Category / Engineering Education

by shannonchance

RoboSlam Ratings

The organizer of last week’s events at DIT wrote to those of us who conducted the RoboSlam robot hacking workshop. She said:

In fact, in the survey I conducted at the end, 61.8% of 34 participants said it was ‘excellent’ and 35.3% said it was ‘very good’. One student said it was ‘good’ (2.9%) and that was the lowest score Roboslam got. It even beat Wednesday’s visit to the Aviva Stadium which, in the week of the Heineken Cup, is saying something! A whopping 67.6% of participants said it was their favourite on-campus activity and, interestingly,  11 students now say that electronic engineering would be their preferred choice of engineering discipline, up from 8 students at the start of the week…

To read more, please see the RoboSlam blog on this topic.

by shannonchance

Custom Fit

The students worked diligently to get their robot bodies form-fitted over their circuit boards and chassis.

Please see our RoboSlam blog for more photos of this phase of robot-construction.

by shannonchance

Robot Design and Rapid Prototyping

Product design, rapid prototyping, statistical analysis, and body construction: our second day of RoboSlam covered all sorts of topics!

We got an overview of product design from DIT lecturers Ger Reilly and Kevin Delaney and designed bodies for our robots. Then, we divided into groups so that we’d all get to tour the rapid prototyping lab, learn about statistical analysis, and start crafting our robot bodies from rigid foam using the hot wire cutter.

Please visit our RoboSlam blog to see the range of things we accomplished this day….

by shannonchance

Guimarães: Birthplace of Portugal

Hamming it up!

Helping with the founding back in 1111 AD. 😉

Guimarães is an architecturally stunning town, and it is the place Portugal was born in the year 1111. Following my visit to the engineering program at the University of Minho and my Fulbright lecture/workshop, my hosts took me to visit the historic center and enjoy lunch in one of its very fine outdoor plazas.

The castle…
…with its park…
…and the founder of Portugal.
Enjoying the sites…
…and the streets of Guimarães.
Along with my hosts, Ferrie van Hattum and Natascha van Hattum-Janssen.
Lovely architecture…
…and parks…
…and streets…
…and plazas.
Here’s an archway framing the street…
…and the courtyard where we ate.
Natascha and Ferrie and I discussed educational research and practice over lunch.
And then looked around a bit more…
…and discovered yet another plaza.
This particular plaza recently had its trees removed…
…which turned out to be an unpopular change.
“Here was born Portugal!”
Here’s the inside of a church in Guimarães.
And a reflection…
…or two, just for you!
by shannonchance

Engineering at Minho

Seminar with engineering teachers from the University of Minho who use PBL.

Seminar with engineering teachers from the University of Minho who use PBL. (It was very cold in the room; everybody is huddled for warmth!)

These photos are from my trip to the Guimarães campus of the University of Minho — to visit engineering professors and tour the Department of Production Systems, at the university’s Engineering School.

My primary host there, Natascha van Hattum-Janssen, has been working as a Senior Researcher, Research Centre in Education. She has amassed quite an impressive record of publications. Her husband, Ferrie van Hattum, is a Polymer Engineer and has been serving as the Course Director of the Product Design degree program of the University of Minho, although both of them are now relocating to an institute in the Netherlands.

Natascha and her colleagues organize the annual PAEE symposium. The PAEE website explains:

The Department of Production and Systems of the University of Minho, the Research Centre for Education of the University of Minho, the Iberoamerican Association of Engineering Education Institutions (ASIBEI) and the Curriculum Development Working Group of SEFI – the European Society for Engineering Education – aim to join teachers, researchers on Engineering Education, deans of Engineering Schools and professionals concerned with Engineering Education, to enhance active learning approaches in Engineering Education through workshops and discussion of current practice and research.

The Fifth International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education PAEE 2013 will take place in the Netherlands and is hosted by the Eindhoven University of Technology. 

I served as a paper reviewer for this year’s conference and I hope to attend an PAEE event in coming years.

Some of the professors from the University of Minho — Natascha van Hattum-Janssen, her husband, and Dinis Carvalho — gave me a tour of their product design engineering facilities and program.
Touring the facilities at the Guimarães campus with Dinis Carvalho.
Looking at past projects.
Dinis Carvalho describing the project brief.
Past project that simulates a factory / production line.
Another past project.
Manual Dinis’ made by students to explain a concept.
The engineering building.
They have classrooms set up for project-based learning…
..where groups can work together…
…with white boards for brainstorming…
…and natural light.
by shannonchance

Starting with Circuitry

shannonchance's avatarRoboSlam

RoboSlam starts with an introduction to the overall robot-building process and then delves into assembling the electronic components (i.e., building the circuitry).  The photos below track the progress of several groups of participants in the “Engineering Your Future” event held the week of May 13-17 at DIT.

These photos were all taken by DIT’s current Fulbright Scholar in Engineering Education, Dr. Shannon Chance.  Participants are welcome to download them and share them with others.  Shannon will post images of the rest of the week in the days to come….

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by shannonchance

A Flexible Learning Lab at DIT

This is a picture of a flexible lab for learning engineering.  It is a space for group-driven problem-based learning, or a “PBL classroom.” A colleague of mine back in Virginia who is an expert in engineering education said she wasn’t familiar with this type of space, so I though I’d post it for others to see.

The flexible learnign lab in the DIT electrical engineering program.

The flexible learning lab in the DIT electrical engineering program.

It was designed to promote team learning and provide access to materials and tools for building engineering projects.  Above, Gavin’s Instrumentation class had just wrapped up for the morning.

Equipped for…
…creating robots, weather stations, and other marvels.