Faculty members work with industry advisors to modernize hands-on aspects of the department’s curriculum.
在霍普曼大厅, third-year mechanical 工程师ing students barrage graphite paper repeatedly with small metal balls shot from spring-loaded 发射器. The activity—part of 教授 Douglas 凯利’s ME 240:仪器的基本原理 & 测量课——看起来很有趣, but it’s also teaching the students important lessons about repeatability and statistics.
“走出讲堂是件好事，”24岁的科尔·塞内卡尔(Cole Senecal)说. “The hands-on approach makes it a little easier to conceptualize some of the things we’re learning.”
The class is one of two upper-level lab courses—the other is Associate 教授 杰西卡商我们的ME 241:力学实验室 机械工程系 recently revamped to incorporate modern 工程师ing methods and scale to meet growing enrollment demands.
“Our department has long been proud of the rigor and depth of our upper-level laboratory courses. But given the growth of 工程师ing enrollment in our department and nationwide in the last decade, 我们想知道是不是该调整一下了,凯利说。.
由主席和同事教授领导 雷纳托Perucchio, the department consulted with its program advisory board composed of industry-connected alumni about ways to build a stronger foundation for students in applied 工程师ing methods. The faculty agreed that existing labs were valuable and superior to many offerings elsewhere, so they didn’t want to make changes that compromised the quality of the curriculum.
通过提供更结构化的课程和更新设备, the department was able to strike a good balance of preserving what worked and freshening things up. The students are now using revitalized procedures and new gear including thermal cameras and thermocouples, 麦克风和尤克里里琴, 发射器, 应变仪, 放大器, 汽车, 控制器, 以及数据采集设备.
“The entire overhauling process proved the importance of the interaction between our program advisory board and the faculty,佩鲁奇奥说. “Their input during the initial stages of creating the new ME 240 lab course helped us quite a bit in selecting the labs and the experiments which would be consistent with the needs of modern industry.”
凯利说，这个过程是高度协作的.
教授 克里斯托弗•缪尔 spearheaded the early process and brainstormed new equipment to include. 穆尔, 凯利, and Shang fleshed out ideas and identified lab exercises that fit the learning objectives, 并听取包括助理教授在内的同事的意见 安德里亚冰斧，助理教授 Hesam民兵高级技术助理克里斯汀·普拉特. 亚历山大·普里多(Alexander Prideaux)被雇来帮助完成实验程序, 建立设备, 复印足够的副本来完成课程. 助理教授 Anushika Athauda 参与教授仪器基础 & 测量课程自春季引入以来.
25岁的亚历杭德罗·波拉斯说他很感激, 除了新设备, how the faculty are incorporating their latest research into lab exercises.
“这很酷，因为对于一个粒子跟踪实验室来说, 凯利教授给了我们他澳门威尼斯人网上赌场用的密码,波拉斯说. “We got some insight into what leading scientists are doing and what the field’s current research focus is.”
凯利 says it’s too early to tell how the revamped curriculum and equipment is benefitting students, 但当他们进入高级设计课程时, 任何变化都应该变得明显. 艾莉森·汤普森24岁, who took the first offering of the refurbished ME 240 course in the spring and is now serving as a teaching assistant, 他说，不断改进课程的努力是显而易见的.
“It’s interesting being on the other side of the class,” says Thompson. “In our meetings we’re able to see the mistakes people are making and try to find ways to help them improve. 去年这是一门全新的课程, 很高兴看到我们一直在努力让它变得更好.”
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