Undergraduate engineering education must train students to not only solve design challenges that transcend disciplinary boundaries, but also communicate, transfer knowledge, and collaborate across technical and non-technical boundaries. One approach to achieving this goal is teaching bio-inspired design (BID) in an engineering curriculum. In…

Competitive growth in today's economy requires engineers to possess innovation skills to create novel designs. An entrepreneurial mindset enables people to think and then act in a certain way to discover, evaluate, and exploit opportunities by understanding the value proposition of a new idea, identifying the potential market, and adapting ideas…

The integrity of a structural system depends on the strength of materials, shape of the individual member and the elements used to hold the members together. In most undergraduate civil engineering curricula, a structural steel and/or reinforced concrete design course is required. Usually, the main focus of these courses is on member selection…

Many interesting research and design questions occur at the intersections of traditional disciplines, yet most coursework and research programs for undergraduate engineering students are focused on one discipline. This leads to underutilization of the potential in better preparing students through multidisciplinary projects. Identifying this…

Steel connections play important roles in the integrity of a structure, and many structural failures are attributed to connection failures. Connections are the glue that holds a structure together. The failures of the Hartford Coliseum in 1977, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City in 1980, and the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in 2007 are all…

Improving high school physics teaching and learning is important to the long-term success of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Efforts are currently in place to develop an understanding of science among high school students through formal and informal educational experiences in engineering design activities…

The new standards for K-12 science education in the United States call for science teachers to integrate engineering concepts and practices within their science teaching in order to improve student learning. To accomplish this, teachers need appropriate instructional materials as well as the knowledge and skills to effectively use them. This mixed…

The objective of this exploratory study was to describe patterns in self-regulated learning (SRL) for both high school students and college freshmen while engaged in a design activity. The main research question guiding this study was: How did high school and first-year college students self-regulate their approaches to learning when engaged in an…

A solar power collector optimization design project has been developed for use in undergraduate classrooms and/or laboratories. The design optimization depends on understanding the current-voltage characteristics of the starting photovoltaic cells as well as how the cell's electrical response changes with increased light illumination. Students…

Our department has redesigned its electrical engineering and computer engineering programs completely by adopting a learning methodology based on competence development, problem solving, and the realization of design projects. In this article, we show how this pedagogical approach has been successfully used for learning compiler design.

Model-eliciting activities (MEA), specially designed client-drive, open-ended problems, have been implemented in a first-year engineering course and in secondary schools. The educational goals and settings are different, but the design of an MEA enables it to be versatile. This paper will introduce the reader to the principles that guide MEA…

We have designed model-development sequences using a common context to provide authentic problem-solving experiences for first-year students. The model-development sequence takes a model-eliciting activity a step further by engaging students in the exploration and adaptation of a mathematical model (e.g., procedure, algorithm, method) for solving…

Problem Statement: Vogtle Electric Generating Plant operated by Southern Nuclear Operating Company, a subsidiary of Southern Company, has found itself at a decision point. Vogtle depends on their natural draft cooling towers to remove heat from the power cycle. Depending on the efficiency of the towers, the cycle can realize more or less power…

The Mechanical Engineering Section at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy has developed a comprehensive activity based course to introduce second year students to mechanical engineering design. The culminating design activity for the course requires students to design, construct and test robotic devices that complete engineering challenges. Teams of…

An animatronic robot was designed and constructed for the 2003 Annual Student Robotic Technology and Engineering Challenge organized by the Robotics International (RI) association of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). It was also the senior capstone design project for two of the design team members. After a thorough study of body and…