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1. WIP: Hands-On Statics in the Online “Classroom”

   Davishahl, Eric ; Self, Brian P. ; Fuentes, Mathew Parsons ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Engineering instructors often use physical manipulatives such as foam beams, rolling cylinders, and large representations of axis systems to demonstrate mechanics concepts and help students visualize systems. Additional benefits are possible when manipulatives are in the hands of individual students or small teams of students who can explore concepts at their own pace and focus on their specific points of confusion. Online learning modalities require new strategies to promote spatial visualization and kinesthetic learning. Potential solutions include creating videos of the activities, using CAD models to demonstrate the principles, programming computer simulations, and providing hands-on manipulatives to students for at-home use. This Work-in-Progress paper discusses our experiences with this last strategy in statics courses two western community colleges and a western four-year university where we supplied students with their own hands-on kits. We have previously reported on the successful implementation of a hands-on statics kit consisting of 3D printed components and standard hardware. The kit was originally designed for use by teams of students during class to engage with topics such as vectors, moments, and rigid body equilibrium. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and shift to online instruction, the first author developed a scaled down version of themore »kit for at-home use by individual students and modified the associated activity worksheets accordingly. For the community college courses, local students picked up their models at the campus bookstore. We also shipped some of the kits to students who were unable to come to campus, including some in other countries. Due to problems with printing and availability of materials, only 18 kits were available for the class of 34 students at the university implementation. Due to this circumstance, students were placed in teams and asked to work together virtually, one student showing the kit to the other student as they worked through the worksheet prompts. One community college instructor took this approach as well for a limited number of international students who did not receive their kits in a timely manner due to shipping problems. Two instructors assigned the hands-on kits as asynchronous learning activities in their respective online courses, with limited guidance on their use. The third used the kits primarily in synchronous online class meetings. We found that students’ reaction to the models varied by pilot site and presume that implementation differences contributed to this variation. In all cases, student feedback was less positive than it has been for face-to-face courses that used the models from which the take home kit was adapted. Our main conclusion is that implementation matters. Doing hands-on learning in an online course requires some fundamental rethinking about how the learning is structured and scaffolded.« less
2. 3D-Printed Laboratory Equipment for Vibrations and Control Theory Courses: Pendulum, Cantilever Beam, and Rectilinear System

   https://doi.org/10.1115/IMECE2021-69866  

   Garcia, Martin ; Estrada, Benji ; Lucier, Elizabeth ; Tekes, Coskun ; Utschig, Tris ; Tekes, Ayse ( November 2021 , ASME 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition)

   Learning by doing has proven to have numerous advantages over traditionally taught courses in which the instructor teaches the topic while students remain passive learners with little engagement. Although laboratories give hands-on opportunities for undergraduate mechanical engineering students, they have to wait for a semester for the lab course for instance the prerequisite of the vibrations and control laboratory is the mechanical vibrations course. Since the nature of the dynamics branch consisted of dynamics, vibrations, and control theory courses are highly mathematical, students struggle comprehending the introduced topic and relate the theory to its real-world application area. Furthermore, it’s almost impossible for an instructor to bring the existing educational laboratory equipment to the class since they are bulky and heavy. The advents in manufacturing technology such as additive manufacturing bring us more opportunities to build complex systems new materials.

   This study presents the design, development, and implementation of low-cost, 3D printed vibratory mechanisms to be utilized in mechanical vibrations, control theory courses along with their associated laboratories. A pendulum, cantilever beam integrated with springs, and a rectilinear system consisted of two sliding carts, translational springs, and a scotch yoke mechanism are designed. The main parts of the mechanisms aremore »3D printed using polylactic acid (PLA), polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG), and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU).

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3. Developing Resources to Support Comprehensive Transfer Engineering Curricula: Assessing the Effectiveness of a Hybrid Materials Science Course

   https://doi.org/10.18260/p.26769  

   Dunmire, Erik ; Enriquez, Amelito ; Langhoff, Nicholas ; Rebold, Thomas ; Schiorring, Eva ( June 2016 , 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   A substantial percentage of engineering graduates, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, complete their lower-division education at a community college before transferring to a university to earn their degree. However, engineering programs at many community colleges, because of their relatively small scale with often only one permanent faculty member, struggle to offer lower-division engineering courses with the breadth and frequency needed by students for effective and efficient transfer preparation. As a result, engineering education becomes impractical and at times inaccessible for many community college students. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to increase the availability and accessibility of the engineering curriculum by developing resources and teaching strategies to enable small-to-medium sized community college engineering programs to support a comprehensive set of lower-division engineering courses. These resources were developed for use in a variety of delivery formats (e.g., fully online, online/hybrid, flipped face-to-face, etc.), providing flexibility for local community colleges to leverage according to their individual needs. This paper focuses on the development and testing of the resources for an introductory Materials Science course with 3-unit lecture and 1-unit laboratory components. Although most of themore »course resources were developed to allow online delivery if desired, the laboratory curriculum was designed to require some limited face-to-face interaction with traditional materials testing equipment. In addition to the resources themselves, the paper presents the results of the pilot implementation of the course during the Spring 2015 semester, taught using a flipped delivery format consisting of asynchronous remote viewing of lecture videos and face-to-face student-centered problem-solving and lab exercises. These same resources were then implemented in a flipped format by an instructor who had never previously taught the course, at a community college that did not have its own materials laboratory facilities. Site visits were arranged with a nearby community college to afford students an opportunity to complete certain lab activities using traditional materials testing equipment. In both implementations of the course, student surveys and interviews were used to determine students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the course resources, student use of these resources, and overall satisfaction with the course. Additionally, student performance on assessments was compared with that of traditional lecture delivery of the courses in prior years.« less
4. Designing and 3D Printing Lab Equipment for Mechanical Vibrations Course and Laboratory: Work in Progress

   https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2021-71427  

   Lewis, Josh ; Estrada, Benjamin ; Pena, Paul ; Garcia, Martin ; Tekes, Ayse ( August 2021 , ASME 2021 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference)

   Undergraduate mechanical engineering students struggle in comprehending the fundamentals presented in an introductory level mechanical vibrations course which eventually affects their performance in the posterior courses such as control theory. One salient factor to this is missing the visualization of the concept with hands-on learning since the vibrations and control laboratory course is offered in the following semester. This study presents the design, development of three portable and 3D-printed compliant vibratory mechanisms actuated by a linear motor and their implementation in vibrations course and vibrations and control laboratory. The proposed setups consist of flexible and compliant springs, sliders, and base support. Mechanisms are utilized to demonstrate free and forced vibrations, resonation, and design of a passive isolator. In addition to the 3D-printed, portable lab equipment, we created the Matlab Simscape GUI program of each setup so instructors can demonstrate the fundamentals in the classroom, assign homework, project, in-class activity or design laboratory.
5. An initial exploration of the perspectives and experiences of diverse learners’ acceptance of online educational engineering games as learning tools in the classroom

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE43999.2019.9028605  

   Cook-Chennault, Kimberly ; Villanueva, Idalis ( October 2019 , An initial exploration of the perspectives and experiences of diverse learners' acceptance of online educational engineering games as learning tools in the classroom)

   This Work-In-Progress falls within the research category of study and, focuses on the experiences and perceptions of first- and second year engineering students when using an online engineering game that was designed to enhance understanding of statics concepts. Technology and online games are increasingly being used in engineering education to help students gain competencies in technical domains in the engineering field. Less is known about the way that these online games are designed and incorporated into the classroom environment and how these factors can ignite inequitable perspectives and experiences among engineering students. Also, little if any work that combines the TAM model and intersectionality of race and gender in engineering education has been done, though several studies have been modified to account for gender or race. This study expands upon the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by exploring perspectives of intersectional groups (defined as women of color who are engineering students). A Mixed Method Sequential Exploratory Research Design approach was used that extends the TAM model. Students were asked to play the engineering educational game, complete an open-ended questionnaire and then to participate in a focus group. Early findings suggest that while many students were open to learning to use themore »game and recommended inclusion of online engineering educational games as learning tools in classrooms, only a few indicated that they would use this tool to prepare for exams or technical job interviews. Some of the main themes identified in this study included unintended perpetuation of inequality through bias in favor of students who enjoyed competition-based learning and assessment of knowledge, and bias for students having prior experience in playing online games. Competition-based assessment related to presumed learning of course content enhanced student anxiety and feelings of intimidation and led to some students seeking to “game the game” versus learning the material, in efforts to achieve grade goals. Other students associated use of the game and the classroom weighted grading with intense stress that led them to prematurely stop the use of the engineering tool. Initial findings indicate that both game design and how technology is incorporated into the grading and testing of learning outcomes, influence student perceptions of the technology’s usefulness and ultimately the acceptance of the online game as a "learning tool." Results also point to the need to explore how the crediting and assessment of students’ performance and learning gains in these types of games could yield inequitable experiences in these types of courses.« less