SOME ATTEMPTS TO ACHIEVE HIGH QUALITY STUDENT TEAM EXPERIENCES IN APPLICATIONS AND DESIGN THROUGH INDUSTRIAL COLLABORATION

ABSTRACT

This paper describes efforts to utilize industrial collaboration to achieve high quality student team projects aimed at applications and design. The School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, undergraduate curriculum contains two required courses in which these activities have been vigorously pursued: (1) ME315, Heat and Mass Transfer (4 credit hours) and (2) ME463, Engineering Design (3 credit hours). In addition, a new elective course, ME415, Energy Systems Engineering (3 credit hours), involves considerable industrial interaction for the students. The nature of these activities, including benefits for students, is described. Contributions of industrial partners, working arrangements, extra benefits, difficulties and costs are also addressed.

INTRODUCTION

This paper describes efforts to utilize industrial collaboration to achieve high quality student team projects aimed at applications and design. The School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, undergraduate curriculum contains two required courses in which these activities have been vigorously pursued: (1) ME315, Heat and Mass Transfer (4 credit hours) and (2) ME463, Engineering Design (3 credit hours). In addition, a new elective course, ME415, Energy Systems Engineering (3 credit hours), involves considerable industrial interaction for the students. In the following three sections, each of these courses is briefly described, with special attention given to the arrangements for conducting the team projects. Some of the evolutionary changes in these arrangements are also presented. And finally, the collaboration mechanisms, their benefits and their costs are discussed. Because ME463 is similar to senior design courses at many other institutions whose mechanical engineering programs are similar to Purdue's, its features are described first. This is followed by discussion of the ME315 and ME415 project activities.

CAPSTONE DESIGN COURSE

ME463 is often referred to as a "capstone design course" because it is taken by our seniors in the last semester of the BSME program, and because it is free of the disciplinary boundaries of engineering science courses. In a typical semester, oral presentations are given on topics of general interest which are useful in design. Example topics are application of statistics in establishing favorable fabrication tolerances, economic decision-making, and use of project scheduling methods. Most of these are presented by student teams; each student is required to participate in one of these. In most cases, the students have been exposed to the topic in earlier courses, so the presentation builds on that background by providing a quick review, some further depth in the subject, and illustrative examples. In addition, occasional outside speakers are invited to address all students in the course. For example, an experienced lawyer might give a lecture on patent law. The remainder of the course time is devoted to two industrially-generated student team design projects of 7-8 weeks duration. One or more engineers from the company formulating the project visits the campus and meets with the students in the early going to firmly establish project goals and constraints. Usually there is a modest level of communication between the company and the on-campus effort in order to keep the project "on track." A second visit occurs at the end of the project when the company engineers listen to selected student team oral presentations. When the company is located only a modest distance from the campus, additional visits are likely, as well as a tour of company facilities by the student teams, but most projects do not allow these luxuries. In addition to the project work itself, each team is required to submit progress reports, as well as final reports with a summarizing poster to accompany each final report, and to deliver oral presentations. Occasionally, a student team will pursue a single project for an entire semester in a situation involving a larger challenge. Examples are projects which incorporate experimental measurements into the design effort and projects which involve fabrication and testing of one or more prototypes. In earlier times all design projects for this course were devised by faculty. For many years, however, almost all ME463 design projects have originated with our industrial colleagues. We want to continue and expand this activity because it definitely has enriched our program by: (1) providing a broader range problems, (2) stimulating excitement and motivation (because of the real-world problems and the desire that students have for interacting with experienced engineers in the field), and (3) inducing greater application of creativity on the part of both students and faculty (because of the wide range of multiple solutions that exist for each design situation).

For the vast majority of these senior students, the arrangement described above appears to deliver worthwhile experiences which develop valuable capabilities needed for success in their future endeavors. In order to capitalize on the ME463 activity, and thus receive the benefits it offers, students must enter the course with the necessary attributes to meet the sizable challenges involved. These include the ability to work in teams, to think broadly when seeking solutions to problems, to recognize and seize opportunities to apply analytical skills and computer calculations to real systems, and to combine aggressive effort with good decisions in dealing with open-ended problems having both resource and time constraints. Fortunately, entering students do reach ME463 with prior experiences in earlier courses which cultivate these skills. In regard to the more unwieldy design challenges, two of these courses are most prominent. ME263, Introduction to Mechanical Engineering Design, is a required 3 credit hour sophomore level course devoted to product design in the broadest sense (involving need, customer requirements, manufacturing methods, economics, etc.). ME315, Heat and Mass Transfer, is a required 4 credit hour course with a laboratory component which is taken by most students in the seventh semester. Both of these courses require team projects. In ME263, it is a semester-long effort to design and substantiate validity of a particular product. In ME315, it is a 6 to 8 week effort to apply thermal science fundamentals and measurements to practical applications and design. The hands-on work in this activity seems to be valuable for the subsequent ME463 challenge, probably because it develops confidence and enhances judgment for the students. Also, the trend is towards more hands-on work in ME463 as well, with some projects involving activities such as disassembling and diagnosing products, making experimental measurements to ascertain performance of existing product components, and fabrication of primitive physical models and early prototypes of new designs. From the ME263, ME315, and other prior experiences, the ME463 students already know how to get hands-on tasks accomplished efficiently (materials, work area, tools, instrumentation, assistance from technicians and staff, etc.). Another helpful aspect lies in the fact that some students are involved in our co-op program and have been having industrial experience interspersed with their educational program. Many others have had summer internships in industry. A student who has not had industrial experience will most likely work in a team with another student or students who have, and can benefit from that cooperation. In other words, the students' off-campus experiences are added to the preparation mix for ME463. Additional descriptions of key ingredients of the Purdue mechanical curriculum which are pertinent to this discussion are given in References [1], [2], and [3].

HEAT TRANSFER COURSE

ME315, Heat and Mass Transfer (4 credit hours), is the third in the sequence of thermal sciences core courses. [The prior two thermal sciences courses are ME200, Thermodynamics (3 credit hours) and ME309, Fluid Mechanics (4 credit hours).] There are 3 one-hour lectures per week and an associated one-credit hour laboratory (2 hours per week, 15 week semester). Prior to 1992, the laboratory activity was comprised of 13 or 14 traditional experiments, with a written report required of each student for each experiment. This was a very traditional laboratory program, typical of others at many institutions throughout the US.

In Spring 1992 two team projects were assigned and managed by the laboratory instructors. The first of these required considerable student time and effort, whereas the second could be accomplished with a very modest time expenditure by the student teams. Both required real know-how of course fundamentals for any student team that expected to be successful. The number of traditional experiments was decreased to allow time for the students to pursue their projects. In spite of this, the overall workload turned out to be too great (lesson no. 1 learned from this "educational experiment"). Nevertheless, student interest in course fundamentals seemed to increase, as the students found ways to apply these principles to "real design." Another positive aspect was that the lab instructors were found to be very capable of monitoring, advising, and evaluating the student teams. In ME315, a typical laboratory class contains 12 students which, if divided into teams of 3 students each, leads to 4 teams per class. This was the key for successful management of the projects by the instructors. This was the first time that students in ME315 (basically an engineering science-type course) had to devote major team design efforts of several weeks duration while continuing to learn course fundamentals in the lecture portion of the course. One ingredient was missing, however -- industrial collaboration. The two projects were devised by faculty, and not by engineers in industry. Nevertheless, Spring 1992 started an evolutionary sequence of events that brought industrial collaboration into the program, and also led to significant changes in the types of projects pursued and the methods used to do so. Some aspects of these changes are discussed in the following paragraphs. Additional information is contained in the References [4-7].

Table 1 summarizes the history of ME315 team projects. The first entry is for Spring 1992, described in the paragraph above. Following that semester, the advantages of real, industrially generated design problems were recognized, and attempts were made to establish collaboration with our industrial colleagues. This led to a project provided by a local company (Dynamic Corporation) for Fall 1992 (3rd line in Table 1). Because of the close proximity, the key engineer involved was on-campus several times, and it was relatively easy to bus the students to the plant for a tour of manufacturing facilities. The general procedure was the same for Spring 1993 and Fall 1993 (4th line in Table 1), though the close proximity advantage was not available. By this time it was abundantly clear that the industrially generated design problems provided superior design experiences for the student teams. The work overload problem of Spring 1992 was alleviated in two ways, (1) by moderating the demands of the project and (2) by a further reduction in the number of traditional experiments.

During the summers of 1992 and 1993 (lines 2 and 5 of Table 1), another "educational experiment" was conducted. Each student team was assigned its own project with all the projects being different. There wasn't time to arrange industrial collaboration, but we believe that the projects turned out to be very meaningful for the students, primarily because they all required design and build, plus measurements and analysis.

For Spring 1994 and Fall 1994 (line 6 of Table 1) collaboration was arranged with Ford Motor Company's Climate Control Division. For the first time, measurements became a part of industrially sponsored team project activities. But, because of higher enrollments the multi-topic scenario of the two preceding summers was not attempted. Instead, following consultation with Ford personnel about needs and interests, Purdue staff constructed two types of apparatus. These were used to investigate windshield convection heat transfer on the inside and outside, respectively, and eventually (Fall 1994) to study evaporation on the inside of a windshield (defogging). Convection on the outside was pursued using wind tunnels. Automotive components installed in the "inside apparatus" were provided by Ford. All student teams employed this equipment to take measurements with the goal of combining these with analysis to provide useful design information. This, in turn, was used by the teams to identify and recommend favorable design parameters.

Table 1 - Summary of ME315 Team Project Activities up

^*In general, summer sessions are omitted from this table. However, the summer sessions of 1992 and 1993 are included because they involved key stages of the evolution to the current method of conducting the team projects.

1994 was a very important year in the evolution of ME315 projects. Student enthusiasm for interaction with the company in regard to both measurements and analysis related to real products was very evident. Yet, some student teams had difficulty meeting the challenge. It was observed that these teams wound up with a sizable quantity of experimental measurements, but became discouraged and encountered confusion in the attempt to apply course fundamentals (analysis) in order to reach project goals. This result was somewhat understandable in view of the general (open-ended) manner in which these goals were stated. Thus, some type of major change was envisioned for Spring 1995. Since ME315 enrollment is much smaller in the spring semester than in the fall, it was decided to try something more radical. For Spring 1995 (line 7 of Table 1) Ford personnel agreed to participate again, and the multi-project design and build feature of the summers of 1992 and 1993 was added. Thus, the scenario of those summers was created, but this time with industrial collaboration. Sixteen different project titles with brief descriptions were formulated, all within the general area of automotive climate control. Most dealt with windshield heat transfer, defogging, defrosting, and de-icing. There were approximately twenty student teams, with each team "owning" its own unique project in most cases. A few projects were pursued by more than one team. Fortunately, for that one semester a so-called "cold room" was available. This room was actually a graduate research facility whose temperature was thermostatically controlled. This made it possible to make experimental measurements in an environment as cold as 0^oF or below. It was even possible to place real automobile inside the room for the purpose of making measurements. A few student teams did just that. Since the topics pursued were quite diverse, some projects did not require the cold room. However, almost half of the teams used this facility in some manner.

Here is a project description from Spring 1995:

On a cold winter morning, an automobile which has been parked outside all night will typically have a layer of frost and/or ice on the exterior of the windshield. The conventional manner of removal is melting which occurs only after engine start-up, engine warm-up, warm air flow over the inside windshield surface and transient conduction through the windshield have occurred. The long delay associated with these processes causes inconvenience for the driver and passengers. This project involves investigating the technical feasibility of using electrically powered radiant lamps mounted inside the automobile on the dashboard. A portion of the lamp's radiant emission will pass directly through the windshield immediately, as soon as the lamp is turned on. If the frost (or ice) captures a significant portion of this radiant energy, quick melting is potentially achievable.

This description was used to introduce the project to one of the student teams. No other team pursued this particular concept. The students made their own decisions, designed and constructed at least three experimental test setups and used course fundamentals to analyze the results. Note that there are no rigid design specifications, thus allowing the student team the flexibility to apply its own judgment in that regard. The team's early experimental work was performed using a section of a real automotive windshield and a purchased radiant lamp supplied with 12 volts DC (automotive-type supply). The final work involved ice layers on the windshield of a real automobile in the cold room. The main problems of 1994 disappeared during Spring 1995. There was no student team that wound up with a lot of measurements, wondering what to do with them. If a team decides to go through the task of designing and fabricating apparatus, and then uses it to obtain measurements, we can be assured that the students involved have some good ideas about what to do with those measurements. With the diversity of topics, the atmosphere was more like "real-world engineering." All of the projects were closely related to existing automotive equipment and/or potential automotive products. At the time, Spring 1995 was judged to be the most satisfying semester yet for the ME315 project program.

After three consecutive semesters of collaboration with Ford, an observant member of the Purdue faculty (not associated with ME315) asked a timely question: "Are you going to do windshields forever?" The reminder wasn't really needed, but it did emphasize the point. Thus, in Fall 1995 an appropriate change was made, and another was unavoidably encountered: (1) the range of project topics was broadened considerably and (2) enrollment was high, leading to 56 project teams. In regard to the first change, some projects were still related to Ford's automotive interests, but ME315 staff formulated a sizable number of non-automotive projects. In total, there were more than 40 different projects devoted to a wide range of topics. Again there were a few projects that were pursued by more than one student team. Ford personnel continued to collaborate at the same level as previously, thus maintaining a strong industrial atmosphere. One of the most satisfying aspects was that Purdue's resources for addressing this kind of challenge (space, instrumentation, shop assistance, etc.) was proven to be adequate for success, even with a student enrollment of 168 and 56 student teams.

In the semesters following Fall 1995, the procedure has been similar, but with one further change. While the much appreciated Ford involvement has been sustained, a few additional companies have been involved as well. For example, during Spring 1996 several ME315 student teams pursued electronic cooling applications in response to overheating problems supplied by Thomson Consumer Electronics. These formed a well matched complement to similar problems supplied by Ford in connection with automotive instrument panels. A few additional companies have also provided collaboration during the last three semesters. In spite of this, the supply of direct industrial collaboration-type projects has not been sufficient to provide every student team with its unique project which is directly connected to a particular collaborating engineer (or group of engineers) in industry. The shortfall has been made up by ME315 staff (faculty, graduate student lab instructors, and undergraduate lab assistants) who have become adept at formulating meaningful projects. This capability has been developed to a large extent from the industrial collaboration occurring during the last five years. The ideal goal is to maintain the diversity of projects, along with the design, build, measure, analyze, and explain procedure, with each team having some sort of meaningful collaboration with engineers in industry. Involvement of additional companies has helped sustain "the real engineering environment" in which all of the projects are conducted. But more industrial involvement would be better, and is being pursued.

The ME315 project activity has increased the course content of problem based learning (PBL) and somewhat decreased the content of traditional subject based learning (SBL). We believe the change to be a healthy one, since PBL at times seems to generate greater motivation for learning fundamentals. These learning modes (SBL and PBL) have been recently discussed in the literature [8]. As a final note in regard to ME315, it should be mentioned that much of what is stated here is a repeat of material presented in Reference [7]. However, that publication contains additional descriptions of the entire ME315 Laboratory Program (experiments, manner of generating and conducting projects, application of resources to projects, linking of course fundamentals to project work, etc.). Lessons learned about industrial collaboration, how to make it more efficient, and how to enlarge it are not emphasized in Reference [7], but will be discussed further in this paper.

ENERGY SYSTEMS ENGINEERING COURSE

ME415, Energy Systems Engineering (3 credit hours), is not a required core course of the curriculum. It is a new course, offered as an elective to seniors who wish to strengthen their backgrounds in the thermal sciences. Thus far, it has been offered only once, in Spring 1996. Enrollment was 8 students, all having completed ME315 previously. The early portion of the course involved extension of thermal sciences fundamentals and their application to various practical devices. Computer software introduced to these students previously in ME315 was applied to the study of these devices in order to develop further capability to model, analyze and conduct parameter variation studies. Additional software was also introduced. Simultaneously, discussion related to team projects was initiated. Arrangements had been made for collaboration with Thomson Consumer Electronics in Indianapolis. The entire class visited the company, spending a day with engineers who showed them general features of television devices and their fabrication. Specific overheating problems related to certain electronic components were also described. Team project activities on campus were initiated immediately after the visit. The company provided a large television set, which was disassembled so that its major components were displayed for ease of visualizing and handling. Duplicates of some components were also provided. These were eventually disassembled further and modified for the purpose of conducting experimental project work. This work involved analysis and re-design, re-fabrication, and testing of modified units. Team efforts were concentrated primarily on two components (magnetic deflection yoke and PVT coupler). The goal was to better understand operation associated with the existing design, to use judgment, analysis and computer tools to assess candidate design modifications, and finally to experimentally verify and evaluate the performance of the modified components. The students used their prior ME315 project experience well. In fact, the scenario was very much a scaled up version of the ME315 project activity -- a larger technical challenge which generated a more substantial student effort (more intense, more student hours of effort devoted, more sophisticated analysis, etc.). A major progress report was delivered by each team at mid-semester. The teams re-visited the company at the end of the semester to deliver oral presentations to company engineers, summarizing project results and making recommendations. Based on the success of this venture, it is planned that this course will be offered again in Spring 1998, hopefully with a larger enrollment.

MORE ABOUT ARRANGEMENTS, COSTS AND BENEFITS

Many observations can be made concerning our industrial collaboration experiences. First, there has been considerable variety in the types of projects conducted, with corresponding variety in the types of benefits derived for both students and their industrial partners. Associated with this are the differing demands placed on both industrial representatives and university staff.

Typical ME 463 projects request that the student teams design a new device, or re-design and improve an existing product, which must meet certain performance specifications under a set of constraints (size, envelope, weight, manufacturability, cost, etc.). The ME 315 design projects listed in lines 3 and 4 of Table 1 fall into this category as well. This type of project requires considerable advance time and effort to be successful. The overall perspective of the project must be clear to the students, including many of the "why's" of the specifications and the "why-not's" associated with proposed violations of the constraints. For example, in the case of a re-design of an existing product, why can't the locations of the mounting bolts be altered in the newly designed component in order to achieve a more rugged system with a longer life cycle? Answer: There are thousands of these components in the field with an unacceptably high rate of failure. If this device is bolted to a truck engine, for example, the newly designed component must bolt on in exactly the same manner if rapid replacement of failed components is to be achieved. Our procedure is to prepare a short information packet describing all these kinds of requirements so the student teams can quickly grasp the main features of the project. Not all of the fine details need to be contained in this document since the industry representatives visit the campus shortly after project initiation and can fill in the information gaps and answer questions that remove any confusion that the students have based on their reading of the information packet. This makes the task of preparing the packet a reasonable one. Nevertheless, the burden of preparing it is not trivial, as it takes some time and effort to achieve. The start of this task necessarily occurs within the company involved, but the resulting document usually ends up as a collaborative effort between a company engineer and one or two Purdue faculty. Brainstorming by phone, writing, editing and mailing drafts back and forth by fax or e-mail usually gets the job done. When it is done well, student teams can "pick up the ball and run with it" quite effectively. The collaboration time for this task may not be large, but the situation creates "crunch time" at both locations. An information packet of reasonable quality must be ready for the scheduled project kickoff. Without it, student enthusiasm for the project is lost at the start. Before a project is actually formulated, of course, it starts with casual conversation between the company and the university. This emphasizes the importance of periodic discussions in person or by phone on a continuing basis. Although this may seem simple enough, the administrations of both organizations should recognize that it does take time and effort to sustain this valuable activity on the part of the persons involved.

The ME315 project activity during 1994 (line 6 of Table 1) required the kind of effort described above, and even more since apparatus had to be designed and fabricated prior to the students' experimental work. Further, a Ford representative gave a lecture each semester to all the students describing similar work at the company, emphasizing both measurements and use of software packages to predict airflow and temperature distributions associated with automotive climate control. Also, two Ford representatives attended a selected set of student team presentations near the end of the semester. Thus, both the company and the university devoted considerable effort. But the benefits were considerable as well, since experimental measurements enhanced most students' experiences greatly, and high levels of visibility and interaction of Ford personnel led to substantial student interest and motivation towards automotive applications.

The transition from a common project for all student teams (1994, line 6 of Table 1) to unique team projects with multiple topics (1995, line 7 of Table 1) was an ambitious step. In spite of this, the preparatory burden on the industrial side was less severe. This was due to the knowledge base that ME315 staff had acquired from the prior two semesters of collaboration with the company. Thus, the project descriptions were largely conceived and written on campus following some Purdue/Ford brainstorming activities which occurred partly by telephone and e-mail. A second alleviating factor is the general nature of the project descriptions. Recall that the radiant ice-melting project description given previously contains no rigid design specifications or constraints. It merely describes an idea that the student team was asked to investigate in order to ascertain whether a future product of this type is feasible. This looseness of the project definition puts less stress on the company and the ME315 staff as well, and makes the multi-topic operation do-able. Another advantage of the multi-topic mode of operation is that it shifts the burden of apparatus design and fabrication from the company and university staff (as it was during 1994) to the student teams. And it is a beneficial shift for the students, who learn a great deal from designing and fabricating their own apparatus. Once the projects were started, periodic contributions by the company were made to some of them. These included additional clarification of company desires, information on materials and specifications related to components, and actual components themselves (heat exchangers, etc.). In Spring 1995, the company arranged for 3 student teams and their instructors to visit one of its plants. Two of the teams employed a thermal imaging system at the plant to acquire measurements and color displays of temperature distributions as a part of their project work. To accomplish this, the teams transported their apparatus to the plant, and were assisted by plant engineers and technicians in charge of the thermal imaging system. Some projects do not require much, if any, company contribution once it is launched, but others have needs from time to time. It is not unusual for a single Ford engineer to communicate periodically with 5 or 6 members of the ME315 staff during a particular semester in regard to needs for specific projects.

It has been possible in some cases to pursue a particular company's interests by doing project work in two different courses during the same semester. For example, in Spring 1996 electronic cooling projects were conducted in collaboration with Thomson Consumer Electronics by student teams in both ME315 and ME415. In Fall 1996 ME463 students designed cooling devices for hydraulic elevator systems subjected to heavy duty cycles in collaboration with Otis Elevator Company. During the same semester several ME315 student teams, also collaborating with Otis, pursued experiments and analysis on cooling of hot hydraulic systems. In each of these cases there were some beneficial interactions between students in the two companion classes. Note that the industrial collaboration was used more efficiently, in that it produced educational benefits for two groups of students instead of only one. And finally, the company involved received more technical feedback than would occur if only one course was involved. Thus, both the university and the company received more payoff than usual for their efforts. An interesting situation occurred during Fall 1996 when one of the ME315 student teams worked on the feasibility of developing an electrical relay in collaboration with Touch-Plate Lighting Controls, Inc. using a component composed of a unique material produced by Dynalloy, Inc. In this case the student team collaborated with two companies simultaneously.

In the present mode of operation, some ME315 projects are connected with an engineer at a company from the start, and some are not. Among those that are not initially connected, some have been "spawned" from ideas generated during industrial collaboration in prior semesters, so they do have "an industrial flavor" at least. In summary, the valuable collaboration arrangements that we and our industrial colleagues have generated have been "stretched" from semester to semester and from course to course in order to benefit more student teams.

Viewing these activities from the industrial side, it can be noted that the cooperating companies are viewed most favorably by the students, who very much appreciate the industrial connection provided. Some company personnel feel that participation of this kind enhances the education and capability of potential future employees, whom they may eventually wish to interview. The brainstorming and flow of ideas between the companies and the campus is also beneficial. And finally, there are the technical results communicated to company representatives through student reports, oral presentations and personal discussions. For some companies at least, the costs of collaboration (primarily time devoted by their engineers) seem to be justified in terms of these benefits.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

This paper has described student team project activities in mechanical engineering courses at Purdue University, with emphasis on the educational enrichment that industrial collaboration has provided. At present each of our students is exposed to two types of team projects: (1) a hands-on project in ME315 which tends to be somewhat loosely defined, and (2) a more tightly defined project involving specifications and constraints in ME463. We feel that exposure to both yields the best education package. It is rewarding to observe that many of our students rapidly develop their professional skills in pursuing these tasks, and develop confidence and sound engineering judgment in the process. Additional arrangements with more companies would further enrich the program with an even greater diversity of industrial applications and designs. In total, our industrial colleagues have devoted substantial efforts and have made huge contributions to the on-campus experiences of literally thousands of our graduates. For this we are grateful, and hope that we can continue and expand these relationships for the benefit of future students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

It is not possible to specifically acknowledge all of the individuals and organizations that have contributed collaboration efforts to our program in the space available here. For this, we apologize, but feel compelled to thank Dr. Bashar S. AbdulNour and his colleagues at Ford Motor Company, Automotive Components Division, for 3 1/2 years of contributions to the ME315 project program. In addition to considerable technical interaction and hardware components, Ford has provided continuous financial support for two ME315 undergraduate laboratory assistants plus additional funds for some of the needed project supplies during each semester. This unique and sustained collaboration has been a key factor in the evolution and improvement of the ME315 project program as summarized in Table 1.

REFERENCES

1. Starkey, J.M., D.P. DeWitt, A. Midha and R.W. Fox "Mechanical Engineering Curriculum for the 21st Century: Design Integration at Purdue University," Innovations in Mechanical Engineering Curricula for the 1990s, The 1994 Curriculum Innovation Awards, ASME Council on Education, pp 31-34.

2. Starkey, J.M., A. Midha, D.P. DeWitt and R.W. Fox, "Experiences in the Integration of Design Across the Mechanical Engineering Curriculum," Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education, Nov 2-6, 1994, San Jose, CA, IEEE/ASEE, (L.P Grayson, ed), pp. 464-468.

3. King, G.B., R.D. Evans, D.P. DeWitt and P.H. Meckl, "Curriculum-Wide Systems Programming Environment for Mechanical Engineering Instructional Laboratories," Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education, Nov 2-6, 1994, San Jose, CA, IEEE/ASEE, (L.P Grayson, ed), pp. 233-236.

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5. Schoenhals, R.J., and D.P. DeWitt, "Student Team Projects dealing with Industrial Applications in a Heat Transfer Course," Proceedings of the Society of Engineering Science, 32^nd Annual Technical Meeting, (D. Hui and S. Michaelides, eds.), New Orleans, LA, Oct 29-Nov 2, 1995, pp 513-514.

6. DeWitt, D.P., and R.J. Schoenhals, "Expanding the Role of the Laboratory: Experiences in Heat Transfer Design and Industrial Practice," Innovations in Mechanical Engineering Curricula for the 1990s, The 1996 Curriculum Innovation Awards, ASME Council on Education, pp. 26-28.

7. Bianchi, M.V.A., R.J. Schoenhals, and D.P. DeWitt, "Changing the role of the laboratory in a heat transfer course," presented at the session on Innovations in Heat Transfer Education, 1997 National Heat Transfer Conference, (M. V. A. Bianchi and P. M. Norris, eds.), Baltimore, MD, Aug 10-12, 1997.

8. ASEE Prism Editorial Staff, "Let Problems Drive the Learning," ASEE Prism, October 1996, pp. 30-36.

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