{"id":30589,"date":"2016-11-14T15:34:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T20:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=30589"},"modified":"2016-11-14T15:35:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T20:35:16","slug":"design-course-gives-aspiring-engineers-tools-meet-future-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/design-course-gives-aspiring-engineers-tools-meet-future-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Design course gives aspiring engineers the tools to meet future goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soldering is an elementary skill, but Enock Samalenge has it down. With a steady and sure hand, the Eastern Mennonite University first-year student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo had guided his introductory engineering group to a speedy completion of their project\u2019s first stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee how round and even they are,\u201d engineering professor Esther Tian<\/a> points to the beads connecting electronic components in a very small circuit board. \u201cVery good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within minutes, Samalenge and his group have checked their work by connecting a battery-powered charger to his cell phone. Then they are off on the next step, trying to figure out\u2014with no directions supplied\u2014 how to connect a small solar panel to finish the project.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>
Skylar Colvin solders a circuit board while working on a project to create solar chargers for\u00a0 cell phones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The energetic hum in Tian\u2019s \u201cIntroduction to Engineering and Design\u201d class is the intellectual sound of EMU\u2019s new engineering program<\/a>, literally. Eleven charter members of EMU\u2019s new four-year engineering program are in the class.<\/p>\n

Five other students, Tian said with a smile, were either contemplating changing their major or adding a double major (of the two concentrations offered, computer engineering<\/a> syncs more efficiently with the computer science<\/a> major; mechanical engineering<\/a> is more difficult to add as a double major). And a sixth, senior Aron Harder, enrolled in the course to supplement his computer science coursework.<\/p>\n

The project is one of several on the syllabus designed to give students the basics of engineering design through the development of an increasingly sophisticated skillset. The culminating project involves designing parts with Autodesk Inventor, building electronic circuits and programming an Arduino board, <\/em>with students selecting from among five project options or creating their own proposal.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>
Students present their 3D modeling research in Professor Esther Tian’s “Introduction to Engineering and Design course” at EMU.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cUnderstanding and utilizing engineering design is a foundational skill,\u201d Tian says. \u201cIn this project, they first get a lot of help with step-by-step instructions in the first stage and then we take away some of that help and ask them to find out the missing information they need to finish the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his learning since August, first-year engineering major James Paetkau says the project-based course has helped him learn more about and value cooperation. Experimentation, too, is important: \u201cEven if you don’t always have the answer, if you are willing to experiment, fail and persist, the answer is almost always achievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paetku\u2019s end goal, he says, is to \u201cfind a profession in engineering which allows me to have a positive impact on the lives of other people.\u201d Biomedical or civil engineering are appealing for this reason. He\u2019s also intrigued by the potential of biomimicry, \u201cwhich uses designs inspired by nature to offer alternative, often sustainable, answers to design problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paetku says the intro course has already helped him acquire skills with design software Autodesk Inventor, increasing his creative capacities. \u201cI have been able to learn an incredible amount just by having a design idea in my head, and by messing around with Autodesk until I can create the design. It’s been really fun to be able to draw up our own designs and being able to print them with our 3-D printer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>
Collin Longenecker (left) and Joshua Ayers make progress on the circuit board of a solar phone charger.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 3-D printer has been an \u201cenjoyable\u201d tool for first-year Austin Engle, who plans a career in computer engineering. Though he graduated from Harrisonburg High School\u2019s STEM Academy, where he first learned and practiced the design process, he says he had little experience with 3-D printing. That academic preparation, however, has made the transition to college engineering coursework more smooth, in terms of both foundational skills and creativity, what he calls \u201cthe strength to think outside the box.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been a part of a lot of brainstorming sessions, which lead me to hear lots and lots of crazy ideas, many of which, when applied correctly, are actually beneficial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With some skills already in the bag, Engle says some of his biggest lessons have been more logistical: \u201cDeadlines here are set in stone and that has led to some frantic endings of the projects,\u201d he says with wry humor.<\/p>\n

With several more projects to go in his first college-level engineering class, that skill, no doubt, will improve by the time he graduates in 2020 among the first EMU-trained engineers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soldering is an elementary skill, but Enock Samalenge has it down. With a steady and sure hand, the Eastern Mennonite University first-year student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo ... read more about Design course gives aspiring engineers the tools to meet future goals<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17562,17364],"tags":[15420],"feature":[17427,17423,17426,17241],"class_list":["post-30589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digest","category-engineering","tag-esther-tian","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-featured-undergrad","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nDesign course gives aspiring engineers the tools to meet future goals - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/design-course-gives-aspiring-engineers-tools-meet-future-goals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Design course gives aspiring engineers the tools to meet future goals - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Soldering is an elementary skill, but Enock Samalenge has it down. 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