Multi-Disciplinary Capstone Project on Self-Replicating 3-D Printer

This paper explores the dynamics of a multi-semester multi-disciplinary team approach applied within a traditional senior capstone project that involves strong design and manufacturing components. In addition, the logistics of running a successful senior project will be discussed along with the associated problems of organization within a multi-program environment. The key drivers and motivators behind this paper are, most importantly, that multi-disciplinary teams are very common in industry and that our industrial advisory boards for Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) and Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) suggested that we do more multi-disciplinary projects. Furthermore, this multi-disciplinary team approach will satisfy the proposed ABET/ETAC outcomes for 2016. The Proposed Revisions to the Program Criteria for Mechanical Engineering Technology and Similarly Named Programs ABET/ETAC outcomes say “The capstone experience, ideally multidisciplinary in nature, must be project based and include formal design, implementation and test processes.” (emphasis added) Faculty searched for a technology that would allow both EET and MET students to contribute equally to the success of the project, and decided upon additive manufacturing. Students have been exposed extensively through formal course material covering 3D printing technology and would be familiar with the operation of 3D printers in general. Therefore, it was reasoned a familiarity with the project goal of designing and constructing a self-replicating 3D printer would give students more confidence in tackling the difficult task of managing an extended project over both the design and manufacture phases, and mastering effective communicate across disciplines. The student team organization mirrors current industry standard operating procedures. First, the team is multidisciplinary, including EET students with programing and circuits skills and MET students with CAD, design, mechanical analysis skills. All students must demonstrate project process skills, utilizing current design for six-sigma procedures. The students learn a standard set of tools to manage the project, as well as synthesize those tools with their discipline specific knowledge. Because of the program curriculum plans, the EET students are involved in the project for two semesters. The MET students have a one semester project course; this enables one group of MET students to design the mechanical system, document their work, and pass it on to a second team for implementation. This was considered a positive based on what is typical in industry, where engineering groups are constantly interfacing. Results include observations of group member dynamics, quality of work, timeliness, budget management, and communication across disciplines. Rubrics to document student achievement of outcomes are used

Experience Report: A Sustainable Serious Educational Game Capstone Project

Capstone courses play a key role in many Computer Science/Software Engineering curricula. They offer a summative opportunity for SE students to apply their skills and knowledge in a single experience and prepare them for work in industry. Capstones have many attributes that make them a valuable high-impact practice, yet there are several challenges that can be associated with them. These challenges include the general nature of a capstone that prevents deeper applications of skills, not to mention the difficulty of creating an interesting and engaging design project upon which students can make meaningful contributions and engage in extensive team dynamics. This experience report outlines an innovative approach to a senior design capstone course that addresses common limitations of capstone courses. The SimSYS capstone course is unique in that it involved a mixed team organization involving a more senior design team who led a development team over the course of the semester, thereby leveraging the diverse experience of capstone students completing their CS/SE degree. The results point to solutions for continuing a capstone project successfully in subsequent semesters that could be of interest to other SE curriculum designers looking to develop effective capstone courses

An Outcomes-Driven Approach for Assessment

In this paper, we describe an ABET-driven assessment plan that was originally developed to address some weaknesses and concerns identified by program evaluators during a previous accreditation visit. However, faculty of the Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) seized this opportunity to embark on a major program revision making use of its newly organized Industrial Advisory Board (IAB). As a result, a five-step process that consists of 1) program assessment planning, 2) data collection, 3) data analysis, 4) program review, and 5) program improvement actions was developed. During this process, the program objectives and outcomes are evaluated and revised to maintain currency and technical relevance. Using the results from step 5, a curriculum mapping worksheet (CMW) is modified and used to revise the course-level assessment and evaluation plan. The CMW is a matrix mapping each course in the EET curriculum to appropriate program outcomes and identifies assessment tools used to measure the success of each outcome. Moreover, the CMW provides a mechanism for correlating program- level outcomes with course-level outcomes using effective assessment tools to measure student performance. Based on the results of the assessment tools, continuous improvement actions at the course level and program level are identified and used to revise the program assessment and evaluation plan which may also provide useful information to other institutions seeking ABET accreditation

The engineering design process as a model for STEM curriculum design

Engaging pedagogics have been proven to be effective in the promotion of deep learning for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. In many cases, academic institutions have shown a desire to improve education by implementing more engaging techniques in the classroom. The research framework established in this dissertation has been governed by the axiom that students should obtain a deep understanding of fundamental topics while being motivated to learn through engaging techniques. This research lays a foundation for future analysis and modeling of the curriculum design process where specific educational research questions can be considered using standard techniques. Further, a clear curriculum design process is a key step towards establishing an axiomatic approach for engineering education. A danger is that poor implementation of engaging techniques will counteract the intended effects. Poor implementation might provide students with a fun project, but not the desired deep understanding of the fundamental STEM content. Knowing that proper implementation is essential, this dissertation establishes a model for STEM curriculum design, based on the well-established engineering design process. Using this process as a perspective to model curriculum design allows for a structured approach. Thus, the framework for STEM curriculum design, established here, provides a guided approach for seamless integration of fundamental topics and engaging pedagogics. The main steps, or phases, in engineering design are: Problem Formulation, Solution Generation, Solution Analysis, and Solution Implementation. Layering engineering design with education curriculum theory, this dissertation establishes a clear framework for curriculum design. Through ethnographic engagement by this researcher, several overarching themes are revealed through the creation of curricula using the design process. The application of the framework to specific curricula was part of this dissertation research. Examples of other STEM curricula using the framework were also presented. Moreover, the framework is presented in such a way that it can be implemented by other educational design teams

Integrating Design Throughout The Mechanical Engineering Curriculum: A Focus On The Engineering Clinics

At Rowan University, we have infused design into the curriculum through an eight-semester course sequence called the Engineering Clinic. Through this experience students learn the art and science of design in a multidisciplinary team environment. While many engineering programs currently include a Capstone Design course taken near the end of the college career to meet the design needs, Engineering Clinic at Rowan allows students to hone their design skills throughout their four-year career. This paper will describe in further detail the objectives and execution of each year in the design sequence, types of projects and how the Clinics complement traditional core courses in the curriculum. Impacts and benefits of the Clinics on students and faculty are discussed, as well as comparative data of Rowan Mechanical Engineering students and their peers nationally

The Perpetual Challenge: Finding a Complementary Balance of Depth and Breadth in an Engineering Curriculum - Approach of the Electrical Engineering Faculty

The faculty of the School of Engineering conducted a thorough review of its ABET-accredited undergraduate degree programs to assess and evaluate possible changes to our curricula, both School-wide and ones specific to our programs.The aim of the intensive year-long study was to maintain the principal strengths of depth, yet allow more opportunities for students to gain additional breadth in preparation for success in a wide range of professional careers during the increasingly global nature of engineering in the 21st century. An engineering educators, we are certainly aware that finding such an appropriate balance between depth and breadth of education, especially one with complementary aspects, is an ongoing challenge.The balance point is not stagnant, but varies from time-to-time and place-to-place depending on societal needs and technological developments. The focus of this paper is to summarize our curricular changes, with their rationale, beginning with the ones that apply to all of our School\u27s curricula.The major changes include reinstituting a common first-year study to aid students in selecting a major, enhancing the capstone design sequence to encourage and facilitate more multidisciplinary projects, and designating nine semester hours of existing credits as professional electives that can be, for example, in engineering, business, or foreign languages.The specifics of these curricular changes as adopted and adapted for our Electrical Engineering program are highlighted in this paper

MAPPING PROBLEM AND REQUIREMENTS TO SOLUTION: DOCUMENT ANALYSIS OF SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS

Formulating and solving engineering problems and designing solutions that meet the established requirements are important skills that graduating engineering students need to possess. However, there are noticeable gaps in the literature with respect to understanding how the formulation of design problems and establishment of requirements affect the final design solution. This thesis is an initial attempt to understand the influence of level of detail of problem statement and requirements on the level of detail of final solution. In doing so, a document analysis of final reports from senior design class collected over a period of ten years from 1999 to 2008 is conducted. A coding scheme is developed to systematically organize and compare the information in the final design reports. Further, a data compression approach is developed to allow for the mapping of level of detail of problem statement and requirements to the level of detail of final solution. The findings of this research indicate that a low level of detail problem statement and requirements leads to no greater than a medium level of detail in the final solution. A high level of detail of final solution is more likely to result from either a high or medium level of detail of problem statement and requirements. Additionally, a high level of detail final solution is more likely to result in a high level of percentage requirements met by it. These findings are used to make several recommendations to faculty and students to improve the level of detail of final solution and consequently increase the probability of fulfilling more requirements. This assists in ensuring students possess the skills needed in the professional workforce

MAGSEAL Edge Breaking Safety Device

Team 22 was approached by the Magnetic Seal Corporation to solve a problem: develop simple electro-mechanical safety guarding for an edge-breaking and chamfering lathe. To accomplish this, the current situation was thoroughly researched, the machine inspected by the team, and a preliminary patent search conducted to survey the current body of knowledge for machine guarding. Through lessons learned from this literature search, including mounting methods, shape considerations, and a means to electrically link the guard engagement to machine operation, 120 concepts were generated by the team and classified into four groups. A Quality Function Deployment comparison was performed and in addition to sponsor feedback, a preliminary design for the guard was modeled, drawn, and prototyped. This design uses a steel frame to hold interchangeable polycarbonate panes with three con- toured holes cut therein. One hole is provided for the operator to break the outside diameter of a part, another hole expressly for the inside diameter, and a relief by which a grinding wheel can approach and apply a chamfer feature into the part at variable angles. The holes are arranged and sized so that an operator cannot fit both edge-breaking stone and finger at once, and were a slip to occur, the hand would naturally move either against the frame wherein the pane would prevent contact, or away from the machine entirely. Aluminum sheathing is used to fully enclose the operation and prevent egress of debris or dust into the operator area. A two pin support approach was theorized, but not prototyped, for attachment of the guard to the machine. Through inspection of this prototype and simulation within a faithful 3-D replica of the edge-breaking machine, this design was verified to fulfill MAGSEAL\u27s requirements. The use of the safety guard will not increase cycle time and hypothesized to not be an inconvenience to the operator. Additional work will be carried out to fit the device to the lathe, incorporate electrical integration into the power system, and adapt the guard to the full range of processed parts

Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Programs: Multidisciplinary Projects with Homes in Any Discipline

A survey of papers in the ASEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Division over the last three years shows three main areas of emphasis: individual courses; profiles of specific projects; and capstone design courses. However, propagating multidisciplinary education across the vast majority of disciplines offered at educational institutions with varying missions requires models that are independent of the disciplines, programs, and institutions in which they were originally conceived. Further, models that can propagate must be cost effective, scalable, and engage and benefit participating faculty. Since 2015, a consortium of twenty-four institutions has come together around one such model, the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program. VIP unites undergraduate education and faculty research in a team-based context, with students earning academic credits toward their degrees, and faculty and graduate students benefitting from the design/discovery efforts of their multidisciplinary teams. VIP integrates rich student learning experiences with faculty research, transforming both contexts for undergraduate learning and concepts of faculty research as isolated from undergraduate teaching. It provides a rich, cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable model for multidisciplinary project-based learning. (1) It is rich because students participate multiple years as they progress through their curriculum; (2) It is cost-effective since students earn academic credit instead of stipends; (3) It is scalable because faculty can work with teams of students instead of individual undergraduate research fellows, and typical teams consist of fifteen or more students from different disciplines; (4) It is sustainable because faculty benefit from the research and design efforts of their teams, with teams becoming integral parts of their research. While VIP programs share key elements, approaches and implementations vary by institution. This paper shows how the VIP model works across sixteen different institutions with different missions, sizes, and student profiles. The sixteen institutions represent new and long-established VIP programs, varying levels of research activity, two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), and two international universities1. Theses sixteen profiles illustrate adaptability of the VIP model across different academic settings