy of models, and close CAD files again. If they grade multiple assignments or sometime even 100s of assignments required, time to spend to grade those assignments will be tremendous. So, the CAD software API (Application Program Interface) based software was developed by author. The first version of the program was developed in 2018 and presented in the IMECE conference. The program was designed for SolidWorks using Visual Basic for Applications and provides several useful functions. The program opens multiple CAD files and check the critical values including dimensions and closes those automatically. The results are saved in Excel file to review later. The first version of the program was accepted positively by the fellow colleagues. However, there was always room for improvement. Since then, the program has been completely revamped. 1) More functions have been added to the program including the screen capture of open 3d models, 2) The program has been optimized as an independent executable program which run separately from the CAD software, 3) The program now supports multiple CAD software, 4) The program checks the watermark in the files to prevent plagiarism. In this paper, the following topics will be discussed and presented. 1) The problem with manual grading and assessment, 2) History and background of API functionality in commercial CAD software, 3) Previous development of API based evaluation software, 4) Example of the developed API program, 5) Comparison between previous program and new program. 6) Future improvement plan of API program. An actual demonstration of the program will be given during the presentation.
The implementation of Industry 4.0 tools and technologies in many companies coupled with the impact of those tools and technologies in the product design and development process is creating a demand for engineering graduates that have basic competencies (i.e., knowledge, skills, and abilities) related to Industry 4.0 when they join the workforce. This paper presents key Industry 4.0 competencies that were selected for a new mechanical engineering program at Texas State University. For each competency, the level in Bloom's taxonomy that students are expected to attain at the time of graduation is defined taking into consideration that the implementation of Industry 4.0 tools and technologies is a multidisciplinary endeavor that involves professionals from different majors. The paper also provides information about the implementation plan that will be used to incorporate the competencies selected in the undergraduate curriculum.
The transmission used in this project has been worked on by three senior design teams. The fourth team is currently working to design control mechanisms to automate the manual dual planetary transmission. The control mechanisms are a combination of mechanical and pneumatic systems that are controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) program. The transmission will be used in the Machine Elements Design Laboratory to educate students on gear transmissions and levers. SolidWorks software was used to draw and simulate the mechanical parts of the control systems, before being sent to a machine shop for manufacturing. The first control system uses vertical levers and linear actuators to control the brakes, while the second uses horizontal levers and rodless pneumatic cylinders to control the clutches. Willis Gearing Theory was then used to determine the six gear ratios realized by the transmission. To automate the mechanical parts of the control systems, a program was designed and uploaded to the CPU console. A Human Machine Interface (HMI) displays the transmission's speed and torque readings from the PLC. It is expected that the future group will the finish the automation of the transmission and proceed with the testing phase.
Personal skills such as communication, leadership, teamwork, can be the key factor for differentiation in a technological career. Attending to this, the authors of this paper were motivated to propose a different course (or Curricular Unit, CU) to students of Higher Education level. In this way, this paper describes the aim, objectives, methodology in the creation of an elective CU, called “Preparing Generation Z: beyond technologies (Z-Tec)”. Z-Tec, lectured for the first time in the academic year of 2021–2022, allows student to acquire skills that promote a conscious and reflective transition to the job market, namely: to recognize the importance of career preparation and the skills needed for this preparation, to integrate enhancing strategies as a starting point for career management, to recognize such strategies as facilitators for personal, professional and social success, and to identify and critically apply tools that allow to objectively analyze and decide the professional future. Z-Tec puts on active learning methodologies based on practical exercises, debates, seminars and reflective activities. The results discussed are based on the students’ perceptions gathered at the beginning of each semester, on the several activities that students developed and on the students’ feedback gathered at the end of each semester. A total of 62 students from different areas of knowledge (Engineering, Economy, to Sociology and Public Administration) were positively engaged.
The motivation of the work presented here is to include hands-on labs relevant to a finite element method (FEM) course. Hands-on laboratories are highly encouraged by ABET and results and surveys show that these types of labs help keeping students engage in this course. Theory of composite materials is presented to students including an introduction to types of composite materials; a review of stress-strain relationships of isotropic, orthotropic, and transverse isotropic materials; elastic constants, stiffness and compliance matrices, manufacturing processes and models to determine mechanical properties of laminated structures, such as the rule of mixtures (ROM) and the Chamis model. Finite element analyses (FEA) are carried out and compared to published results. The commercial finite element code Abaqus was used to set up a finite element frequency analysis of the composite plate setting the elastic mechanical properties in two different ways: using engineering constants or lamina. Results show that lamina results are marginally higher, but both approaches can model the composite material adequately.
Creativity is a vital skill that needs to be possessed by humans, especially during the 21st Century. Understanding heavy machinery like a stacker reclaimer or a complex machine like an engine would be very difficult for a normal student. Today's education system concentrates mostly on Theoretical education rather than practical education. This type of education is responsible for unemployment and a lack of skilled labor. In competitive exams, more than theoretical knowledge, logical reasoning & cognitive skills are evaluated. Knowledge gained through the application of theory in real-life activities is referred to as practical learning. This method of learning allows students to remember and master a topic for a long time. Exams based on practical learning reveal students' true intellect, as opposed to marks obtained by rote learning. It is a common misconception that practical learning is only beneficial to technical or management students. This study aims to understand the actual working of mechanisms, as only bookish education is not enough to understand how they work. Understanding the mechanisms through this process made the students interestingly understand the mechanisms and also encouraged them to build other miniature models using their creativity.
Erasmus mobility is a valuable opportunity for students to explore not only new cultures and costumes but also learning practices and experiences. Every year, at the University of Minho there are many undergraduate students interested in the Erasmus program, however, there are several reasons that prevent them from moving forward. Aiming to help clarify students’ questions and fears about the Erasmus experience, the Department of Production and Systems - DPS of the University of Minho decided to create a continuous improvement tool. The first step consisted of evaluating what motivated students to perform Erasmus whose results are analyzed in the present study. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed and implemented with engineering students at the DPS who applied to the Erasmus program for the 2021/2022 academic year. The main personal reasons to study abroad pointed out by students were the fact that they think they will like the experience and that it will be interesting for them, as well as the fact that it is personally important for them. Despite this, many students consider Erasmus something they should do. Furthermore, it was found that the Erasmus coordination of the DPS played a fundamental role in their decision to conduct the Erasmus mobility.
The Master of Science in Engineering program at Milwaukee School of Engineering has had its share of curriculum changes based on feedback from various stakeholders and annual assessment of the program leading to continuous improvement. One of the student outcomes is to have demonstrated an ability to integrate and analyze information in a chosen specialty in the form of scholarly work, either as an independent specialty paper or as an independent engineering project. And another outcome that follows is to have the ability to effectively present and communicate technical concepts, both orally and in writing. Even with all the engineering skills developed through discipline-specific coursework, these two outcomes were still quite a challenge to numerous students. While the program director takes measures to connect students with the appropriate advisor and even assists in technical content, the program needed and implemented the constant presence of a non-technical person as a member of the committee to improve communication of students through all stages of proposal writing, progress report and final report. We had tried one class of technical writing as a separate entity for students to take before they embarked on a capstone project, but the effectiveness varied as the principles had to be personally applied by the graduate student for the individual project. With the new approach, the student's resources have grown, the project path has been made seamless, the effectiveness of working on the technical content and report writing in tandem right from the literature search and proposal development has resulted. The historic development of the current approach, including an overview of program educational objectives and student outcomes, is presented. The paper also showcases the results in terms of publications by the students who have grown in confidence in writing skills. This paper aims at enabling informed discussion for engineering graduate programs across the United States seeking to aid their students in this critical area of communication.
Following up the call for research projects launched by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) after the first pandemic event in Portugal, and bearing in mind the positive results obtained, during the summer of 2021, a new call was launched with a shorter duration. During one month just before starting the university academic year, undergraduate students could join a research team in a research lab, and by applying a "learning by doing" approach, students experienced a research atmosphere and got involved with the main activities being developed by the research group. For engineering students, this is an opportunity to bring theory to practice, get experience, and ingress into research teamwork. This paper presents and discusses the main achievements of this initiative, in particular, the research experience of three undergraduate students and their host research teams, from the Algoritmi center, from the School of Engineering of the University of Minho, Portugal. The students' opinions on the developed projects were quite satisfactory and they recognized that joining this type of scholarship opens horizons, promotes an inquiring spirit, teaches research strategies and, above all, students can see their knowledge applied to engineering research and on the advancement of science.
In this paper, a comprehensive roadmap is presented that aims to provide an accessible and convenient resource for pre-collegiate students who are interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The presented roadmap will be an effective guide to the students who are wishing to pursue STEM education independently in preparation for further studies or for personal development, but unsure of the specific activities and skills they require to kickstart them. The road map will also serve as a practical guide for teachers, counselors, and caretakers to guide and inform students interested in STEM tracks. This roadmap covers various recommended activities and courses that impart students with the necessary knowledge, experiences, and skills that are central in STEM studies and careers. An extensive literature review is conducted on various STEM programs from all around the globe that have a high impact on students in their respective fields, along with a recommended grade level for participation in said course/activity. Presented by this paper in each overview section are the individual advantages of each program with reference to skill acquisition, networking opportunities and even possible credits or accreditation detailed. Most of the presented programs are accessible online or in schools and STEM centers in most regions. Students who follow and complete this road map will not only be pre-equipped with the engineering knowledge before joining college but also will improve their position as a candidate for undergraduate or advanced level course selection.
This generation of students is a generation that needs a meaningful education. This implies that students must believe that the contents they are learning has a purpose. The best way to do this is by allowing them to pull what they want to learn. However, this is difficult to achieve because the contents of the course is pre-determined by the teachers in a well-defined curricular plan. Still, the authors of this paper and teachers of a course called “Seminars in Industrial Engineering” were able to allow students to do so. Students were encouraged to plan an event, a training session or anything else they wanted, to learn more about Industrial Engineering. The conditions were that students worked in teams and used the schedule time for the lecture (Friday from 6pm to 8pm). This challenge was very welcomed by the students that formed eight teams of five to six members each. Each team approached a different topic in each session. The assessment of the activity involved various components. For instance, teams had to assess colleagues’ activities using similar criteria as the ones used by teachers. The performance of student teams was high. The feedback with this activity was positive and students showed satisfaction and proudness of their achievement. This feedback was gathered using a questionnaire at the end of the semester, and 28 (68%) questionnaires were completed. The main findings pointed out that students appreciated this kind of activities allowing them to learn and develop autonomy and creativity skills.
The rapid adoption of technology and digitization of work, which has affected every facet of life including pedagogy, has created an opportunity to develop novel ways to teach technical and management skills to students to make them industry ready. However, several studies have highlighted that students studying engineering related disciplines within higher educational institutions are often disconnected from the management units within their programme curriculum, irrespective of the level of complexity. Additionally, there are concerns that the recent shifts towards predominantly hybrid or online & blended learning (OBL) approach advocated by most institutions due to restrictions imposed by COVID-19 pandemic has further eroded the already exiguous interest levels. This study therefore attempts to understand how engineering students at a department within the University of Manchester perceive management units and the possible root causes of previously observed attitudes. The unit examined was Operations Management (MACE30461), which is mandatory for all final year undergraduates studying for graduate degrees in aerospace, civil and mechanical engineering. The fundamental rationales behind selecting this unit are its coverage of several disciplines and cohort size, with an average of approximately 350 registered engineering students per year over the last five years. To achieve the overarching aim of this study, data was innovatively obtained from five separate cohorts, through a popular continuous improvement technique — the Fishbone diagram (FBD). The benefits of this data collection approach is multi-faceted. Firstly, it reinforces learning and familiarity of the students with the applied tools, which is crucial to the achievement of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs). Secondly, it enhances direct extraction of root causes (RCs) of the identified limiters as well as their possible causal relationships. Out of approximately 1758 students that have been registered on this unit over five years, 962 returned their solutions to the exercise. As it would be very unrealistic to present all of the individual FBDs constructed by each student, a harmonised FBD was reconstructed based on all the identified RCs. The results of the study generally depict two overwhelming findings. Firstly, there is a general misconception of the meaning of engineering, as most students believe that engineering programmes should only encompass core technical elements such as thermodynamics, design, fluid mechanics, vibrations, etc. Secondly, majority of students find the contents of most management units offered to engineering students uninteresting, particularly because of a lack of well-established link between such contents and what they perceive as real engineering. The authors therefore argue for innovative teaching methods that embed tools that are coherent with core technical units through hybrid or OBL, which is both cost effective and practical given the prevailing pandemic environment.
