Dissolving Interdisciplinary Barriers in STEM Curriculum Through Unconventional Hydrofoil Boat Educational Lab at the College Undergraduate Level

Abstract

Kristi J. Shryock, Ph.D., is the Frank and Jean Raymond Foundation Inc. Endowed Associate Professor in Multidisciplinary Engineering and Affiliated Faculty in Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University. She also serves as Director of the Novel Unconventional Aerospace Applications iN Core Educational Disciplines (NUA2NCED) Lab and of the Craig and Galen Brown Engineering Honors Program and National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges Scholars Program. She has made extensive contributions to the methodology of forming the engineer of the future through her work in creating strategies to recruit, retain, and graduate engineering students. The network of transformational strategies she has developed addresses informing early, preparation for success, increasing diversity of the field, establishing strong identity as an engineer, and enhancing critical thinking and professional skills. As educational programs for engineering continue to grow in popularity among schools and universities, the corresponding curriculum that gets delivered to students has become increasingly compartmentalized to each specific discipline. This shift has occurred naturally as educational departments desire to highlight direct applicability of their education to their department label. However, much of the knowledge and many of the skills obtained in individual fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) can be applied to various other STEM fields. Yet, preconceived barriers between each discipline often create mental gaps in the minds of students that render their abilities to think of their education's applicability outside of the department they are enrolled in. Texas A&M University's aerospace engineering department has recognized this issue and created the NUA2NCED Laboratory to help bridge these gaps in students' minds and increase the scope of their education beyond standard aerospace applications. To create novel aerospace educational activities that accomplish this goal, the NUA2NCED Laboratory has developed an interactive aerodynamics lab using a customly-designed RC hydrofoil boat. This educational lab blends the aerospace engineering principles of vehicle dynamics with an aquatic domain. Students are presented with a lab manual outlining the background, objectives, problem scenario, and procedures of the lab as well as accompanying pre- and post-surveys that capture the students' outlooks on various STEM discipline applicability. Students complete the pre-survey, perform the lab, and then complete the post survey. The shift in the pre- and post-survey data captures the effectiveness of the lab's ability to dissolve the interdisciplinary barriers between various STEM fields. The authors hypothesize that students who conduct this unconventional aerospace lab will experience an expansion in their outlook on various STEM fields' applicability.