Educational Research Panel

1
Educational Research Panel

• Engaging Industry
• Some Experiences at RPI
• K. A. Connor
• Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering
  Department
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

2
Overview

• Two Experiences with Industry
• FLITEC A blimp in every garage
• Mobile Studio Being a real engineer
• General Comments on Educational Research
• DTS Project Characteristics
• Comments from the trenches

3
L I T E C

• Laboratory Introduction To Embedded Control

4
LITEC

• Embedded Control, a.k.a. LITEC, Laboratory
  Introduction To Embedded Control is a course
  taken by most of the engineering students at
  Rensselaer.
• The students put intelligence into a product,
  such as the Smart Car shown on the previous
  slide. There is a microcontroller on this car
  which the students program.
• The course has been using the Smart Car as its
  target system since 1995. While the car is still
  a useful tool to help us teach the course
  concepts we were looking for a new project for
  some time now.

5
History

• The History of LITEC
• The development of the course started in 1991,
  spearheaded by Frank DiCesare. He formed a team
  of undergraduates, received some summer support
  from the school of engineering and started work
  on a course that
• Is a modern engineering laboratory experience
• Engages the students with a hands on experience
• Motivates them to learn science and engineering
  concepts.

6
The first target system was the Intelligent Faucet

• The target system is used to teach concepts and
  practices
• Students first build a simple game, then work up
  to the target system
• Build subsystems
• Integrate subsystems
• Add enhancements

7
Early Version of Smart CarNew Target System in
1995
8
The Smart Car Today
Students write computer code for the
microcontroller and build interfacing circuitry.
The circuitry connects sensors and actuators to
the microcontroller. The smart car uses optical
sensors to detect the tape on the track and the
speed of the car. The students codes use these
signals to control a steering servo and the power
to a drive motor.
9
Enhancements

• Enhancements give students a chance to show their
  creativity
• Some are software based
• Collision avoidance
• 3 point turns
• Lost track recovery
• Some are hardware based
• Spy car
• Batmobile
• Fire truck
• Hamster control

10
Smart Car Enhancements
11
Final Activity The LITEC Invitational

• The final activity each year is a voluntary
  competition among the best student teams
• This is usually sponsored by industry (they
  provide the prizes)
• This is a great opportunity for students to show
  what they can do and for companies to enhance
  their image with students

12
The Prizes
13
The Invitational
HAPPY STUDENTS
HAPPY INDUSTRY REP
HAPPY FACULTY
14
LITEC Show Case Course and Room
Converted to studio format in 1998 This course
and room are probably the best recruiting tools
for engineering at RPI
15
Developing New Target System

• Enhance course and room as show case
• Obtain substantial resources for
• development of new course materials and
  activities built around new target system
• new target system
• NSF Proposal
• Excellent choice
• Low probability of funding

16
Developing New Target System

• Look for industrial partner with
• Interest in undergraduate education
• Need to build its image with students
• Willingness to involve its people in university
  projects
• Ideas
• Money
• BAE Systems met all requirements
• They came to us looking for opportunities
• We had a plan to show them but no clear idea of
  what our target system should be

17
New Target System

• BAE Systems
• Several projects involving control of autonomous
  systems, most notably hovering submarines. They
  worked with blimps as test vehicles.
• Many new hires from RPI doing very well
• Put together a team of their people (nearly all
  RPI grads) to help brainstorm
• President (Galen Ho) is very involved in this
  project

Advocate with clout is very important
18
F L I T E C Flight Laboratory Introduction To
Embedded Control
BAE SYSTEMS Personnel
19
The Project

• Funding About 170k so far
• Leadership
• Paul Schoch
• Syed Murtuza
• Student Teams
• Grad student
• Several undergrads
• Student Entrepreneurs

20
Blimp - Configuration

• Most standard blimp components are from Mobile
  Airships
• Shell, fins, motors, speed controllers, servo,
  batteries
• Exceptions
• Gondola in house design and fabrication
• Maybe the battery
• Add on components
• Microcontroller SiLabs C8051F020DK
• Sensors next slide
• RF link options of RS-232 and 802.11b
• Power board built in house
• Autonomous/RC override board - built in house

21
Sensor Status

• IPS - Position Sensing System X,Y,Z
• Altitude Z
• Electronic Compass heading
• Rate Gyros turn rate
• Accelerometer pitch, collisions

22
Internal Positioning System

• Blimps are very under powered so they cannot fly
  outside
• GPS cannot work inside
• Need a replacement for GPS IPS
• Start up company (RPI grads and students) has
  technology that works

23
Ryan O'Donnell, left, CEO of start-up company Tek
Alert LLC, Keith Lareau, center, the company's
chief technology officer, and John Blackburn, the
company's chief engineer.
Team Accountability Buddy System Wireless
tether for firefighters
24
The indoor position sensor
25
Key Issues

• Good ideas, good ideas, good ideas,
• Advocate in company
• Opportunity for company to make a positive
  impression on students
• Solid historical relationship
• Realistic assessment of necessary resources
• Enthusiasm
• Faculty leadership
• Some really smart students

26
Good idea

• What is the natural next step for studio?
• Doug Mercer, fellow at ADI
• Get ADI logo in front of students
• ADI has a long term connection with RPI
• Project is extension of existing work, funded by
  HP and NSF.
• Enthusiasm on part of faculty and students
• Leadership Don Millard
• Some really smart students

27
Some General Comments on Educational Research
I served on an NSF panel last week which involved
engineering educational proposals. These
proposals had several common characteristics.

• Very creative ideas and strong commitment from
  exceptionally bright and successful scholars
• High impact of personal research on education
• Outreach to K-12 (nearly all, some were
  exceptionally effective)
• Impact outside of engineering (engineering for
  everyone else or multi-disciplinary course)
  mostly at entry level (several)

28
In one or two cases

• Complete overhaul of engineering subdiscipline
  (all courses at all levels)
• Entrepreneurship
• High school course
• Bio course
• Nano-based course

29
What was missing?

• Any apparent knowledge of what is going on
  elsewhere (most only had a small amount of
  information, missing the most important work)
• Only one had any direct impact on common
  engineering courses (dealt with an ABET issue).
• Only one called for complete overhaul of an upper
  level course.
• Two claimed to have an idea of how to
  fundamentally change engineering education (these
  suffered from the first item)

30
What was missing?

• Any hope of scaling the project up in size or
  transferring it to other universities (all but 2)
• Any solid appeal to a department head (only one
  addressed efficiency, the most difficult
  challenge from CASEE)
• Out of the box thinking

31
Some comments from the trenches
From a friend at another university

• Even the very best teachers in excellent ECE
  programs see little impact from educational
  research
• Technology remains very time-consuming to utilize
• The research that most know about deals only with
  entry level courses
• Most attractive results are difficult to transfer
  to other institutions