This paper introduces the engineering capstone senior design project as a story- building platform. While capstone design typically prepares students for professional careers it can also be seen and structured as a holistic story-building experience. Students from various backgrounds build their own stories as they participate in a multidisciplinary project. A typical story involves actors/characters, setting, and plot. Students gravitate to a story that involves curiosity, adventure, challenge, risk-taking, suspense, and reward. A particular example of story-building is the two-year “Badger” senior design project, which began with a “reconnaissance mission” to Silicon Valley the spring before the project started. The Silicon Valley “Mission Trip”, known as the “Caleb and Joshua Project” (named after a specific incident in Israel’s history) was initiated to connect potential sponsor companies with real-world problems to our senior design teams. Smaller businesses, particularly startups, often present dynamic situations where there is a greater chance for a project to entail a broader scope and a holistic platform. While most industry projects involve collaboration with a local company or projects from a partner company, out of the visit in search of an original project from Silicon Valley came an industry request for a goose-chasing robot for use on golf courses, where Canadian geese are an expensive nuisance. Many stories include introduction, challenge or crisis to be overcome, and resolution. In the case of capstone design the challenges were (1) to develop a design that met the problem specifications and satisfied a need within a potential market, (2) to connect the individual components within the larger story, (3) to unify a team from multiple disciplines, as well as (4) to complete the project in the midst of a pandemic. The “Badger” project involved students from Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Marketing. The goal (resolution) was for students to learn design and collaboration in an industry model and yet a non-threatening environment. An unexpected outcome was the enjoyment provided by the project. Similar wide-scale projects were undertaken by a team designing a portable surgical table and a team developing a programmable pacifier. With faculty agreement a small school primarily driven by engineering (a Polytechnic University) can leverage its multi-disciplinary senior design projects to embrace such diverse areas as liberal arts and theology. Student feedback showed that exposure to widely different perspectives during their project participation created additional stresses but enhanced their own story as a career- building component and created lasting memories as well.

Engineering education continues to hear calls for significant change. National leaders and policy makers argue that students graduating from engineering programs must be able to contribute in the ever-changing work environment of a highly competitive global market (National Academy of Engineering, 2004, 2005; Sheppard, Macatangay, Colby, & Sullivan, 2008; Vest, 2006). Nontechnical skills, often referred to as professional skills—such as communication, ability to work in teams, professional responsibility, and lifelong learning—are the kinds of competencies needed to address major engineering challenges of the future. The National Academy of Engineering (2008) has identified challenges in the broad realms of sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living that require engineers to apply the rules of reason, the findings of science, the aesthetics of art, and the spark of creative imagination to forge useful solutions for the future. Reflection and metacognition are essential for drawing upon and integrating these cognitive abilities for productive engineering problem solving.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Is a successful r esear ch labor ator y possible with under gr aduate students alone? Roger V. Gonzalez, J uan Lopez, and Paul Leiffer LeTour neau Univer sity Abstract Developing a successful research laboratory with qualified graduate students is a demanding venture. Trying to accomplish this with undergraduate students alone, given the demanding academic load and steep research learning curve is daunting. Nevertheless, during the past eight years the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at LeTourneau University have managed to develop a successful undergraduate research program and secure multiple external funding sources. Laboratory research has been intricately woven into the undergraduate engineering curriculum and is a key component of the teaching-learning engineering environment. The objective is to use undergraduate research to teach engineering skills such as research methodology, design, development, manufacturability, testing, and implementation. These skills are necessary for successful engineers to be proficient, regardless of specialization. Primarily, the success of our research utilizing only undergraduate students has come from the project management methodology implemented to stimulate success both in the research endeavors and for the students who participate. The research process involves interdisciplinary undergraduate research teams with a minimum of one-year student participation. The research team structure is based on a business model of modular components. Students and professors are both an integral part of this modular structure, with students involved at various levels, including management. Each component is treated as an individual hierarchy with its own set of goals, yet responsible to the overall management structure and research objectives. The challenges that are naturally inherent to using only undergraduate students for research are addressed in this paper via a description of both the team structure and multi-level student participation. Dissemination of results is a critical portion of the research process, with requirements for external publication an integral part of the objectives set for the team. Success of our undergraduate research model has been evident not only by securing external funding but also from external publications, achieved educational outcomes, high student satisfaction, and a considerable level of undergraduate students pursuing graduate engineering education. Introduction Success as an engineering professor involves much more than effective classroom teaching. At a minimum, it involves effective interaction with students, pedagogy, and university service. Yet at most institutions, this is not enough. Scholarly work in the form of research is critically evaluated as a means of assessing a professor’s effectiveness. The traditional method has always been to recruit graduate students as research assistants to perform the research as part of their larger graduate educational objectives. The dilemma occurs when a professor is asked to develop Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright© 2004 American Society for Engineering Education

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract What does my car AM radio have to do with learning Electronics? Introduction During the past two years a one semester long electronics project have been added to the Electronics’ Lab curriculum to enhance students learning of basic electronic components. Students who enroll in the electronics’ lab, simultaneously enroll into the analog electronics lecture which is a three credit hour course combined with the two-credit-hour lab. Both courses are required for students majoring in the electrical and computer engineering concentrations. Our expectation is that after taking both courses students had learned the theory and application of such components as diodes, Zener diodes, NPN and PNP transistors, MOSFETs, SCR’s Diacs, Triacs, and optoelectronic devices. Project-based learning develops the ability of the students to work in interdisciplinary teams. Projects carried out by interdisciplinary teams are not only an expectation of industry but also have become a required outcome of the ABET engineering criteria. A series of curriculum tools have been developed at our school to ensure that students will have a measure of success in project team work [1] Project-based learning is an instructional method that demands from the student acquisition of critical knowledge, problem solving proficiency, self-directed learning strategies, and team participation skills [2] During the 2007 fall semester the students studied and implemented FM transmitters and FM receivers as part of their project-based learning experience. For the 2008 fall semester project students studied, designed and implemented AM transmitters and AM receivers. The main challenges that the students faced in the 2008 Project-based learning project were: a) an AM transmitter or receiver design of their own, b) intensive study and research of AM modulators, oscillators, mixers, frequency multipliers and other RF circuits, since electronic communication circuits are studied in detail a semester later in a second electronic course and RF theory is introduced a year later in the Communication course. Effects on student learning concerning the concepts and applications of the studied electronics components were measured during the semester using quizzes and tests and at the end of the semester students completed a survey. The conclusions of this project and an evaluation between this year results and the previous years are presented in this paper. Improvement of the student learning through hands on projects may prompt the implementation of other projects that may include multidisciplinary collaboration, integration of projects between classes, projects across concentrations, and integration of semester projects into a larger unifying project that may assemble student’s learning from the freshman to the senior year. Background To provide a hands-on experience to the electronic lectures a set of learning oriented, pre- defined labs are incorporated in a two-hour lab course: EEGR 3112 Electronic Lab.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract What Fuzzies Might Learn From Techies Introduction Almost all those in academia agree with the value of liberal arts subjects are to “round out” an engineering education in order to make a “whole person” of the graduate. Engineering faculty largely agree that engineering students (and faculty) can learn a great deal from liberal arts faculty and their publications, particularly in the valuable area of “soft skills.” Through our interactions on campus and the ABET 2000 Criteria we have certainly seen that engineers benefit from interaction with arts/humanities faculty and the materials they develop. Examples include dealing with team members and clients, interpersonal communications, understanding one’s abilities and growth areas, communicating concepts to a wide audience, understanding ethical theories, wrestling with ambiguity in those situations which are not clearly black and white, and understanding social impacts of design. Is there a way to return the favor? Not so much consideration has been given to the opposite issue, which is that of helping liberal arts majors to understand some of the technical aspects of our society. Some technical concepts can be communicated with a relatively slight dependence upon mathematical understanding, and these concepts may even be helpful to liberal arts professors in their teaching of liberal arts courses. While there is definitely value in engineers learning something about the liberal arts there is also definitely value to liberal arts majors in learning something about engineering. Are there some things that “fuzzies” (a nickname heard on National Public Radio for humanities people, apparently popularized at Stanford) might learn from “techies” (NPR’s nickname for engineering and technical people)? Techies tend to be computer gurus, becoming more helpful to fuzzies as our society becomes more dependent on computer technology. In addition to computer assistance, there are also a number of other technical concepts that may be helpful, such as thermodynamic principles involved in economic situations, an understanding of the relative sizes of numbers, and some basic concepts, fundamental to those of an engineering discipline, which can be applied to everyday life. Fuzzies could also benefit from having familiarity with the popular concept of the Singularity (including the controversy that surrounds it) and with Billy V. Koen’s “Method.” The following pages outline these concepts. 1. Everyday Concepts – Feedback Our society is continually becoming more technically oriented in all aspects of life. Technology may seem mysterious to fuzzies. There is, however, a certain set of basic, easily understood information that “techies” can help fuzzies understand.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 1526 Development of a B.S.E. Concentration in Biomedical Engineering Paul R. Leiffer, Roger V. Gonzalez LeTourneau University Abstract A new program in Biomedical Engineering has been developed at LeTourneau University. Unlike most BME programs, this one is structured as one of five concentrations within a general engineering (B.S.E.) degree. Students receive a strong common core of mathematics, science, and engineering science courses, and then specialize in the final two years. Primary emphasis areas are in musculoskeletal biomechanics and biomedical instrumentation/signal processing. Development of the program entailed the establishment of (1) a series of specialized upper-level BME courses, (2) a BME laboratory capable of supporting basic experimentation and undergraduate research, (3) a BME capstone experience, (4) a BME summer internship experience, (5) guest workshops, and (6) a series of modules that fit within our core courses to facilitate “biomedical engineering across the curriculum.” The first BME graduates will complete the program in May of 2004. Introduction For over twenty years, LeTourneau University has offered a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.) degree with electrical and mechanical concentrations, recently adding welding and computer engineering. Most of the courses taken in the first two years are common to all areas, with specialization in the final four semesters. In the fall of 2000, with the help of support from an NSF CCLI grant, we began a program in Biomedical Engineering as a fifth concentration within the B.S.E. Our goal was to offer a BME program with a strong interdisciplinary core, and, simultaneously, to make BME concepts available to all engineering students. Development of the curriculum and associated laboratories within the constraints of the degree became a type of exercise in engineering design. In comparison with the BSE-BME program at Trinity College, which served as our model for the NSF grant, this program is also built upon a common core of courses but is fully multi- disciplinary (as opposed to containing BSE-EE or BSE-ME stems). In addition, it currently includes a required internship experience and professional workshops with external collaborators. Curriculum The engineering curriculum at LeTourneau University consists of four elements: (1) a university- wide humanities-general education core, (2) an engineering core, (3) upper-level concentration Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Main Menu Session 2109 Development of Modules and Labs for “Biomedical Engineering Across the Curriculum” Paul R. Leiffer, Roger V. Gonzalez LeTourneau University Abstract With the present need for medical devices that combine mechanical systems and materials with sophisticated electronic components, there is a concurrent need for engineers who have a combination of both strong traditional and specialized engineering skills. There is also a growing need for all engineers to have some familiarity with the human/biological aspects of engineering. To produce such engineers, an educational program must provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering background combined with a broad-based education in biomedical engineering (BME). Our goal, therefore, was to develop the courses and laboratories needed to establish a new concentration in Biomedical Engineering built upon the broad core of a General Engineering (BSE) degree. In addition, every student enrolled in one of our concentrations should gain exposure to BME principles and have experience in a BME laboratory. Freshman and sophomore students are currently enrolled in the BME program. In addition to specialized BME courses, educational materials are being developed for inclusion in existing electrical and mechanical courses with the goal of familiarizing students with these principles, introducing “biomedical engineering across the curriculum.” Modules of biomedically - related tutorials and problems have been prepared and are being implemented in our general engineering courses in electric circuits, statics, dynamics, and thermodynamics. Additional BME modules are being developed for five other core-engineering courses and several upper-level courses. These modules will be made publicly available to other programs through our web site. In addition, a BME laboratory experiment using the Biopac ™ System for physiological measurements has been added to the Instrumentation and Measurements Laboratory course taken by every engineering student regardless of concentration. Introduction Today’s medical devices, particularly those utilized in the areas of prosthetics and artificial organs, are a combination of mechanical systems and materials with sophisticated electronic components. To continue to enhance these devices there is a need for engineers who have a combination of strong interdisciplinary traditional and specialized biomedical engineering skills. Towards this end, in the Spring of 2001 LeTourneau University began to develop the courses and laboratories necessary to establish a new concentration in biomedical engineering built upon our broad core curriculum. This concentration is designed to prepare future engineers for professional biomedical positions in industry and for graduate study in BME, the biomedical sciences, and/or medical school. Freshman and sophomore students are currently enrolled in the program. Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society of Engineering Education Main Menu

Engineering professional skills are critical components of an engineer's performance in industry. Engineering professional skills include the ability to work in a team environment, awareness of and ability to contextualize engineering ethics, and an ability to establish and realize professional development goals. Engineering capstone design courses present the opportunity for an authentic learning experience with respect to complex, professional skills in situations similar to those in which they will be used in practice. The Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) consortium of engineering educators and researchers have developed and tested the Integrated Design Engineering Assessment and Learning System (IDEALS). IDEALS consist of nine modules with formative and summative assessments to guide and measure student learning of professional skills integrated with complementary instructional materials to facilitate use in project courses. Results from prior testing were positive from both student and faculty perspectives, but a key stakeholder-recent alumni users now working in industry-required further representation to determine IDEALS impact. A total of forty-two alumni that were recent users of the system completed the survey. 85%, 86% and 70% of survey respondents attributed enhancement in professional skills to the IDEALS teamwork, professional development, and professional responsibility modules respectively. Additionally, 82% of respondents reported some enhancement in terms of their reflective writing skills.

Demonstration of Electrical Principles in the Classroom by Hydraulic AnaloguesHydraulic analogies for the basic three circuit elements have been known for many years, andsome practical and inexpensive physical examples have recently been built and used in basiccircuit laboratories. Since non-engineering majors, as well as non-electrical engineering majors,are typically mystified by electricity, these basic three hydraulic models are effective in breakingdown the “mystification factor” concerning basic electricity.Electricity cannot be seen (except as lightning, or other high-voltage or high-currentphenomena). Many students decide to study engineering because they have had mechanicalexperiences, such as fixing cars or tractors at home. The “feel” for mechanical things is alreadythere; you push it, and it moves. Not so with electrical things.In order to present electrical concepts to students unfamiliar with electricity, analogies arehelpful. Some thought experiments and analogies are presented to help communicate electricalconcepts to lay people, and have recently been used to successfully explain basic electricalconcepts to children 10 to 14 years of age. Actual laboratory experiments, using water resistors,water capacitors, water ammeters, water voltmeters, and balloons, have been used in laboratoryexperiments in our curriculum for several years now, and these experiments have becomeeagerly anticipated in the basic engineering circuits class at ------------ university.Students learn new concepts by comparing them to things with which they are already familiar.One of our problems with the present generation is that students tend not to be as physicallyactive as they were in previous generations. We have fewer “farm boys” and “shade treemechanics” coming in as freshmen. They may never have siphoned water, played with “frictionmotor” cars, or gyroscopes. They may have no idea that flowing water has inertia, that waterpressure in your house is due to the water tower in your town, and that water pressure can beused to cut metal. A hydraulic circuits lab can help them understand both hydraulic and circuitsconcepts. A hydraulic resistor loses energy by forcing water through a constriction in a pipe. A hydrauliccapacitor, made by separating two chambers by a rubber membrane, stores energy. This is apotential energy source. Inductance is related to kinetic energy. A moving stream of water hasinertia by virtue of its mass, but the addition of a flywheel and paddles increases that inertia.Thus, kinetic energy is stored in a hydraulic inductor.If the hydraulic inductor is connected to the hydraulic capacitor, in a closed hydraulic circuit, thesystem can be made to oscillate. The oscillation can also be compared to the action of apendulum.Interaction at a recent workshop on the assessment of “Technological Literacy” and “HowThings Work” courses, funded by the National Science Foundation, indicated that the hydraulicanalogy to circuit theory would be helpful in educating non-STEM students. The use ofhydraulic models for many electrical concepts, and details on construction of the components areincluded.

The Genesis of Transformation: A First Course in Engineering with a focus on Retention and Developing Professionalism Jesse J. French and Paul R. Leiffer School of Engineering and Engineering Technology LeTourneau University Longview, TX 75602, USA Students who fail to identify with engineering at the very beginning of their studies willoften become retention statistics. The second semester is already too late to introduce students toengineering activities, and the senior year is too late to introduce professionalism. A new “to bean engineer” class (a.k.a. Introduction to Engineering Practice I) has been implemented at ouruniversity. This new course, required for all first year engineering students, is intended to increaseretention in the engineering program by providing “iY Generation” students with a realistic viewof what “real” engineers do and what is expected of engineering students. The course engagesfirst semester engineering students with engineering flavored in-class activities and labs (e.g.wind generator design with wind tunnel testing) to provide a balance to the decidedly non-representative core courses (Calculus, Chemistry, English) that fill the first year of theengineering curriculum. Lesson modules lay the foundations for success in engineering education by providingstrong guidance in the area of study discipline, work quality expectations, classroom discipline(both behavioral and note taking techniques), and pride in the profession. Assignments work tojumpstart certain basic engineering science topics that are historically stumbling blocks duringthe second semester and for second year engineering students (e.g. statics, circuits, vectors, basicmechanics). This course begins the "Transformation to Professionalism" through introduction ofprofessional topics necessary for success outside the academic realm. Topics covered includecodes and standards, professional licensure, colleague and supervisorial relationships,professional societies, litigation and deposition, ethics, meeting behavior, conferences,exposition and professional meetings systems. Simultaneously, the course aims to establish alearning environment that better represents "the real working world" than might be seen in otherfirst-year classes. For some, this is their first introduction to the concept of adjusting oneself to astandard rather than expecting the environment to "part and make way" for the individual. Thisincludes more disciplined, more clearly defined, and perhaps more rigid expectations ofassignment due dates and times, while simultaneously providing the motivation and justificationfor the student to aspire to such standards. Results are presented both from instructor observations and from surveys conductedduring the first two years of implementation with results showing student interest level inengineering in general and specifically with the classroom and laboratory activities.

Professionalism, which includes engineering ethics, is recognized as a valued topic in industry and education but it is difficult to teach and assess. This paper presents a web-based professional responsibility instrument and accompanying rubric, which is used to assess student understanding and skill in analyzing areas of strength and opportunity surrounding a professional responsibility issue associated with the student's design project. Students completing the assessment most frequently rated work competence as both highly important and an area of team strength while issues of sustainability were least frequently cited. The scored results of this assessment revealed that students were moderately effective at relating issues of professional responsibility to situations within their projects as well as addressing them in a responsible manner. In a post-assessment survey, students and faculty rated the assessment as somewhat accurate to mostly accurate. An inter-rater agreement study of the assessment showed that scorers were on average within one level of difference on the scoring rubric 97% of the time. Results of administering the assessment in a capstone course can be easily packaged and presented as part of a program accreditation self-study.

Electrical and computer engineering students at our university are required during their junior year to take a three credit lecture course and a two credit laboratory in analog electronics. Over the past seven years, several attempts have been made to enhance student learning through participation in PBL projects. In Project-based learning "PBL", since the project is developed by the instructor and the learning path is predictable, student creativity, ingenuity and innovation may be diminished. In order to provide opportunities for student creativity and innovation, a service oriented project was introduced in the fall of 2011. Project-based service oriented learning "PBSOL" is a learner-focused form of active learning where students work to solve a real life problem while also providing a rich learning experience.Since the major topics of study in analog electronics include the study of such semiconductor devices as diodes, zener diodes, BJT's transistors, and MOSFETs, the projects were required to be designed around the use of an Amplitude Shift Keying "ASK" transmitter and receiver. The project makes use of previous knowledge such as impedance, resonance, loading, and matching, learned in their Circuits I and Circuits II courses while challenging their search for future topics such as RF communication theory, digital electronics, and microcontrollers, which are learned in later engineering courses. The wireless characteristics of the ASK transmitter and receiver promoted the design of such service projects as a wireless security system, a mail alert system, and a wireless home control system for a handicapped person.In the lab course, students work in small teams and have 12 weeks to design and implement their service oriented project. During the first two weeks, research is conducted about their project ideas, followed by several weeks of draft designs, re-calculations and testing. At the end of the semester they must write a report, deliver a Power Point presentation, and demonstrate their project. Surveys were conducted before and after each design session, and at the end of the final project. Student understanding and mastery of the course content was measured using quizzes, tests, the project presentations, and written final reports. A comparison between this year's results and the previous year's results is included. Improvement of student learning and the development of decision-making skills through service oriented projects may prompt the implementation of other projects that may include multidisciplinary collaboration, integration of projects between classes, and projects across concentrations.

National and global engineering challenges require preparation of engineering graduates with strong technical, personal, and interpersonal abilities. For reasons of resource efficiency and consistent preparation, engineering programs would benefit from well-developed, integrated instructional materials and assessments that effectively motivate and facilitate development of professional skills vital to engineering practice. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the work of a National Science Foundation funded project team that created and pilot tested instructional modules for teamwork, professional development (self-directed learning), and professional responsibility. The modules and associated assessments are known as the Integrated Design Engineering Assessment and Learning System (IDEALS). The modules, available online to authorized instructors, include pre-class assignments, in-class exercises, and post-class assessment assignments. Pilot testing has shown that instructors in diverse settings are able to use full sets or selected modules in a skills area to achieve and assess desired professional skills learning outcomes.

In a multi-year project our students are designing, prototyping, and testing hydro-kinetic devices intended to provide electrical power in remote regions by extracting energy from river currents. The low-cost submersible devices must not disturb surface use of waterways while producing between 20 and 100 watts of power for river currents between 1 and 3 m/s.These hydro-kinetic power systems must be tested in a full range of water flow velocities. Local river testing does not readily provide a wide range of flow velocities and commercially available water tunnels are infeasible for this application, starting at $14,000 for a model with a maximum flow velocity of 0.3 m/s and a 70 in(2) test cross-section, much less than the 400 in2 test cross-section needed.This paper describes the conversion of a pre-existing 24 foot diameter 4 foot deep above-ground pool into a variable flow-rate "water tunnel" facility using $500 of additional equipment. Steady state flow rates of 0.89 m/s are achieved using an 80 pound thrust (rated) trolling motor powered by a pulse-width-modulated motor controller drawing approximately 970 W of electrical power. Calculations indicate that approximately 400 pounds of rated thrust will be required to reach our goal of 2.0 m/s flow rates near the outer edge of our pool river simulator.

In a multi-year project our students are designing, prototyping, and testing hydro-kinetic devices intended to provide electrical power in remote regions by extracting energy from river currents. The low-cost submersible devices must not disturb surface use of waterways while producing between 20 and 100 watts of power for river currents between 1 and 3 m/s. These hydro-kinetic power systems must be tested in a full range of water flow velocities. Local river testing does not readily provide a wide range of flow velocities and commercially available water tunnels are infeasible for this application, starting at $14,000 for a model with a maximum flow velocity of 0.3 m/s and a 70 in test cross-section, much less than the 400 in test crosssection needed. This paper describes the conversion of a pre-existing 24 foot diameter 4 foot deep above-ground pool into a variable flow-rate “water tunnel” facility using $500 of additional equipment. Steady state flow rates of 0.89 m/s are achieved using an 80 pound thrust (rated) trolling motor powered by a pulse-width-modulated motor controller drawing approximately 970 W of electrical power. Calculations indicate that approximately 400 pounds of rated thrust will be required to reach our goal of 2.0 m/s flow rates near the outer edge of our pool river simulator.

The capstone engineering design course provides students an opportunity to create a product or process as well as the opportunity to improve professional skills and workplace behaviors. The latter are often difficult to teach and assess in a project-based course. To encourage students to be aware of, to prepare for, and to engage in project-based professional skill development, the Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) consortium developed the Integrated Design Engineering Assessment and Learning System (IDEALS) that includes course materials, assessment instruments and companion scoring rubrics that target professional development. In the IDEALS assessment instruments, professional skills include professional responsibility and an ability to pursue lifelong learning related to twelve specific abilities/attributes that are technical, interpersonal, and individual in nature. The IDEALS professional skills assessments consist of a progression of two formative assessments (Professional Development Planning and Professional Development Progress) and one summative assessment (Professional Development Achieved) that are used to prepare for, monitor, and summarize student professional development during the capstone course. A companion instructional module and scoring rubric is provided with each assessment instrument in an instructor-friendly web-based format that helps the instructor guide student development. The professional skills assessment instruments were piloted at six colleges and universities throughout the United States that differ with respect to size, geographic location, student demographic, and public or private status. The results of these pilot implementations, inter-rater agreement studies, student perceptions, and faculty perceptions of the assessment instruments are included in this paper. Results indicate that use of the instruments is perceived by students as value-added within the capstone program, are perceived by instructors as helpful in monitoring student growth as well as in program assessment, and show sufficient scoring consistency for reliable use.

The capstone design course is the ideal location for assessing student professional skills and teamwork for ABET and other learning outcomes. For this reason, the Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) created a comprehensive set of assessment instruments and a supporting web-based deployment system. To compliment these assessments, the TIDEE group developed a set of classroom learning activities that accompany the assessment instruments. The learning activities are to be used by instructors and students to prepare for assessment activities and supplement learning in lecture environments. The learning activities (known as a module) are typically composed of an in-class guide for instructors, in-class and pre-class activities for students, and the post-class assessment activity. The complete sets of assessment activities and modules are available online. Instructors using a subset of the modules indicated that the modules are generally beneficial for students and instructors assessing professional skills and teamwork in the capstone course.

One of the authors runs an annual "Rube Goldberg*" design project as the culminating student demonstration of a junior level electrical laboratory class. Over the past 30 years attendance has grown from a few students the first year to now include city-wide attendance and television coverage from multiple stations. The term "Rube Goldberg" originates from Reuben Lucius Goldberg's cartoons portraying complex solutions to simple problems, and engineers sometimes use the term as a derogatory description for an unnecessarily complex system.The "Rube Goldberg" student project assignment includes: "This is a project, proposed, designed, and built by yourself, to demonstrate your creativity. Use of conversion from electronic signals to physical motion is encouraged. An electric motor should be used somewhere in the project. A good example of what is being sought is the `Mousetrap Game.'"Many students see this preparation and demonstration as the epitome of their engineering education. They catch an excitement far out of proportion to the slight grade they get as a reward, and are motivated instead in proportion to the large amount of learning they accomplish. Camaraderie is generated, and the night before the public presentation a large number of students spend all night in the lab adding last-minute details, drinking energy beverages, and eating pizza. The comment "if Professor Graff doesn't teach Lab 3 [with Rube Goldberg] anymore, there's no reason to come to [this] University" has been overheard on campus.The open-ended Rube Goldberg design project has six very intentional learning goals. These goals include providing students with hands-on experience with: (1) teamwork, (2) public presentation, (3) creativity & innovation, (4) systems thinking, (5) energy transfer and conversions, (6) Murphy's Law (if anything can go wrong, it probably will), and (7) learning from failures. The effect on student learning has been phenomenal, demonstrated in part by qualitative assessments such as conversations with alumni. Many teaching principles have been gleaned, such as "Learning by Failure", "Last-Minute-Engineering", "The Stupidity of Not Planning Ahead", "The Importance of Duct Tape", and "How to Explain Technical Principles to a Diverse Audience." Each successive year the University has seen fit to ban more energy transitions, for safety's sake, so that the students find it necessary to find innovative ways to produce shock and awe in future presentations.

Capstone engineering design courses exhibit a universal need to improve student teamwork performance while also documenting studentteamwork achievements. To meet this need, the Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) consortium developedassessment instruments and companion scoring rubrics to target teamwork achievement in four areas: team relationships, joint work,individual work, and information management. Desired attributes of these instruments included transferability, practicality, reliability,user satisfaction, and robustness. Transferability was addressed by grounding the instruments in the teamwork literature anddeveloping, piloting, and refining their use at multiple universities. A web interface for deploying and scoring the assessment instrumentshas supported sustainable, practical application of the instruments in a classroom setting as well as enabled design education research.This paper describes initial deployment and pilot testing of one of the teamwork assessments—Team Member Citizenship. Thisassessment is unique from other developers’ teamwork assessments in its combined features of: (1) being part of an integrated packageof assessments for teamwork, (2) having a strong focus on reflective practice within teamwork, (3) having been tested for inter-raterreliability in scoring, (4) enabling faculty and peer feedback that supports students’ growth in teamwork, and (5) providing data usefulfor grading and program assessment. Results demonstrate that this assessment provides data consistent with expectations, has reliabilityacross rater scoring, and exhibits high levels of perceived value by student and faculty users. The teamwork assessments compile readilyaccessible research data about students’ perceptions and performance of teamwork in design project environments. Additionalassessment testing and data analysis are needed to further establish instrument validity and reliability.