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1. Additive Manufacturing Studios: a New Way of Teaching ABET Student Outcomes and Continuous Improvement

   Fidan, Ismail ; Chitiyo, George ; Singer, Thomas ; Moradmand, Jamshid ( January 2018 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   The Additive Manufacturing Workforce Advancement Training Coalition and Hub (AM-WATCH) targets to address gaps in the current knowledge base of manufacturing professionals through the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) based educational materials, delivery of professional development activities, support provided to 30+ instructors per year, and expanded outreach activities targeting K-12 and community college teachers and students. Tennessee Tech University is collaborating with the University of Louisville, Sinclair Community College, National Resource Center for Materials Technology Education, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and industry in the development of cutting-edge and multi-dimensional educational modules and activities for instructors. Developed materials are presented to 30+ instructors through intensive two-day AM Studios every year. While instructors learn the latest trends and technologies in AM, they also grasp the ABET Student Outcomes and Continuous Improvement. This paper reports the current practices made in these studios and feedback received from the instructors. 

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2. Transforming Industry towards Smart Manufacturing in the United States

   Arnold, Ryan ; Fidan, Ismail ; Tantawi, Khalid ( October 2018 , National NSF-ATE Conference)

   The necessity for educational programs in advanced manufacturing became prominent during the economic crisis in 2007 when the demand of industrial plants was for already trained highly-skilled laborers. To respond to this demand, many advanced manufacturing educational pro-grams, such as mechatronics, were developed in community and technical colleges. Since it was officially defined in the United States Congress in 2015, Smart Manufacturing (SM) has increasingly been under the spotlight. However, current efforts in deploying SM technologies in the US do not provide a workforce trained to utilize and perform SM technologies and techniques. Graduates of mechatronics and other advanced manufacturing programs remain mostly unaware of the technologies of Smart Manufacturing, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), Industry 4.0 standards, and the capacity and range of applications of additive manufacturing and high-precision subtractive manufacturing technologies from tooling to end-user products. The programs currently available do not provide workforce training on SM technologies that target community and technical colleges, which supply a significant percentage of the industrial workforce. In the project Smart Manufacturing for America’s Revolutionizing Technological Transformation (SMART2), this gap in workforce training is met by providing the needed training to career technical education (CTE) and STEM educators in mechatronics and engineering technology. This project is a collaborative effort among three institutions and provides professional training for faculty of advanced manufacturing education programs and an online knowledge-base platform for educators and manufacturers, as well as on-ground training work-shops and educational modules. 

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3. NSF: Integrative Manufacturing and Production Engineering Education Leveraging Data Science Program (IMPEL)

   Moghaddam, M. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access,)

   IMPEL is a transformative workforce education and training program that addresses the current and projected skills gaps and requirements in data science in the US manufacturing sector. The mission of IMPEL is to facilitate lifelong learning for the production engineering STEM workforce through designing sustainable, pedagogically proven data science curricula via modular courses with interactive online learning labs and experiential project-based learning. The planned tasks for IMPEL include an online curriculum design and development targeting professionals, undergraduates and community college students interested in advancing their skills in data science in the context of Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing. The project team has accomplished several main tasks towards the goals of the project in Year 1, to be detailed in this paper. 

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4. Creating and Assessing an Upper Division Additive Manufacturing Course and Laboratory to Enhance Undergraduate Research and Innovation

   Maloney, P ; Li, B ; Zhang, M ; Cong, W. ( June 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   This NSF IUSE project is on the Exploration and Design Tier and the Engaged Student Learning Track. It is aimed at better preparing the country’s professional workforce in the renaissance of U.S. skilled manufacturing by creating new personnel proficient in additive manufacturing (AM). AM is mainstream; it has the potential to bring jobs back to the U.S. and add to the nation’s global competitiveness. AM is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D data in a layer upon layer fashion. The objectives are to develop, assess, revise, and disseminate an upper division course and laboratory, “Additive Manufacturing,” and to advance undergraduate and K-12 student research and creative inquiry activities as well as faculty expertise at three diverse participating universities: Texas Tech, California State Northridge, and Kansas State. This research/pedagogical team contains a mechanical engineering professor at each university to develop and teach the course, as well as a sociologist trained in K-12 outreach, course assessment, and human subjects research to accurately determine the effects on K-12 and undergraduate students. The proposed course will cover extrusion-based, liquid-based, and powder-based AM processes. For each technology, fundamentals, applications, and advances will be discussed. Students will learn solutions to AM of polymers, metals, and ceramics. Two lab projects will be built to provide hands-on experiences on a variety of state-of-the-art 3D printers. To stimulate innovation, students will design, fabricate, and measure test parts, and will perform experiments to explore process limits and tackle real world problems. They will also engage K-12 students through video demonstrations and mentorship, thus developing presentation skills. Through the project, different pedagogical techniques and assessment tools will be utilized to assess and improve engineering education at both the undergraduate and K-12 levels through varied techniques: i) undergraduate module lesson plans that are scalable to K-12 levels, ii) short informational video lessons created by undergraduates for K-12 students with accompanying in-person mentorship activities at local high schools and MakerSpaces, iii) pre- and post-test assessments of undergraduates’ and K-12 participating students’ AM knowledge, skills, and perceptions of self-efficacy, and iv) focus groups to learn about student concerns/learning challenges. We will also track students institutionally and into their early careers to learn about their use of AM technology professionally. 

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5. Creating and Assessing an Upper Division Additive Manufacturing Course and Laboratory to Enhance Undergraduate Research and Innovation

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--30124  

   Maloney, Patricia A ; Li, Bingbing ; Zhang, Meng ; Cong, Weilong ( June 2018 , 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This NSF IUSE project is on the Exploration and Design Tier and the Engaged Student Learning Track. It is aimed at better preparing the country’s professional workforce in the renaissance of U.S. skilled manufacturing by creating new personnel proficient in additive manufacturing (AM). AM is mainstream; it has the potential to bring jobs back to the U.S. and add to the nation’s global competitiveness. AM is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D data in a layer upon layer fashion. The objectives are to develop, assess, revise, and disseminate an upper division course and laboratory, “Additive Manufacturing,” and to advance undergraduate and K-12 student research and creative inquiry activities as well as faculty expertise at three diverse participating universities: Texas Tech, California State-Northridge, and Kansas State. This research/pedagogical team contains a mechanical engineering professor at each university to develop and teach the course, as well as a sociologist trained in K-12 outreach, course assessment, and human subjects research to accurately determine the effects on K-12 and undergraduate students. The proposed course will cover extrusion-based, liquid-based, and powder-based AM processes. For each technology, fundamentals, applications, and advances will be discussed. Students will learn solutions to AM of polymers, metals, and ceramics. Two lab projects will be built to provide hands-on experiences on a variety of state-of-the-art 3D printers. To stimulate innovation, students will design, fabricate, and measure test parts, and will perform experiments to explore process limits and tackle real world problems. They will also engage K-12 students through video demonstrations and mentorship, thus developing presentation skills. Through the project, different pedagogical techniques and assessment tools will be utilized to assess and improve engineering education at both the undergraduate and K-12 levels through varied techniques: i) undergraduate module lesson plans that are scalable to K-12 levels, ii) short informational video lessons created by undergraduates for K-12 students with accompanying in-person mentorship activities at local high schools and MakerSpaces, iii) pre- and post-test assessments of undergraduates’ and K-12 participating students’ AM knowledge, skills, and perceptions of self-efficacy, and iv) focus groups to learn about student concerns/learning challenges. We will also track students institutionally and into their early careers to learn about their use of AM technology professionally. 

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