Internationalizing the Capstone Design Course. Yuyi Lin, Donald Harby University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Transcription

1 Internationalizing the Capstone Design Course Yuyi Lin, Donald Harby University of Missouri, Columbia, MO Wei Zhen, Xiamen University, China Dong Jang, Seoul National Polytechnic University, Korea Abstract Although a capstone design course is always required in an engineering curriculum, the format of teaching and the content of the course can be very different at different engineering schools. Based on the collaboration of the authors, and a recent substantial revision of the capstone design course at Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department of University of Missouri-Columbia, this paper presents the theme of internationalizing capstone course. Internationalized course material will be web-accessible with permission. The course material with design tools, design case library will be jointly developed and used by faculty members around the Pacific Rim. The paper discusses the plan, the procedure, and the initial implementation of internationalizing the capstone course. Potential benefit and difficulty will be discussed as well.

2 INTRODUCTION Due to the rapid advances in communication and transportation technology, the world is quickly becoming a small global village. Not only faculty members in engineering schools of different countries can easily communicate with one another, future generation engineers will have to understand and communicate with each other effectively. To help the faculty members and students in the globalization trend, University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) has been active in supporting faculty members to develop the vision, the method and means for globalization in higher education. International Center at MU has sponsored Global Scholar Program, provided funding for faculty member to travel and collaborate with counter parts in other countries. Recently, efforts to internationalizing course material so that students can be better prepared to work in the global village are encouraged. The first author has been a MU Global Scholar in Support provided by MU enabled the initial communication and the start of collaboration among engineering faculty members around the Pacific Rim in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Mutual interest in teaching and internationalizing the capstone course has brought the author in such an effort. Unlike most mechanical engineering undergraduate courses, capstone course is taught in a very different format even among US engineering schools. According to a recent survey [Manring, 2003], capstone design varies from one semester three credit hour course, to 2 semester 4 credit hour course, to 2 semester 6 credit hour course. Contents can be very different as well. Some curricula consider the optimal design an integral part of the capstone design and some ignore this subject completely [Dieter, 2000]. However, there are similarities among US and Asian engineering schools in teaching capstone course. For example, 1. Students are usually organized into design teams. 2. A prototype manufactured based on the design is desirable, although it may not be required. 3. Student design teams need to present the capstone design final report orally and also submit a written report. The oral presentation of the final report is also considered a defense of the design project by the design team. Faculty members and industrial guests may be invited to criticize and comment on the final design. Albeit all the difference in formulations and emphases, the authors consider internationalizing the capstone design course significant and important. This is because that capstone course very often is referred to as a final check point for an engineering curriculum. Difference in emphases from lower division courses will be reflected in the capstone courses. If students and faculty members learn to work together in a common set of course material in the capstone course, they also understand other differences in each others' curriculum. Capstone course is usually the last course in the training of an engineer. Discovering the differences in the course also helps to determine the difference in later on job training of engineers in different countries and social systems. Therefore, if we consider internationalizing undergraduate courses an important direction to move, then starting from capstone design is most challenging, and it is also a well positioned incision point. OUTLINE OF THE NEW CAPSTONE DESIGN COURSE It is still in the early stage of re-formulating the proposed capstone design course. The plan is that the first author will prepare the first draft of the lecture notes, together with the design case library database and developed design tools [Lin, 2002], with the assistance from teaching and research assistants. These materials and tools will be posted on University of Missouri web site using the commonly available WebCT software. Co-authors then will use, suggest modifications to the base set of course materials. Although the contents included in capstone course material can be very different even in the US engineering schools, we agreed to start with the following basic elements. The reasons for including each specific unit are also discussed as follows. 2

3 Fig.1 Conceptual Difference between Analysis and Synthesis Type of Courses 1. Introduction. The capstone design is a synthesis type course, and most engineering courses are analysis type of course. The difference between these two types can be seen from the illustration (Fig.1). Students deserve to get an early warning that this course is different, and some may feel the course is not well structured (no strict logic relationship between proceeding and following chapters as in an analytical course). In contrast to art and literature students, engineering students may not be used to the idea of vaguely defined problem, and open-ended solutions to the design problem. Through the encouragement of ABET reviews, some faculty members have been trying to create open-ended design problems in analysis courses. However, the design problems are usually well defined. Students will need to know that they have to think differently and will be evaluated differently in this course. 2. Team organization and dynamics. This topic is related to project management, and is one that is gaining importance in US and not yet emphasized in Asian countries. Due to the complexity of modern design, the development of a new machine or product has becoming more and more a collaborative social activity. While students need to contribute to team project individually, it is important to learn cooperation in design process. Some engineering schools in US used personality and temperament tests to organize most productive design team. Our assessment is that learning to work with different personality and roles in a team, at the minimum, students learn to work with others in a more scientific way. 3. Developing detailed design specifications using QFD method. Ullman [2003] in his well adopted book, The Mechanical Design Process, popularized the QFD method in US engineering schools. This method is important for turning vague, not measurable customer needs for a new design into a set of measurable engineering specifications. Although this method was proposed in Japan in mid 70's, it is still not well known neither popular in Asian engineering schools. Experienced design engineers can design well without explicitly using this method, however, it is very helpful to learn this concept in teaching/learning the design process. Figure 2 is a very good example of how well prepared QFD can help in a SAE Formula car design. 4. Application of internationally accepted standards in metrology, materials, etc. Although engineering schools in US have better computer networks, and can access various database, such as material property and standards (e.g., ASTM), patents ( more easily, most capstone design 3

4 textbooks have not paid sufficient attention to the application of these national and international standards. Quality, and very often the functionality, of a design depend on these standards. 5. Preparing detailed engineering drawings. From our observation, engineering students in Asian countries spent more time in basic training in this area. In the states, engineering and technical training are separated and engineering students may not have sufficient training in this subject. This is an area the US engineering students can learn from their counter parts. 6. Review and application of analytical tools, such as FEA software tools. Students usually learn how to use commercial software quickly. More important for the instructor is to help student to understand the underlining principle. Design cases for correct and incorrect use of powerful analytical software will be very helpful. Amateur Auto-cross Racer SAE Competition Judges Manufacturing Personel MU Team Mechanic Marketing Reliability (%) Horsepower (h.p.) Torque (ft. lb.) Customers finding it visually appealing (%) Fig.2 A Sample QFD Chart for SAE Formula Car Design 7. Over view of design optimization algorithms and web based tools. It is not difficult to understand the idea of optimizing a design. The more difficult part in using optimization technique in undergraduate capstone design is the formulation of the design problem into a mathematical model so that computer tools can be applied. Internet-based, web-accessible optimization algorithm library has been developed [Huang, 2000; Lee, 2001] previously. These tools eliminated the need for individual student or engineer to always keep optimization software on their personal computer. Other units of material that we will include in the initial base set course material are as follows: 8. Function decomposition, and other methods for generating design concepts. Customers finding it audibly appealing (%) Manufacturing Price ($) Weight (lb) Manufacturing Processes Required (#) Time to Manufacture (hrs.) Noise Level (db) Time to install (hrs.) Time to disassemble (hrs.) Average repair cost ($) MU car #54 MU car #4 UTA car #99 Reliability Performance Looks Sounds Good Cost Weight Manufacturability Ease of Instalation With-in Regulations Repairability Compatibility with Car MU car # MU car # UTA car # Target

5 9. Cost estimate at different level and stage. 10. Writing progress report, design project proposal, and final project proposal. 11. Ethics, product liability related to design practice. 12. Presentation and communication of design projects. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Due to the severe budget cut in higher education in the US, many engineering schools are no longer requiring student design teams to manufacture the design and produce a prototype. For a one-semester capstone design course, time constraint is also a problem for manufacturing the prototype. One can also argue against requiring a prototype by saying that students can imagine and design a machine or device much more complex than they can build. However, many design educators will agree on that students learn more and better in design, if they also build their design into a functional prototype. It is easier for some engineering disciplines to build a prototype, such as electrical and electronics engineering, while it is much more difficult for mechanical engineering to build a functional prototype. Another difference between Asian engineering schools and US counter part is that most Asian engineering schools do not have clear-cut distinction between technology schools and engineering schools. For this difficulty or difference in capstone education, the first two authors suggested the following approach: 1. Mechanical engineering capstone design teams at University of Missouri-Columbia work closely with students in local community college (Linn State Technical College, where the second author is an instructor). Technical colleges in US may have better manufacturing equipment and technical training and support than research-based engineering schools. Working together will benefit students in technical school and engineering school. 2. The difference can be seen as a motivation for learning from each other. Instructors can learn and decide what material to develop as a common requirement, and what material to be kept as strength in country-specific curriculum material. Another potential problem is the difficulty of using a common language in direct communication among students in different countries: Although English is required second language in most Asian engineering colleges, proficiency varies greatly among students. As instructors for undergraduate students, our assessment is that students in US and most Asian countries will not have too much difficulty communicating in English by using and writing. Oral communication will be more difficult which we do not expect it to happen at the initial implementation of our internationalizing effort. Although students in Asian countries, such as Korea, Japan, Singapore, can read Chinese to some extent, almost no US student will be able to communicate in Chinese. Therefore, English will have to be the language of communication. There is plenty of incentive for foreign students to sharpen their English skill through the capstone course work, and for American students to learn foreign languages and be acquainted with cultures and customs of other countries. CONCLUSION This paper proposes to internationalize the capstone design course by collaboration among faculty members in different engineering schools across the Pacific Rim. First, a base set of lecture notes, together with design case library, optimization tools and information database will be, and have been partially developed at University of Missouri. These course materials will be accessible through Internet using a web browser. Faculty members in different countries will use and improve the set of materials. Student collaboration in capstone design projects will be encouraged. The objectives are to improve the mutual understanding of undergraduate curricula, to increase the communication among faculty members 5

6 and students in different countries, and to develop a common set of capstone design course material and mechanical design tools. Since it is still in the early stage of the proposed internalizing the course, one of the objectives of this paper is to solicit comments and criticism for improvement and implementation. REFERENCES Dieter, G. E., 2000, Engineering Design, McGraw-Hill. Huang, S., 2000, Web-Based Libraries for Mechanical Design MS thesis, University of Missouri- Columbia. Lee, A. G., 2001, Research and Development of a Web Based Design Optimization Tool, MS thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia. Lin, Yuyi, Zhang, Y. and Cai, X., 2002, Mechanical Design Portal for Lifelong Learning, Proceedings of 36 th ASEE Midwest Regional Conference, Norman, OK. Manring, N., 2003, Survey on the Content and Duration of Capstone Course in Mechanical Engineering Departments, Report to Design and Manufacturing Committee, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia. Ullman, D. G., 2003, The Mechanical Design Process, McGraw-Hill. Zhang, Ying, 2003, Development of Internet-Based Mechanical Design Resource Center, MS thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia. 6