First-year project-based engineering: Secretweapon for student success

Abstract

This paper describes a project-based first-year introductory course at a community college which emphasizes working in teams on hands-on projects that require using EXCEL and MATLAB. Assignments involve graphing data for Ohm?s Law and the speed of sound in air, distance measuring using ultrasound, programming in MATLAB to control the movement of a steppermotor rotor and programming in MATLAB to analyze and identify the visible spectra of several translucent materials. Students are required to make presentations of the projects and the results obtained. To document student success, data on student achievement in the course was collected for seven offerings of the course over three semesters: fall of 2011, spring of 2012, and fall of 2012. In addition, an outside evaluator used a self-survey to assess pre- And post- student attitudes toward certain skills thought to be enhanced by participation in the course. ©American Society for Engineering education, 2013.