At North Carolina State University, a member of the SUCCEED coalition, we have created a new freshman engineering laboratory, Engineering 1-2-3, in which students immediately explore engineered products and processes. In teams of two or three, the students examine six light-based products and processes by playing a series of three roles: user, assembler, and engineer analyst. Each successive identity requires a deeper technical comprehension of the device or process. To show students the manufacturing aspects involved in engineered products, the class also tours the campus microelectronics fabrication labs, a personal computer assembly line in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, and a plant which assembles equipment for producing high purity water.
We had several objectives in mind in creating this laboratory. We wanted to demonstrate that an immediate hands-on approach to learning would introduce the world of engineering to freshman students in a constructive and concrete manner. We chose the laboratory format to enhance and introduce learning in a less-formal, self-paced environment by taking advantage of collaborative learning. Finally, we wanted to show that taking students through the three-step sequence of user, assembler, and engineer would be a simple and effective method for building competence and an engineering identity.
A. Product and Process Selection
We chose modern and emerging technologies with which most of the students would have some familiarity. Six light-based technologies were selected: a bar code scanner, a compact disc player and CD-ROM system, optical fiber cables and communications, a photocopier, an ultraviolet and adsorbent water purification system, and a videocamera and videocassette recorder. Operation of these items involves aspects of math, chemistry, physics, and elementary considerations of electrical, chemical, mechanical, industrial, optical, materials, informational and communications technologies. As a result, a multi-disciplinary engineering outlook arises naturally as the students are forced to understand the operation of all aspects of the device or process and more generally, to see how different disciplines tie in to everyday devices.
B. Student Roles
By playing the roles of user, assembler, and engineer in series, students gained a successively deeper comprehension of each device and process. Each device was encountered in up to seven different formats in order to develop familiarity and comprehension of it (figure 1). The students develop an understanding of the process by which each device works (e.g., What sequence of events occurs during operation of a photocopier?) and the process engineering involved in creating the device (e.g., In what sequence must the individual water purification technologies be placed in order to best obtain the desired quality of water?). The manipulations performed by the students included reference not only to the sciences, but also to man-machine characteristics such as user-friendliness of the device and instructions, ease of serviceability, and aesthetics.
In our four week, full time summer offerings, student teams had three full days to work on each device. The first day was spent introducing the new product and performing the user role. The students read the lab manual chapter and watched a half hour video introduction of the device or process. They then tackled the chapter's user activities, which passed from the simplest functions (e.g., hooking up the stereo system and then putting in a CD and playing it) to the more demanding features (e.g., programming the CD player to play a specific sequence of songs from five different CDs).
During the second day, the students performed the assembler and engineer analyst roles. For the assembly role, the students were given a second, but inoperable, device to take apart, view, and reassemble in a specified manner (e.g., removing the covers and disassembling the photocopier to establish both the light and paper paths and to identify the location of the six functions required for image development and fixation). If there was extra time available, the students were encouraged to continue exploring the device (further disassembly, reading about technology from a small lab library, etc.). The engineering analyst section involved answering questions and solving several problems related to the device (e.g., calculating the videocamera's focal lengths and depths of field at various settings). These problems were designed to require use of high school chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
The last day on each device was spent preparing and giving oral presentations. The oral presentation format was developed accidentally, as students moved through the roles faster than we had expected during the first cycle of the experiments. To fill the remaining time, each team was asked to give a fifteen presentation to their classmates. For the first two device cycles, the students were given transparencies of illustrations and tables used in the instructional video, and asked simply to summarize how the device worked and what they experienced with it. For the next two cycles, each student was asked in addition to create a new problem related to the device and to include these problems and solutions in their individual oral presentations. At the end of the fifth cycle, the students prepared three minute lecture-demonstrations that were performed during a two hour "Open House" walk-through for our engineering administration and faculty. In the final cycle, each team also made a six minute presentation of their device in our video studio, and each student was given a copy of the video containing everyone's presentations as a course souvenir and reminder of his or her achievements.
During regular oral presentations, audience participation was at first mandated by requiring each student to ask a question after every talk. This was unnecessary, as the students were already motivated to ask as much as possible about devices which they would be experiencing in the next or later cycles. From the resulting frequent questions, the presenters enjoyed the genuine interest displayed by their classmates.
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