Developing an Online Course for Mechanical Design I: A Core Engineering Technology Course , Study Guides, Projects, Research of Mechanical Engineering

Download Developing an Online Course for Mechanical Design I: A Core Engineering Technology Course and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Mechanical Engineering in PDF only on Docsity! Learning Enhancement Grant 2008-2009 Learning Enhancement Grant Application 1. Project Title Developing an online course: Mechanical design I –Design of Machinery 2. Project coordinator Haifeng Zhang, Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering Technology 3. Project abstract The proposed project will focus on developing an online course for an undergraduate course: Mechanical Design I-Design of Machinery, which is a core course for the mechanical engineering program in the department of engineering technology. The project will explore an innovative education method to teach mechanical design course to meet the labor force requirement of modern engineering company which relies heavily on computerized mechanical design. The goal is to make students master the essence of this course better and then be more competitive and prepared to meet their future career challenges. 4. Description of the project As a core course for mechanical engineering program in the department of engineering technology, online course for mechanical design I is still not available, this project focus on developing the first online course for this major core course. The course will use a blended format, with 50% of the course being offered online and 50% involving face-to-face interaction in the classroom. The project intents are threefold: (1) Create an advanced, flexible, friendly and convenient learning environment, (2) Create an online education tool for mechanical design study, (3) Integrate Finite Element Module into the online course. The first intent is to create an advanced, flexible, friendly and efficient learning environment. This environment will enhance students’ learning interests, improve their study outcome, make them better prepared for their career in future, therefore, increase the retention rate of the department and the college of engineering. The instructor will post all course materials including multimedia lectures, homework assignments and solutions manual online, so that students can review the materials as any time, any place for any times. Students can also turn in papers and tests, and discuss their work with classmates and the instructor during weekly online conferences. The course: mechanical design I has been taught by Dr. Haifeng Zhang for the fall semester 2008, several students have met schedule conflict problems for the lab section, it caused inconvenience for both the instructor and students. The proposed project will use Wimba online classroom to teach the lab section of this course to facilitate the communications between the instructor, TA and the students. Off-campus students can ask questions online, the instructor and TA can distribute the lab assignments and answer questions through Wimba. The second intent is to create an online simulation tool for mechanical design study using the learning module function in blackboard, the mechanical design principles include the analyses of position, velocity, and acceleration of linkage mechanism, the motion of the linkage mechanism can be simulated and put online. Students will need to make their own MATLAB code and input it online, run the simulation tool and view the position, velocity, acceleration and dynamic force of the machine components including linkage, Cam, gear…. By this way, student could learn how to design real machine components using the knowledge in the textbook, most importantly, they can master the essence of 2 this course-computer integrated mechanical design. This online course module not only will help students deepen their understanding on fundamental mechanical design principle, but also supply a tool to re-check their own results for design projects. The online module will also be optimized to serve as a test tool, students will be required to make their own MATLAB code online in a time limit to design a machine component which must meet a specific design requirement. The whole test procedure is computer controllable and can be taken at any time when a student is ready. The third intent is to integrate finite element method (FEM) into this online course, FEM is a powerful mechanical components simulation tool, it is very convenient for the design engineer to compute the design parameter including displacement, stress, strain, vibration mode…, therefore, it is very critical for students to master this method to be better prepared for their future career. This project will design FEM module and integrate it into the online learning module, students can change or make the FEM code using MATLAB online and view their simulation results immediately, it will also serve as a test tool for student to finish a FEM design test online in a time limit, the test offer a flexible time option for student to choose. 5. If project is to develop online course, list coordinator’s experience with teaching online; Training courses completed; Dr. Haifeng Zhang has been taking the online CDL course training through CLEAR since Oct, 2008, As a teaching assistant before in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he has assisted in organize the online course through BLACBOARD. He has extensive experience in web development, program design using MTALAB, Java, C. 6. Additional faculty or staff members on project N/A 7. Department funding commitments The department will also supply a TA for 13 weeks to do this project at half time. 8. Number of students projected in class/program Class No. of students projected per year MEET 4050-Mechanical Design I 25 9. Market surveys or analysis conducted DFW area is one of the highest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the United States, a large portion of these corporate comes from defense manufacturers, information technology, all of which cannot live without talents from mechanical design. However, there are no very comprehensive online courses for Mechanical design offered in Texas which combine the theoretic, simulation tool and FEM module yet, the developed 3