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Dr.Bob Bednarz,
Geography 306

Dr. Margaret Ezell,
English 481

Dr. Don Maxwell,
Engineering 111-112

Dr. Arun Srinivasa,
Engineering 111-112

Engineering 111-112
Coordinated by       

Dr. Don Maxwell , Professor, Dwight Look College of Engineering-Civil Engineering

Dr. Arun Srinivasa, Associate Professor, Dwight Look College of Engineering-Mechanical Engineering

        
Overview

Engineering 111-112, better known as 11X, is a two semester series of two credit courses that helps freshman engineering students focus on the critical thinking skills they will need to be successful engineers. Students are required to complete a series of design based projects that focus on the integration of math, physics and critical thinking skills.

Engineering 11X serves a large body of students each semester as it is required for all engineering freshman. About 1600-1800 students pass through this course and a variety of professors from all engineering departments teach it. Students attend two 2-hour classes each week where about 1 hour is spent on covering new material and 3 hours is spent engaged in hands-on laboratory projects.

Details

In Engineering 11X students complete a base series of projects after which their instructor can decide to include additional projects. These projects are completed in groups and utilize and integrate skills that students will need as they progress through the engineering curriculum. Because of this the projects are often directly tied to math and physics concepts students are learning in their other courses. The projects students complete are also situated in real world problem contexts so students can see how their knowledge applies to situations that real engineers deal with. In order to give you a better idea of the projects students work on in this course, two of the base projects are briefly explained.

The first of the base projects students work on concerns the integration of their knowledge of statics. In this project students design a structure that using magnetic pieces. This structure needs to span a gap of 4.25 inches and bear a load of 2 pounds. Much like real engineers, students must be able to perform the calculations to determine the properties of the structure they will build before building and testing it. They must also complete a cost analysis of their structure in order to determine how cost effective their design will be.

Another of the base projects that students complete in Engineering 11X is focused on their understanding of dynamics. For this project, students are asked to design a wheelchair lift out of Lego bricks powered by a Lego brick controller. Students need to take into consideration the operating characteristics of the controller as well as properties of the lift such as speed, acceleration and load bearing ability. The calculations involved in this project utilize a lot of the student’s knowledge of calculus, helping them to see how their mathematical knowledge can be applied to engineering problems.

Assimilate Facts

Student’s ability to assimilate and use the knowledge they gain in their other courses such as math and physics is the focus of Engineering 11X. The projects for this course have been designed to highlight connections between the content students have taken or are taking along with this series of courses and help them to see how it can be applied to real world problems.

Recognize Unanswered Questions

Although students are given the problem they must solve and the context in which it needs to be addressed, they are not given a fixed set of procedures to follow. Through the student’s analysis of the problem context and the characteristics of the materials they have to work with, students come to recognize holes in their understanding and questions that must be addressed for them to come to a successful solution. Through this process, students learn what questions need to be asked in order to solve engineering problems and develop strategies for answering them that work for them.

Formulate Strategies for Seeking Answers

Student’s ability to formulate strategies for seeking answers is tightly aligned with their ability to understand what questions need to be asked in Engineering 11X. Students need to understand the knowledge, skills and materials at their disposal and develop strategies through which solutions to the problems they are attempting to solve can best be developed. By not offering students a series of steps through which the solutions can be found, students struggle with ways through which answers can be sought and learn valuable skills in the process.

Investigate Appropriately

Appropriate investigation is also tightly aligned with student’s ability to understand the questions they need to ask and the strategies through which they can seek answers to them. Both determining questions and strategies of these skills are vital parts of investigation and students accomplish the three interrelated goals of this course as they work to come up with appropriate and valid solutions.

Draw Valid Conclusions

Students are asked to develop acceptable, and testable solutions to the projects they complete in Engineering 11X. The projects in this course have been designed to help students utilize their knowledge of math and physics. Students need to be able to successfully calculate many characteristics of their designs before they test them under real world pressures. Through calculating and testing their ideas, students get a chance to understand the validity of their solutions and conclusions and if their calculations supported their thoughts about the

Communicate Effectively

Although students are not required to present their work in Engineering 11X, they must learn to communicate effectively with their peers as they work in groups to complete their projects. In this context students learn valuable collaboration skills as they work in teams to complete the projects they are given. These collaborations mimic what engineers in the real world do as they work in groups of distributed expertise to solve problems and create designs for structures.

Critically Analyze

Critical analysis is a central component of all student work in Engineering 11X. Students need to assess and analyze the problem space of projects they are given before they can begin to determine an acceptable solution. They also need to critically analyze every step they take in the completion of their projects. They need to determine the correct principles and forces involved in the problem at hand and they need to determine what calculations are necessary. Since they are not given a procedure to follow, all of these steps have an emphasis on critical analysis as students strive to come to the best solution possible.

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