Engineering

From SC Education

These notes were taken at the Durham meeting March 1, 2008. Involved with the discussion were Dan Warner (warner@clemson.edu), Steve Stevenson (steve@cs.clemson.edu) and Jim Giuliani (jimg@osc.edu). Discussion was related to computing education in engineering and the upcoming meeting to be held in Columbus, OH in April.

The description for the engineering competencies workshop was reviewed and discussed. We want to develop a list of competencies. Competencies are collections of things that someone should be able to do. See the NAS Think K-12 standards lists (http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6482).

Steve uploaded a document written for K-12 districts in upstate South Carolina relating to the disconnect between K-12 and university expectations. These notes are strictly my thoughts (Steve Stevenson). They're provided here to complete the notes form the Durham workshop. File reference: http://wiki.sc-education.org/images/7/7a/DoingScience-v2.doc There is an issue concerning problem-solving coming out of K-12: there is little emphasis. The problem identified was that there is a gap between high school and freshman engineering students. The gap is the ability by the freshman engineer to understand the relationship of equations to physical phenomina and how to describe physical systems with equations. They are not coming to college with the necessary skills. Ability to understand elementary physics is critical, along with ability to solve word problems. One example provided was a 2D ballistic problem. Students could understand the vertical behavior alone, or the horizontal behavior along, but they were not able to arrive at a system of equations that described the complete problem.

What is the “canon” of engineering? What are the problems?

There is great power in physical manipulation of the physical problems. Physical-Visual experience is necessary and there is a requirement that students transfer information from visual to mental domains.

A number of math fundamentals were discussed, and we can see how these overlap with the math competency material already developed.

  - Matrices
  - Indicies
  - Units

Educational practice requires that we identify and remove misconceptions. There was a discussion about common misconceptions in physics. Physics faculty have previously looked at common misconceptions and if students were able to clarify these misconceptions during the course of a class. Analysis of this might prove insightful for engineering programs.

Science is primarily dynamic. A strong focus on examples was identified and how to produce pictures and dynamics as physical-visualization examples. There is value in physical simulators versus visualization and simulation. Physical simulators provide different information.

There is a need to form partnerships with companies.

Attitudinal changes toward computing as an important aspect of modern engineering and educational practice.

Parallelization and using high-end tools like parallel MATLAB. Open source structures and fluid solvers are currently be evaluated.

Curriculum material for workshops should focus on problems that could start with a "hands on" physical model, because engineering students appear to require additional support in moving from the physical to the visual to the mathematical. The following is a list of some "Engineering oriented" elementary problems that can be described with a series of physical models, visual models, and computational models.

Examples

1. Piston and cam (rotary and linear motion)

2. Ground water simulation

3. Trusses - determinate and indeterminate

4. Bungee jumpers - equilibrium - linear dynamics - nonlinear dynamics

5. Falling magnets

6. 3D structures - earthquakes - damping pendulum

7. Egg drop with rubber bands - estimating parameters

8. Airfoil - model plane - complex analysis - increasingly sophisticated

9. Vortex - drain

10. Water in a tub temperature - basic heat exchange model

11. Mixing models in general

12. Brachistochrone

13. World on a string (Railroad Track)

Software platforms were discussed. Open source packages/solutions have many good merits, but there are a few very good commercial packages that should be considered. COMSOL multi-physics was the package discussed.