ASEE Trip Report – Summer ‘01

Prepared by C. S. Tritt, Ph.D.

I attended the American Society of Engineering Educators annual meeting in Albuquerque, NM in late June 2001.

My overall impression and ideas –

MSOE’s Biomedical Engineering program is very good. I should give more consideration to spreadsheet based explicit, finite-difference methods for solving heat and mass transfer problems. Challenge (or project) based approaches to teach are getting popular and have significant merit. MathCAD should be reconsidered as a problem solving to (and web authoring tool) provided that improve their support of thermodynamic functions. As part of the conference I visited the National Atomic Museum (including the Spy-Fi Archives exhibit). It was great. It compliments the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio wonderfully.

I have the Conference Proceedings CD and would be happy to loan it out.

Comments Regarding Specific Sessions and Papers –

Session 1109 Student Learning Beyond Lectures

Assessment of Biomedical Engineering Student Learning Styles

The speaker described a study comparing the learning styles of Biomedical Engineering students to other engineering students at Tulane University. The researchers used Felder’s Index of Learning Styles. Results indicated that B.E. students generally had the same learning styles as other engineering students. However, significant variations among classes were observed. In general, B.E. students were found to be Active, Sensory, Visual and Global learners. The conflict between these typical learning styles and traditional engineering lectures was noted. This paper is not on the proceedings CD.

Introducing Freshmen to BME Design

The objective of the program described was to excite and motivate B.E. freshman to improve retention. Topics taught included gathering information, structuring the problem, generating alternatives, testing concepts and getting user feedback. Sources of information recommended included the NSF Coalition and the NEED Program. Conclusions and observations included that freshmen can learn from early design experiences and that coaching and mentoring is more important than lecturing. This paper is not on the proceedings CD.

An Immersion Term in Biomedical Mechanics

This presentation described graduate program in which students from Cornell study at the Hospital for Special Surgery. The university and hospital are far apart so this is a residency program. Topics covered include safety and the physical facility (the standard program for all new hospital employees, academic course work, observation of clinical and research medicine and an independent study. The independent studies generally involve the investigation of failed implants. The program has been evaluating using exit interviews. The students reported liking operating room visits the most and clinical laboratory tours the least. The intensity of the program was reported to be valuable. Students were found to learn medical terminology while doing chart reviews for their independent steadies. They were assigned medical residents to answer their clinical and research medicine questions. The researchers feel that a major benefit of the program is the strengthening of research collaborations between the university and the hospital. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Biomedical Engineering Senior Capstone Research

This presentation described a two course senior capstone research experience at the University of Hartford. I found it interesting that this has, in fact, been a research, rather than design, experience for B.E. students. A new course is being added to the program to meet ABET design requirements. In the program, students work off-campus on a research project. The first semesters generally involves learning about their project and the second with actually working on their project. The experience provides students with the opportunity gain clinical experience, explore possible employment and graduate school options and to be independently evaluated (by their mentors). This evaluation component will also be used as part of the school’s ABET assessment plan. The program involves about 5 students a year and the author indicate that scale-up would be difficult. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Rabbit Season: A Freshmen Engineering Laboratory Exercise

I described my battery laboratory exercise. This exercise is based on the IEC 60086 standard. The exercise described provides an opportunity to address ABET Criteria 3a (knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering), 3b (design and conduct of experiments; analysis and interpretation of data) and 3g (ability to communicate effectively). The experiments described are time consuming (requiring about 1 hour per day for 8 days to obtain their data and another 4 to 8 hours to prepare their reports). However, students found them interesting and informative. This paper (and the experiment described) is on the proceedings CD.

Main Plenary

Mr. Dean Kamen spoke about the FIRST robotic competition he started about 8 years ago to provide high school students a chance to discover how interesting and exciting engineering can be. Mr. Kamen was a very soft spoken, but inspiring. He feels that engineers need to be more aggressive about promoting their profession. He seem genuinely interested in the need to excite kids, particularly women and minorities, about careers in engineering and science. The FIRST program is modeled on athletics programs. School teams are sponsored by nearby companies and universities. Competitions have the feel of athletic events (with bands, cheerleaders and media coverage). Teams have 6 weeks to design and build their robots and can receive essentially unlimited assistance from their sponsors. Students operate the robots during the competitions. Mr. Kamen would like to have more universities sponsor teams.

Session 1309 – Curriculum Development in Biomedical Engineering

A New BME Undergraduate Curriculum

The curriculum for a new undergraduate BME program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville was described. The first year of the program does not involve any B.E. courses. It focuses on common engineering and science fundamental. The program does not appear to include organic or biochemistry courses. All the general education electives in the program appear in the last semester. All BME laboratory material appears to be covered in a single, dedicated course in the first semester of the senior year. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Challenge versus Taxonomy Driven Biomechanics Education

This presentation described a new challenge-driven biomechanics course. A series of modules (design problems) were developed. These modules are presented to the students with the intent of covering all the topics covered in a more traditional course. The modules appeared to be very well design. The presentation also covered a Personal Response System (PRS). This system provided students with the opportunity to respond to the instructor’s questions in anonymously and in real time. Using this system, the presenter observed a distinction between students’ ability to recognize and generate answers to biomechanics problems. The presenter was very positive about the use of this type of system. The presenter also recommended the book “How People Learn.” That presentation, and paper, clearly stated the topics the authors felt were important and briefly described each module. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

A Novel Foundation Course for BME

In this presentation, the curriculum for a new BME program at Rice University was described. In the program, students are required to take seven core courses in Bioengineering. The core courses include the following (1 semester each): Conservation Principles in Biology and Medicine - conservation of mass, momentum, charge and energy in biological systems; Biosystems Transport and Reaction Processes - momentum, heat and mass transport and reaction processes in the human body; Systems Physiology - physiology at the organism, tissue and cellular levels; Biomechanics and Biomaterials - force analysis, mechanics of deformation, biomechanics of tissue, physical and chemical properties of biomaterials; Tissue Culture Laboratory - sterile technique; cell proliferation and transfection assays; Bioengineering Design - design of process or product, FDA regulations, economics; and Advanced Bioengineering Laboratory - laboratory modules in biomaterials, biomechanics, systems physiology, instrumentation, bioprocessing and ethics. To enhance knowledge in one area of Bioengineering, students select one of three emphasis areas or tracks: (a) Cellular and Molecular Engineering, (b) Systems Engineering and Biomedical Instrumentation, or (c) Biomaterials and Biomechanics. Students take a minimum of five elective courses that expose them to important problems in their chosen track. I note that circuits is not a required part of this program.

The outline of a sophomore level foundation course was also described in good detail. The course is based on the conservation (or balance or accounting) concept. In this well conceived and designed course, the idea of conservation is used to develop fundamental mass, momentum, charge and energy equations for biological systems. The notes for this course are being developed into a textbook. All the examples in the course are taken from biomedical areas. The course also includes some case studies and an interview assignment. The interview assignment involves groups of students interviewing biomedical professionals on campus (during a provided lunch). The course also involves a design assignment with written and oral reports. This presenter noted that the course was based on concepts similar to those used in Texas A&M’s unified approach.

This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Quantitative Phystrumentation

Phystrumentation is the term the authors use to describe biomedical instrumentation the students build and use to make physiological measurements on themselves. The objective of this approach is to help students associate their early classroom work with the applications included in higher-level courses. The implementation of this approach requires that circuits and devices courses be placed in the sophomore year so that students are prepared for the simultaneous presentation of instrumentation and physiology concepts in the junior year. The laboratories for these courses are combined. In addition to building measurement instrumentation the students also build a stimulator to use in experiments on animal preparations. This paper is not on the proceedings CD.

Session 1426 – Innovative Laboratory Instruction

A Laboratory for an Electronic Systems Design Course

This presentation described 15 experiments using Analog Devices’ integrated circuits. This paper is on the proceedings CD and includes circuit diagrams and laboratory experiments.

Session 2266 – Fluid and Thermal Systems

This was the last session I attended and by far the most interesting and useful.

Learning Differential-Equation Aspects of Fluid Mechanics with Spreadsheet Facilitated Computational Fluid Dynamics

Due to a late bus pick-up, I only got to the last few minutes of this presentation. However, it sounded like the approach being described would be useful in my transport classes. This paper, that includes finite difference solution formulations, is on the proceedings CD.

Improving Undergraduate Fluid Mechanics

An NFS sponsored workshop was described in this presentation. This workshop was initially intended to respond to the perceived drop in the theoretical rigor of undergraduate fluid mechanics courses and to create an on-line pool of rigorous problems. Popular textbooks by Fox & McDonald and Munson and flow visualization CD’s by Homsy were recommended. However, the result of the workshop was the need for a collection of web or CD based demonstrations and laboratory procedures. An eJournal format was proposed to motivate faculty members to prepare and submit material to this collection. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Teaching Thermodynamics without Table: Isn’t it time?

The presenter described his positive experience with using EES in his thermodynamics courses. This experience is consistent with my own. One concern the author expressed was that all current thermodynamic textbooks make extensive use of tables in example and homework problems. A concern was also expressed about the need to simultaneously update the FE exam with any removal of table usage from undergraduate courses. This presentation provoked a good deal of discussion. During the discussion, the desire for steam tables and other thermodynamic function functions was expressed. Other software packages described during the discussion included MathCAD, TEACH, TKSolver with its thermodynamics package and CATT2. The distinction was made between computerized thermodynamic tables and inclusion of thermodynamic functions in computerized arithmetic packages. The existence of thermodynamic function on modern calculators was also noted. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

A Team-Oriented, Project Based Approach for Undergraduate Heat Transfer Instruction

This paper described a series of problems to be used in a heat transfer course. The concept seems similar to the one described in the “Challenge versus Taxonomy Driven Biomechanics Education” presentation, but with less educational terminology. Problems assigned in the course include a 2-D ice rink, a 3-D steady-state integrated circuit, a 3-D transient welding, a 2-D transient cylindrical coordinate automotive intake valve and a 3-D combined radiation/convection transient heating of a sheet of plastic situations. The paper describes the problems, but not the explicit finite difference spreadsheet formulations for the solutions. The lecture time in the course was reduced by 50% to provide time for in class discussion. No exams were given in the course. Instead, grades were based on the project results. Peer evaluation was used to monitor the teams and is described in the paper. This paper is on the proceedings CD.

Computational Paradigms in Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Education

This was a presentation of survey results. It compared the use of high-level computer languages to arithmetic engines (like MathCAD). The survey was conducted in 2000 and responses were received from 73 programs. The results showed that about three-fourths of the programs required at least one course in structured programming. However, only one-third of the programs requiring a formal programming course used programming in two or more required courses. More than three-fourths of all programs used arithmetic systems such as Matlab or MathCAD. About the same number required a junior-level analysis course. A comment was made during the discussion of this paper that, “the days of amateur programming are over.” This paper is on the proceedings CD.