THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING LABORATORY

ABSTRACT

In the undergraduate engineering curriculum at most universities, the standard sequence of laboratory classes is distinctly disciplinary. Similarly, at CSM, traditional laboratory courses such as basic electronic circuits, fluids, and strength of materials are taught in the context of associated disciplinary courses. Students participating in these laboratories utilize instruments and equipment to better understand theory and phenomena introduced in the discipline-related course. Thus, in fluids, the students may investigate drag coefficients, viscous effects, transition to turbulence, cavitation, two-phase flow and other topics. This is in sharp contrast to actual industrial applications, which may call for the control of a fluid power circuit in a manufacturing process where motors, electrical power, sensing and control are integrated with a fluids network, other mechanisms and thermodynamic effects.

Industrial applications differ from undergraduate laboratory exercises in their multidisciplinary nature, requirement of a systems approach, and need for self-directed learning. In the workplace, the engineer must employ a broad base of knowledge to test, explore, design experiments, and solve problems. This must be done within technical and non-technical constraints including economic, environmental, ergonomic, time and quality-related issues.

With support from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education/ Department of Education (FIPSE), faculty of the Engineering Division at the Colorado School of Mines have begun the development of a multidisciplinary projects-oriented laboratory which is replacing three sophomore or junior level laboratories in fluids, electronics and strength of materials in traditional civil, electrical and mechanical disciplines with a three semester sequence in our new Multidisciplinary Engineering Laboratory (MEL). This integration has been welcomed by a group of industry sponsors who are providing laboratory equipment: Parsons Foundation, Kennecott Mining, Fluor Daniel, and Chevron. MEL links certain disciplines (materials, fluid mechanics and electronic instrumentation) with skills (experimentation, data analysis and modeling), and laboratory methods (discovery, evaluation and investigation) overlaid on engineering principles (conservation, continuity and equilibrium). MEL is a three semester sequence that focuses on the transitions from science to engineering science and engineering science to design. It is delivered in a context of team-based collaborative learning enhanced by the discovery of how modern integrated systems work. Students do not follow a prescribed set of detailed steps in the lab. They design their own procedures using fundamental knowledge and a series of reference material handouts.

Student learning objectives for the multidisciplinary laboratory include the simulation of real industrial problems, an emphasis on the connectivity between engineering disciplines, the use of state-of-the-art experimental instrumentation, and understanding of the experimental method (selection of appropriate instruments, analysis of data, and definition of experimental procedures). An inquiry based approach generates interest in each lab module and motivates students to think about what is happening. This paper will review several experiments in the multidisciplinary lab, and demonstrate how the student learning objectives are incorporated into course materials.

INTRODUCTION

In the modern industrial environment, technological innovation is intrinsically interdisciplinary. To quote Heinz Friedrich, a University of Florida faculty member and a 43-year veteran of IBM, "Interdisciplinary is how industry does it today." Competition in the global marketplace demands that interdisciplinary teams be brought together at the beginning of a project in concurrent design to deal with problems and design constraints up front, before an initial design is even proposed. Concurrent design eliminates much of the need for preliminary designs, reviews, redesigns and making adaptations, saving time and promoting quality (Black,1994).

Time is an essential factor in the modern competitive marketplace. Bar-Cohen (1995) reports that development cycles for major products like automobiles and mainframe computers have condensed from six years to less than two years during roughly the last decade. To achieve these rates, engineers need the ability to use the advances in available technology and to collaborate in new strategies involving teams of engineers, managers, and even assembly line personnel, in order to shorten product development cycles.

According to Patrick Williams (1993), the importance of the multidisciplinary team is particularly significant in dealing with the problems of the U.S. deteriorating civil infrastructure. He argues that repair and renovation of our crumbling civil infrastructure will require teams of materials engineers collaborating with civil and structural engineers to address problems of corrosion, acid rain and similar issues. Intelligent highways will require electrical and computer engineers teaming with structural and transportation engineers. For dealing with seismic vibrations, new technologies are being developed by which the stiffness of structural members or cable systems may be altered in real time to minimize vibrational damage. Geophysicists, electrical, structural, computer, and mechanical engineers must work together on these developments. To fill the gaps between their diverse backgrounds, the working engineers must apply self-directed learning skills.

Consistent with this trend, there is a growing recognition of the importance of the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach to engineering education. In response to these needs, engineering schools are revamping curricula, stressing the interdisciplinary links between traditional disciplines and self-directed learning. Six of the eight Engineering Education Coalitions of the National Science Foundation cite the integration of the curriculum as a major objective and have embarked on curriculum development efforts to implement this goal (Coleman, 1996). Generally this has taken the form of integration at the freshman and possibly sophomore levels, although several Coalition schools have extended these efforts into upper-division courses. Specifically, the Synthesis Coalition has developed plans and curricula for four-year multidisciplinary programs in mechatronics and in architecture/engineering-/construction, while the Gateway Coalition is focusing on four upper-division interdisciplinary tracts: manufacturing, environmental engineering, materials, and bioengineering and technology.

Other engineering faculty seek to cross traditional disciplinary lines by team-teaching courses with professors from business, the sciences, and the humanities (Ercolano, 1996). At the University of Colorado/Boulder, a major new facility, the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory, provides a focal point for efforts to integrate engineering curriculum and design through all six of the engineering departments (Corotis, 1996). In support of these endeavors, Joseph Bordogna et al. argued that "the need to cross and mesh boundaries is evident because new knowledge is increasingly created at disciplinary interfaces." Similarly, in a plenary address to the 1993 ASEE Centennial Conference, L. K. Monteith affirmed: "..integration of knowledge must cross departmental boundaries if it is to inspire and not just challenge the students." A primary motivation for all these efforts is to bring industrial realism into the undergraduate engineering program.

The Engineering Division at CSM has a strong history of collaboration and integration of disciplines. We offer an interdisciplinary program that is ABET accredited in the non-traditional category. Students receive a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree, with a specialty in one of three areas: Civil, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering. This program, the most popular undergraduate program on the CSM campus, is home to about 900 undergraduate students or forty percent of the total CSM undergraduate enrollment. Student pass-rates on the Fundamentals of Engineering typically exceed the national average by 25 to 30%, and placement of the graduates is excellent. Anecdotal evidence and student comments suggest that the popularity of the Engineering program relates to students' anticipation of the need for professional flexibility in the changing engineering workplace.

At CSM, all engineering students participate in a series of interdisciplinary design teams from their freshmen year through their senior year. They become aware that this is an essential skill in modern engineering product and project development. The freshmen program, EPICS (Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence), introduces students to these concepts at the beginning of their engineering studies. EPICS was started at CSM during the mid-1980's when it became clear that most industries employed or were initiating some form of the interdisciplinary design team approach to product development. EPICS has subsequently won numerous awards in the engineering education community. Interdisciplinary design is carried through the senior level, where interdisciplinary capstone design projects involve teams of civil, electrical and mechanical specialty students, working on client projects with technical and non-technical constraints and objectives.

MEL bridges the gap between sophomore and senior levels with a new paradigm for the engineering laboratory experience. Our expectation is that students in this new paradigm will develop the critical engineering skills associated with experimentation, data analysis and modeling, while exploring laboratory methods (discovery, evaluation and investigation) that serve to stimulate their continued interest in engineering and enhance their excitement in learning. Simultaneously students will gain a more in-depth understanding of the engineering principles of conservation, continuity and equilibrium. MEL offers students a team-based collaborative learning experience in an inquiry based mode to teach how modern integrated systems work, stimulate the discovery process, and encourage lifelong learning.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY LAB CLASSES

General Outline

Student learning objectives for MEL include the simulation of industrial problems, an emphasis on the connectivity between engineering disciplines, the use of state-of-the-art experimental instrumentation, self learning, and understanding of the experimental method (selection of appropriate instruments, analysis of data, and definition of experimental procedures). The multidisciplinary lab features state-of-the-art hardware and software, funded in part by grants from the Parsons Foundation, Kennecott Mining, Fluor Daniel and Chevron.

The complexity of the MEL projects, the degree of integration, and our expectations for students' autonomy increases during the sequence of the three MEL courses: MEL I, II, and III. Each of these courses is a three contact hour/one credit class meeting weekly throughout the term. Typically, MEL I would be taken during the second semester of the sophomore year, MEL II during second semester of the junior year, and MEL III during the first semester of the senior year. Currently we are offering MEL I to a pilot group of about 25 students, mostly sophomores, and plan full implementation in fall 1997. MEL I pilot students major in the following disciplines: Engineering - including Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Specialties, Mathematics and Computer Science, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, and Engineering Physics. Our strategy is to offer MEL II to a pilot group during the fall 1997 semester, followed by full implementation during the spring semester, and similarly for MEL III. Since each lab project is complex, multidisciplinary, and involves extensive hands-on interaction, we have found it helpful to have three senior engineering students "pre-piloting" the laboratory projects, and giving a student perspective to smooth introduction to the pilot class.

Vertical Integration

In MEL I, the emphasis is on circuits, measurement, instrumentation, sensors, computer data acquisition, error analysis, accuracy, resolution, and independent learning. MEL II continues the presentation of the experimental method, while introducing several open-ended projects that challenge the students to devise their own experimental design and procedures. In MEL III, we expect that students, given a general engineering objective (e.g., determine the reason for excessive wear and fracture of the axle in the Mini-Baja vehicle), will be able to decide upon the parameters to be measured, the needed and appropriate range of frequencies, strains, pressures, temperatures, etc., the correct instrumentation and instrument usage, and relevant methods of data analysis and interpretation. MEL I and II projects provide the skills and background needed in the more technically challenging MEL III experiments. Thus expertise in the use of thermistors, pressure transducers, strain gages, and computer data systems is essential for satisfactory completion of these more open-ended engineering modules. Modeling and data analysis sophistication also increase throughout the three semester sequence.

Horizontal Integration

In addition to the vertical integration of increasingly more complex engineering systems in the MEL I, II and III sequence, the labs also offer a horizontal integration with engineering and science disciplines. We accomplish this by connecting each experiment to one or more lecture courses common to a variety of engineering disciplines. For example, the introductory experiments in MEL I bridge basic science and engineering science coursework. The second laboratory (MEL II) transitions between engineering science and engineering design, and the third laboratory (MEL III) prepares students for industrial projects they might see in their first full time employment.

Attributes of MEL Labs

Further guidelines for MEL experiments include:

• All experiments should use systems. Even when a component is learned, it is learned in an applications context. MEL I experiments contain very simple systems and MEL I develops knowledge of components that will be integrated into more sophisticated systems in MEL II and MEL III
• The exercises have many elements of open-endedness. Student teams are encouraged to learn on their own, primarily through collaboration. We do not give procedural steps to follow to complete the lab, students must bridge the gap between experimental resources provided and results expectations by developing their own procedures. Arguably, the format of the exercises map onto the learning styles identified by Kolb in terms of Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, Active Experimentation and Concrete Experience (Kolb, 1984).
• We don't attempt to teach students how to use every instrument, software package, or sensor that they might encounter during their working careers. Our goal is to teach them the fundamentals of engineering experimental methods and give them practice in learning how to learn on their own.
• MEL I experiments require students to disassemble and analyze components and systems designed by experienced engineers, and to re-engineer existing apparatus.
• We supply manufacturers specification sheets and reference sheets so students will learn how to extract critical information quickly from references.
• Student teams are expected to discover information and knowledge by observing how various experimental systems react to varying inputs. Consequently, many of the MEL I experiments include calibration.
• Calibrations also give practice in evaluation where students calibrate and compare several similar components.
• Student teams are expected to develop models which can be used to predict the performance of a new system or to diagnose a problem which provides further practice in calibration.
• The diagnostic activity of investigation is practiced when results of evaluations do not turn out as predicted.

Throughout the laboratory, the students practice communications skills via required reports, results forms, laboratory notebooks, team collaboration, and interviewing experts (the lab instructor).

A Few MEL I Lab Projects

Our first MEL I lab consists of a self-study tutorial in the graphical software package, LabVIEW. The LabVIEW programming language, G, enables the user to build virtual instruments (VI) with a block diagram directing the flow of data from sensors connected to an engineering experiment to computer graphs, files, etc. During subsequent weeks, students become acquainted with a repertoire of sensors and instruments, including thermistors, strain gages, flow meters, accelerometers, pressure transducers, signal conditioning circuits, multimeters, signal generators, amplifiers, bridge circuits, and oscilloscopes. LabVIEW instruction continues incrementally throughout the course. Using these hardware tools, reinforced with LabVIEW displays, students can perform a wide variety of measurements and experiments. Clearly, this is not the standard approach used in circuits, fluids and strength of materials laboratory classes, where disciplinary emphasis is dominant. For example, flow meters and pressure transducers would be introduced in a fluids lab and strain gages in the strengths lab, certainly not in the typical circuits lab.

Experiment two in MEL I focuses on the calibration of a thermistor both manually and with computer data acquisition, and incorporates the use of a multimeter, a signal generator, and voltage divider circuit design and construction. Typically, this is the first calibration that students encounter during their academic careers. The thermistor experiments require students to begin at one equilibrium state and transition to the next. Using a series of constant temperature baths and a tightly calibrated thermistor, students perform a manual calibration of a thermistor with unknown reference properties. Next, they extend the LabVIEW tutorial, learning to build the loops, arrays and waveform chart functions needed to acquire analog data, and to graph and analyze the data from the two thermistors. They must compare the two methods and discuss issues of precision and accuracy. Although LabVIEW includes a thermistor VI, we require students to build their own in order to gain experience in G on this relatively straightforward exercise. In addition, students are provided with fundamental information relating to heat transfer and circuit design based on conservation of energy principles, as well as to the physical/chemical and materials properties of the thermistors that affect their electrical response to heat. Thus by week two of the class, the students have been introduced to circuits, heat transfer, computer controlled data acquisition, and other engineering topics.

MEL I is, in effect, providing students experience in the use of a suite of hardware and software tools necessary for state-of-the-art engineering practice. Example applications are given for each laboratory. There is no distinction made between electrical, mechanical, civil or chemical engineering applications. We plan all labs such that applications and instruction extend across disciplinary boundaries. For example, since petroleum and metallurgical engineering majors are required to take MEL I, connections are made between MEL experiments and petroleum and materials applications. Even though controlled conditions are used in some experiments in MEL I and II, students are not led sequentially through the steps necessary to complete the experiment. Rather, they are given a group of objectives to accomplish, training in the skills necessary to use the required tools, and encouraged to design their own experimental procedures and to be inquisitive. The instructor moves around the room, coaching the students through the experiments. This paradigm leads students to be self-learners.

The students' knowledge of, and hands-on experience with engineering instruments and sensors is further developed in experiments three and four. Specifically, experiment three deals with strain gages, as well as computer data acquisition using LabVIEW. This lab connects horizontally with courses in Strength of Materials and Electronics and Circuits. Following this, and building on the computer acquisition system developed in experiments two and three, students investigate the response of an oscillating beam in experiment four. This experiment uses a small beam, weights, strain gage, bridge circuit and amplifier for the acquisition of the oscillatory behavior of the beam. In addition, students use strain gages and a thermistor to measure the thermal coefficient of expansion for a test specimen. This presents a materials science application and integrates experiments two and three.

Experiment number five in MEL I is an investigation of pressure measurement techniques, and includes pressure gages, diaphragm style pressure transducers, manometers, and differential measurements. Note that at this point in their educations (sophomore year), most students will not have taken either fluid mechanics or strength of materials. Thus even concepts like gage and absolute pressure, although introduced in Physics, will be new in terms of a laboratory project, and the element of discovery will be strong. The project starts with disassembly and analysis of a Bourdon tube vacuum gage. Students must answer open-ended questions such as how to modify the gage to make it a positive pressure rather than a vacuum device, and how to modify it to operate over a different pressure range, or with higher accuracy.

The pressure gage experiments continue with the calibration of a diaphragm style pressure transducer, which the students design and construct from tuna cans and strain gages, in comparison with a manufactured pressure transducer (this integrates experiments three, four and five). Students decide whether to take measurements with a multimeter or a computer data acquisition modules in LabVIEW, and must decide whether to use a waveform or a single channel virtual instrument. We provide a reference sheet containing a straightforward explanation of stress/strain relationships, Young's modulus, and yield conditions, and have the students explore the stress /strain relation of the tuna can near the yield point. Here are a few of the other questions asked of the students:

What is the damage mechanism and how does it affect zero and linearity errors? Provide evidence for your conclusions with a few data points.

A common step in engineering design is to estimate overall dimensions. If you are designing a transducer with aluminum (E = 10 x10⁶ psi) instead of steel, what would you estimate for the dimensions of a transducer intended for 0 to 100 psia? If accuracy is limited only by the ability to measure strain, what sensitivity error would you predict? Assume 100 psia gives a 5V output and consider the A/D resolution of the data acquisition system (refer to the A/D handout from MEL I/2.) Explain your answer.

Finally, students use the manufactured pressure transducer and the manometer to measure the specific weight of an unknown fluid, and then employ a differential manometer technique to find the slight difference in specific weights between water and salt water. This lab also introduces students to error analysis, hysteresis, and measures of accuracy.

MEL III - The Uncontrolled Environment

After completing the first and second laboratory courses, students will work on projects which are less controlled, i.e. as similar as possible to the real engineering problem-solving environment. They will be given open-ended assignments and judged at least partially on the basis of the thoroughness and usefulness of their investigations. The design of the experiments and selection of instrumentation, as well as the range of measurements to be taken is left to the students.

One of the projects will be based on mini-Baja vehicles constructed at CSM for competition purposes. The mini-Baja competition is a national event in which teams of engineering students from many schools design and build off-road vehicles, and compete in an array of design performance contests. CSM senior design students have participated in this competition for the past two years, coming in fourth overall in 1996, and a CSM team will participate again in the 1997 competition. In support of this effort, we are planning a series of projects involving the mini-Baja vehicle, instrumentation, a GPS (Global Positioning System), and computer analysis, modeling, and design.

To integrate civil, electrical and mechanical disciplines, students will use traditional surveying tools, such as total survey stations, to stake out the coordinates along a path. Equipping the mini-Baja vehicle with the GPS, they will drive the path and compare the surveyed locations with those obtained from the GPS. A post-survey analysis will then be done to assess the differences between the two sets of data. They will learn to use computer based maps and digital topographical maps, and plot trajectory positions on the digital maps, and then, using 3D parametric modeling packages, render topographic maps.

Next, students will mount strain gages, accelerometers, encoders, and displacement transducers on the suspension of the mini-Baja vehicle, and interface these to a laptop computer on the vehicle. As the students drive the staked trajectory, data from the transducers and GPS will be collected on the laptop data acquisition system. These data, combined with the surveyed coordinates will be used for two objectives. First, students will examine the effect of vibrations and shocks on the accuracy and reliability of the GPS positional data as it traverses the path. Second, students will use the accelerometer and strain gage data for redesign of the mini-Baja suspension. This will involve building a 3-D model of the suspension, and, using an integrated modeling and analysis package, subject the suspension model to the actual forcing obtained in the field. The students will compare the stresses determined by the computer package with the actual data from the strain gages. Finally, they will use the modeling package to make predictions of stresses in a redesigned suspension of different dimensions, in essence, introducing them to virtual prototyping and simulation based design. This will be quite useful for improving the design of the vehicle, since our experience in the previous mini-Baja competitions suggests that fracture of suspension components is a common occurrence. The GPS data will allow them to investigate the terrain features that cause the most vehicle damage at different vehicle velocities.

This project is particularly comprehensive in its coverage of engineering methods, skills, principles and disciplines. Further, the project demonstrates the vertical integration of knowledge and skills in the MEL I, II and II sequence. Sensors, instruments, computer acquisition techniques and methods of analysis first learned in MEL I and MEL II are incorporated into the much more complex and open-ended projects in MEL III. The project is also a good example of the interdisciplinary nature of the engineering program at CSM. GPS is taught in the civil specialty as a separate course, but all engineering students receive an introduction to surveying and GPS during field session, a requirement for all civil, electrical and mechanical engineering students at CSM. Students taught in this way are not constrained to the traditional disciplinary boundaries, rather they see the job of the engineer as one of interdisciplinary problem solver.

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION

Effective assessment, linked with feedback methods which continuously improve the quality of the laboratory experience for students, is crucial to the success of this project. We have appointed an independent Evaluation and Assessment Panel to oversee and audit the evaluation activities, and ensure that we deal with unbiased results. Working with this Panel, we are using multiple instruments, qualitative and quantitative, formative and summative, to monitor our progress and provide timely feedback. We employ three different sets of assessment data.

1) Baseline data: At the beginning of the project, we are collecting data in specific areas:

• Tests of students' abilities to apply concepts learned in one engineering application to another.
• Students' attitudes and enthusiasm for the existing fluids, electronics and stress analysis laboratory courses.
• Data related to students' willingness to improvise and learn by the experiential method.
• Data on laboratory usage and expenditure of faculty effort in the existing setting.
• Statistics on numbers and retention of returning students.

2) Comparative data: Throughout the first two years of the project, not all engineering students are enrolled in the engineering systems laboratory. As noted above, a pilot group of 25 students is currently enrolled in MEL I, and ninety students will take this course in fall 1997. During the same semester a pilot group of students will be enrolled in MEL II. Full enrollment in MEL II will occur in the spring 1998 semester. A similar ramp-up pattern will be followed for MEL III. This will allow us to assemble the following comparative data for assessment:

• Pre- and post- surveys of the attitudes of participants and non-participants towards the existing laboratories and the engineering systems laboratory. Attitudes and perceptions will also be gauged through journals kept by participants and a control group of non-participants.
• Pre- and post- surveys of the attitudes of participants and non-participants regarding their perceptions of the integrative nature of engineering.
• Tracking of the academic success of participants and non-participants in lecture courses in fluid mechanics, strength of materials and electrical engineering, including faculty perceptions.
• Tracking students' performance in integrated senior capstone design classes.
• Tracking laboratory usage of participants to determine efficiencies and faculty load.
• Tracking performance of student participants and non-participants on the Engineer-in-Training exam (EIT) - (national entry level professional exam for engineers).

3) Special areas of emphasis: Several objectives of the project will be monitored and evaluated in greater detail. In particular, the degree to which the engineering systems laboratory, through its openness and accessibility, fosters academic retention of returning students, displaced workers, and minority and women students in the engineering program.

• Interviews with returning students, displaced workers, minority and women students regarding the impact of the engineering systems laboratories.
• On-going statistical data on the recruitment, retention, and career plans of returning students, displaced workers, minority and women students.
• Pre- and post- program surveys of the attitudes of female participants and non-participants towards hands-on laboratory work.

Results of these formal assessment activities are not available at the time of preparation of this paper, and will be reported in subsequent articles. However, we do have anecdotal information regarding the assessment/evaluation of MEL I. First, the comments of students in the MEL I pilot group are very positive. We have observed a higher degree of student activity and collaboration in the labs than in the comparable disciplinary course. One student in MEL I remarked that although he was working harder than his friends enrolled in the disciplinary course, he was enjoying it more. Members of one MEL I team noted that they were learning a great deal from each other. Several students commented that the MEL I lab resembled what they anticipated doing as engineers in the workplace after graduation. Here are a few other quotes from students: "I like the Lab so far and I think I learn some skills I may need later. I like how this lab allows some time for exploration."; "I enjoy the hands-on experience and the computer data acquisition. I find the labs difficult but hopefully rewarding. I wish a little more guidance was provided initially."; "I like the lab and what we are doing. I will probably take MEL II based on how I do in this lab. I think this lab is more challenging and takes more effort, but I believe I will get more out of it. I also tend to like things more structured than this lab has been but (have been) learning to adjust."; "I enjoy the non-cookbook format, the leisure to take time to really understand and the opportunity to do more applicable and realistic labs."; "I enjoy the systems oriented approach to problem solving and would like to continue at a more in depth level."

CONCLUSIONS

Joseph Bordogna et al. (1993) argue that "engineering is an integrative process and that curriculum innovation therefore should be toward this end." Our objectives for the multidisciplinary lab are to offer students the opportunity to work on problems that simulate, as closely as possible, the interdisciplinary industrial environment, to have them design and carry out experiments with the responsibility of selecting instrumentation, and analyzing, quantifying and reporting their results. In summary, we wish to empower students to think for themselves as engineering problem solvers. This requires that they develop the ability to span traditional disciplines while applying fundamental engineering principles, to use a broad set of engineering skills, and to function comfortably with various engineering methods. Students will learn to integrate these facets as productive engineers, and will employ appropriate skills in data analysis, experimentation and modeling to accomplish this integration.

REFERENCES

Bar-Cohen, Avram, "Mechanical engineering in the information age", Mechanical Engineering, Dec. 1995, pp. 66-70.

Bordogna, J., E. Fromm and E. Ernst, "Engineering Education: Innovation through Integration", Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 3-8, Jan. 1993.

Coleman, Robert J., "The Engineering Education Coalitions: A Progress Report", ASEE Prism, Sept. 1996, pp. 24-31.

Corotis, R., 1996, personal communication.

Ercolano, V., "Broadening the Landscape", ASEE Prism, pp. 32-36, Sept. 1996.

Kolb, D.A., Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1984.

Monteith, L. K., "Engineering Education - A Century of Opportunity", Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 83, No. 1, January 1994.

Williams, Patrick, "The Great Synthesizer", ASEE Prism, pp. 18-23. Dec. 1993.

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