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The Engineering & Design Department at Eastern Washington University (EWU) has traditionally taught the Senior Capstone course for the Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) in a single 10-week quarter. Traditionally the course was more of a production run where students are required to design and produce a total of 15 fully functioning products. This was a good approach to the course when the students were a mix of MET and applied technology students. When the ME degree was added to the program in 2010, the course shifted more to a research and development focus than production. It requires one single functioning prototype instead of 15, and has ME and MET students working together since a separate capstone course was created for the applied technology students. This has definitely increased the complexity of the projects and made it easier to reach out to assist local industry. In order to successfully complete these projects, students must spend a lot of time on research and design before they begin building their working prototype. This was not the case when the course was more of a production run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At Eastern Washington University (EWU), we teach a class titled Computer-Aided Design and Project Management to a combination of Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) and other Technology students. This course is not what is usually associated with the term CAD, but rather an introduction to project management and spreadsheets as an Engineering design tool. The class has a very strong hands-on component using Microsoft Excel and MS Project. The students are then required to use both tools in their later courses, particularly in their laboratory courses and planning/tracking of the Capstone Design course. These students also take a Technical Writing course from the English Department to prepare them for report writing. We use several assignments of increasing difficulty to expose the students to Excel as a design tool and Project to organize and track a project. The quarter culminates with small teams of students using both tools to design, plan, and track a virtual project of their choice such as starting a small company, building a structure, or installing equipment in a plant. The teams must submit a report and make a semi-formal presentation to the class and instructor. As part of our continuous improvement effort, we assess nine course objectives. We will present a statistical analysis of how well both the students and instructor believe the objectives were met. The analysis includes for several instructors, several years, and both MET students who must take two quarters of calculus and Technology students who take pre-calculus. We also teach an accelerated version of the course titled "laboratory analysis and reports" that also incorporates a large technical writing component to our ME students and we will include anecdotal data from that course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010 the engineering department at Eastern Washington University added a mechanical engineering (ME) program to its already established mechanical engineering technology (MET) program. As part of the transition new courses were developed for the pure ME program and some were redesigned to include both programs. Thermodynamics, for instance, was taught as a single class for both ME and MET students initially, with the same outcomes and requirements for each group. This coupled-course approach was also taken for other courses, as deemed practical and appropriate. This resulted in challenges to both the students from each group as well as to the faculty. MET students, for instance, were required to take only calculus I and II while ME students often had already completed calculus IV and differential equations, resulting in a dilemma for faculty attempting to present a calculus-based curriculum. The students from each program also had different goals and expectations, which further made it difficult to design course content that was appropriate to all and also meet the program requirements. To address these issues, in 2013 the thermodynamics course was split into two separate courses for ME and MET students, with very similar student pre- and co-requisites, similar program objectives, and curriculums established specifically for each program. Throughout the development of the new ME program, student learning data was collected for all students going through both the ME and MET thermodynamics course (as well as other courses), in order to help inform the faculty on how well the courses were meeting objectives. Two specific assessments were used: a student survey addressing how well the course met the course objectives and assignment grades tied to each course objective. Results from these assessments have helped direct the continuous development of these courses over the past several years. The objective of this paper is to present these data and the evolution of the thermodynamics course from purely MET, through combined ME & MET, and finally to the separate ME & MET courses. A qualitative review is also given on particular student challenges and impacts and on the program's experiences throughout this transition and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering and Engineering Technology students need to learn how to innovate and embrace new technologies as they develop and progress through their careers. Accomplishing this challenge requires the undergraduate degree programs to provide the first opportunities for innovation technological problems to gain experience and confidence before they reach the Capstone course. This paper describes the learning experiences in innovation using undergraduate courses in Robotics and Automation, Finite Element Analysis, and Parametric Modeling and Rapid Prototyping. The courses are composed of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) students. The paper relates the successful attempts the students have had in developing and using innovation through the creation of openended projects in the three courses. The undergraduate students in each course are self-directed and have to use innovation to develop a project of their own design within the course restraints. This breaks the cycle of students just doing the same preset experiments that others have done before them. Although doing preset experiments can reinforce the theoretical concepts given in classroom, it does little to develop skills in innovation, which will be the key to success in the global economy. The courses used in ME and MET programs provide an excellent framework for the students to demonstrate their ability to innovate using new technology to solve a complex engineering problem. The project is also supervised by instructors as students take their first steps in actually doing innovation. The confidence and process used to solve these technical problems will provide a basis upon which they can formulate new strategies to incorporate new technologies throughout their career. Using this new approach will help our students gain confidence in reaching out to use new technologies and innovation early in their career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A few years ago, members of our Engineering & Design Department began a study to determine the effects of class attendance on student success. Today's engineering and technology students have grown up in a very different environment from the students of 20 years ago. They access information and engage in social contact through digital media and they often have almost instant access to this digital media through portable, wireless devices. There is a thought that with this greater connectivity they may not respond in the same manner to the teaching methods of past generations of students. More specifically, the students of today may not feel the same need to be physically present in their classes in order to be successful. Initial results presented at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference and Exposition in 2012 determined attendance correlates with student success and the correlation changes during the progression of a student throughout their undergraduate experience. Results presented at the ASEE 2013 Conference indicated that an instructor's attendance policy did not significantly affect overall attendance rates of students that earned high grades in a course but did affect the students that earned lower grades. This current paper discusses if there is a significant relationship between student attendance and the following three factors: status as a firstgeneration college attendee, gender, and economic status. Four different instructors have gathered attendance data since 2008 for approximately 20 classes per year ranging from freshman to senior students in programs of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Technology, Manufacturing Technology, Design Technology, Construction Management, Applied Technology, and a service course to the general student body. Additionally, the study provides the ability to track an individual student over their entire undergraduate education. A correlation between student attendance and the student characteristics of first-generation status, gender, and economic status exists and this paper will discuss this in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]