An Integration of PC Hardware & Software in Teaching Engineering Technology Courses

As technology advances, the price of a PC drops dramatically. This trend has resulted in PCs that are complex, powerful, and very affordable. Today\u27s PC is a popular and essential tool in teaching software programming course(s) in C, C++, Visual Basic, or Java, running commercial software supporting courses in circuit simulation/design or circuit board layout, and acting as a workstation to gain access to the Internet or LAN networks. In most Engineering Technology curricula there is a limited amount of linkage between those PC applications. The actual effort to merge the hard-gained knowledge of hardware & software concepts together through a useful project implementation is also rare. This article is aimed at using the PC in ET upper-level courses as a focal point to help to reinforce knowledge between different fields of interest, such as communication, automation control, microprocessor, software programming, and system integration

A return to the "Rules of Thumb" in Maritime Engineering for digital native students

Engineering and technical degrees are difficult to teach and, consequently, have always been characterized by a large number of academic failures. That is the reason why different methodologies have been applied to classes of similar content in different countries [1]. Among these methodologies, it is noteworthy to mention audio/visual resources as a useful tool to improve the teaching of coastal engineering [2], which means more students that pass the coastal engineering courses [3]. Moreover, use of GPS and Google Earth have also shown to be useful tools to improve the learning process [4]. Nevertheless, the authors have not found anything about the use of “rules of thumb” as a better way for students to improve their comprehension of the basic knowledge of an engineering subject. This paper shows the teaching experience on Maritime Engineering for undergraduate students of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of Seville (Spain). The application of new information technologies in classrooms and advanced training in the use of finite element software tools and programming languages gives our students extremely powerful tools for solving very complex engineering problems with excellent results. However, the enormous effort invested by the students in acquiring this advanced knowledge and to be up to date in using and commanding on these technologies leads them to focus their main efforts, attention and skills just toward the numerical resolution of the problem, the efficiency of the implemented algorithm, and the programming language difficulties. This puts aside the essential and the critical sense of the accuracy of the results obtained by the algorithm. The students do not get the physical ‘feeling’ of what’s happening in the algorithm. We have included a teaching sequence in our lesson programs that always starts with an historical review of the different approaches used by engineers in their times in order to solve engineering problems from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century to today. This method makes the students to appreciate the importance and wits required by those men in the past in facing a difficult task when they didn’t have a PC or powerful software. The “rules of thumb” in engineering become a powerful tool for the digital native students which helps them make sense and enjoy the study and programming when they finally find out that their algorithm responds with reasonable accuracy and orders of magnitude to the result expected beforehand. Simply applying "rules of thumb" and well-known approximations of the past, perhaps obsolete from a technical point of view, will help the student learn the process. Some examples will be given in this paper in order to show the use of these “rules of thumb” or simplified models in class for teaching Maritime Engineering subject. Among them: the dimensionless stability number of Vicente Negro [5] for the design of the armour layer blocks in breakwaters, the Iribarren’s wave drawings [6], the US Army Corps of Engineers Shore Protection Manual Graphs and plates, etc

Introduction of an Assistance System to Support Domain Experts in Programming Low-code to Leverage Industry 5.0

The rapid technological leaps of Industry 4.0 increase the pressure and demands on humans working in automation, which is one of the main motivators of Industry 5.0. In particular, automation software development for mechatronic systems becomes increasingly challenging, as both domain knowledge and programming skills are required for high-quality, maintainable software. Especially for small companies from automation and robotics without dedicated software engineering departments, domain-specific low-code platforms become indispensable that enable domain experts to develop code intuitively using visual programming languages, e.g., for tasks such as retrofitting mobile machines. However, for extensive functionalities, visual programs may become overwhelming due to the scaling-up problem. In addition, the ever-shortening time-to-market increases the time pressure on programmers. Thus, an assistance system concept is introduced that can be implemented by low-code platform suppliers based on combining data mining and static code analysis. Domain experts are supported in developing low-code by targeted recommendations, metric-based complexity measurement, and reducing complexity by encapsulating functionalities. The concept is implemented for the industrial low-code platform HAWE eDesign to program hydraulic components in mobile machines, and its benefits are confirmed in a user study and an industrial expert workshop.Comment: 8 pages, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/983945

A Quantitative SWOT-TOWS Analysis for the Adoption of Model-Based Software Engineering

Enterprises’ trend to low-code development revives model-based software engineering (MBSE) since several low-code platforms are based on the principles of model-based design, automatic code generation, and visual programming. Changes in an enterprise’s software development process, however, always require strategic planning. To find an appropriate strategy, we present an analytical tool for identifying and evaluating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats factors for the adoption of MBSE. This tool provides a SWOT-TOWS analysis supplemented by a quantitative evaluation of strategies based on a multiple-criteria decision technique drawing on the knowledge of industry experts. Our analytical tool is general so it can be used in the industrial context for making other strategic decisions.Fil: Escalona, María José. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: de Koch, Nora Parcus. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: Rossi, Gustavo Héctor. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Development of 3D image manipulation software utilizing the microsoft kinect

Studying Engineering at Murdoch University enables students to experience many facets of engineering. In the Electrical Engineering based courses there is a vital need to have an understanding of various programming languages and methods and then explore ways in which this knowledge can be utilised. This document describes how the Microsoft Kinect can be utilized to control 3D images, specifically medical images, through the use of programming skills and software development kits. This project involves learning how the Microsoft Kinect sensor actually works and requires the development of two programs that utilised this sensor and can be easily implemented. The first program is designed to display information that the Kinect sensor is able to detect. By developing this program, it enables a user to quickly gain an understanding of what data is available for manipulation. The second program is designed to manipulate a generic 3D image through the use of a set of gestures initiated by the user. This enables the user to see how the information retrieved from the sensor in the first program can be manipulated for useful purposes, by the creation of algorithms. The development of these two programs required the learning of a new language. The language that was used is called C#, and it is a complex object orientated language. Through the use of the language in the Microsoft Visual Studios 2010 programming environment, it was possible to create the programs through many iterations of development. The thesis documents how this approach was made, both the method of learning C# and also incorporating and utilising the benefits of C# into the programs. From the research conducted it was found that creating effective gestures was quite difficult as it required some form of predictive logic, and that incorporating medical 3D imagery was at a completely different level of programming skills. Despite these difficulties an effective, easy to use and modifiable program was developed that will allow future research to continue in this field. Therefore possible future projects and developments are also discussed in order to give the reader an idea of what the sensor is capable of if time and knowledge are readily available

An Integrated Engineering-Computation Framework for Collaborative Engineering: An Application in Project Management

Today\u27s engineering applications suffer from a severe integration problem. Engineering, the entire process, consists of a myriad of individual, often complex, tasks. Most computer tools support particular tasks in engineering, but the output of one tool is different from the others\u27. Thus, the users must re-enter the relevant information in the format required by another tool. Moreover, usually in the development process of a new product/process, several teams of engineers with different backgrounds/responsibilities are involved, for example mechanical engineers, cost estimators, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, and project manager. Engineers need a tool(s) to share technical and managerial information and to be able to instantly access the latest changes made by one member, or more, in the teams to determine right away the impacts of these changes in all disciplines (cost, time, resources, etc.). In other words, engineers need to participate in a truly collaborative environment for the achievement of a common objective, which is the completion of the product/process design project in a timely, cost effective, and optimal manner. In this thesis, a new framework that integrates the capabilities of four commercial software, Microsoft Excel™ (spreadsheet), Microsoft Project™ (project management), What\u27s Best! (an optimization add-in), and Visual Basic™ (programming language), with a state-of-the-art object-oriented database (knowledge medium), InnerCircle2000™ is being presented and applied to handle the Cost-Time Trade-Off problem in project networks. The result was a vastly superior solution over the conventional solution from the viewpoint of data handling, completeness of solution space, and in the context of a collaborative engineering-computation environment

The Stores Model of Code Cognition

Program comprehension is perhaps one of the oldest topics within the psychology of programming. It addresses a central issue: how programmers work with and manipulate source code to construct effective software systems. Models can play an important role in understanding the challenges developers and engineers contend with. This paper presents a model of program comprehension, or code cognition, which has been derived from literature found within the disciplines of computing and psychology. Drawing on direct experimentation, this paper argues that a model of code cognition should take account of the visual, spatial and linguistic abilities of developers. The strengths and weaknesses of this model are discussed and further research directions presented