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INTRODUCTION
A project oriented, sophomore design course [1] has been a
required course for the BSME at the University of Houston
since 1980. The course is taught each fall and spring semester
to between 35 and 55 students. The course is usually the first
engineering course taken by a mechanical engineering student.
Therefore, part of the courses objective is to introduce
students to, and build their confidence in, problem-solving.
During a typical semester, one major team project and one or
two minor projects (individual or team) are assigned. This
paper describes one of the two minor, individual projects
given to the class in the spring 2003 which counted for 15% of
the semester grade.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The problem statement is paraphrased as follows: Design,
fabricate and test a device that will use the sun to determine
local time in Houston, Texas, between February 6th and 8th as
accurately as possible. The correct local time is that
provided by the US Naval Observatory for the central time
zone. Students were urged to visit various websites or to
consult other resources to learn about the history, design and
construction of such devices. They were told to use materials
and designs that would survive for a least a few weeks outside
in Houston in February, and in particular to design and
H*
V**
49
4
9
17
27
75
5
9
12
21
Session F2H
TABLE II
GRADING RUBRIC PROVIDED TO STUDENTS
different from
most, a good idea
Engineering
Craftsmanship
Overall Score
80-90
looks good
Instructor
68
18
31-103
Self Grade
91
8
65-100
54
Class Grade
86
7
50-100
35
70-80
looks as good as the
others
a little different
60-70
not as in impressive
looking as others
looks like the rest
below 60
interior, not
much effort
same as most
and not good
quality
poorly
engineered
poor
unacceptable
students self graded their own artifacts 54% above the grade
assigned by the instructor for the same artifacts. The
evaluations by the entire class (with the self-evaluation grade
removed ) are given in column 4.
Figure 1 plots the students self grades against the
instructors grades for the 26 students who provided self
evaluations. As can be seen, judged relative to the instructors
grading, their grading is essentially random (slope of
essentially zero). The 45 degree line (with slope of 1.0
through the origin) superimposed on the graph would
correspond to grading agreement with the instructor. Only one
student (the highest graded one at 103 by the instructor)
actually graded himself lower than the instructor did; the rest
graded themselves higher. Five students graded themselves
over 100% higher; one, over 200% higher. Figure 2 presents a
similar comparison in which all the grades assigned by each
student (except the self-grade) have been averaged and then
plotted against the instructors grade for that students pair of
artifacts. As seen in the figure only one student achieved an
average of 70 for his grades, the same student noted above.
120
Student Self Grade
Creativity
90-100
looks fantastic, really got
my interest
wow! really different, a
very good idea
Overall
Impression
100
80
y=0.058x + 87.4
R2 = 0.017
60
40
45 degree line
20
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Instructor's Grade
FIGURE 1
PLOT OF EACH STUDENTS SELF GRADE AS A FUNCTION OF THE
INSTRUCTORS GRADE
Session F2H
100
90
80
y = -0.096x + 92.1
2
R = 0.122
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Instructor's Grade s
FIGURE 2
PLOT OF EACH STUDENTS AVERAGE GRADE GIVEN AS A FUNCTION OF
THE INSTRUCTORS GRADE FOR THAT STUDENT
FIGURE 4
ONE OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE LOOKING HORIZONTAL SUN CLOCKS BUT
MORE THAN AN HOUR FAST
FIGURE 5
A MATCHING SET OF SUN CLOCKS ETCHED ON GLASS. THE HORIZONTAL
DEVICE (ON THE RIGHT) HAD ESSENTIALLY ZERO ERROR, BUT THE OTHER
WAS ABOUT 40 MINUTES SLOW.
FIGURE 3
THE BEST HORIZONTAL SUN CLOCK (5 MINUTES SLOW)
Session F2H
FIGURE 6
INTERESTING SIMPLE DEVICES BUT BOTH REVERSED AM AND PM. THE
VERTICAL SUN CLOCK ON THE RIGHT PRODUCED AN IMAGE (SHADOW) OF
THE NUMERAL ON THE SPOT.
FIGURE 7
TWO SUN CLOCKS DRAWN ON SECTIONS OF GLAZED TILE. THE VERTICAL
DEVICE ON THE LEFT WAS CORRECT WITHIN MINUTES, BUT THE OTHER
WAS ABOUT 45 MINUTES FAST.
FIGURE 8
WOODEN SUN CLOCKS; BOTH ABOUT 30 MINUTES FAST
FIGURE 9
EXAMPLES OF LESS IMPRESSIVE DEVICES MADE OUT OF PAPER
DISCUSSION
Sun clocks date from around 6000 BC and there is certainly
no lack of interest or information available about them with
over 0.5M hits on Google. Four of the websites reviewed
are listed as [2-5] where the reader is referred for
information on the theory and construction of sun clocks.
Examples of two horizontal and two vertical professionally
constructed sundials (sun clocks) are displayed in Figs. 10
to 13.
As seen in Table III, students grade much more
leniently than the instructor, with average grades 35% to
54% above the instructors. They also assign grades more
conservatively; the average standard deviations of their
grades is less than half that of the instructor. Figures 1 and
2 indicate that the grading of most students bears little
relationship to the quality of the artifacts as defined by the
instructor. Even those students who appear to be good
designers and fabricators (represented by points to the right
side of Fig. 2), with one isolated exception, are unable to
consistently distinguish between good and poor designs.
This result seems to indicate that in teaching only the
mechanics of design we may be missing the point that
engineering students lack the basic skills of critical
evaluation. Similar results have been demonstrated in other
projects [6].
All evaluations were compared only to that of the
instructor and not to that of a panel. In retrospect perhaps
additional credibility could be gained with a better
established baseline. On the other hand there was no other
willing evaluator, and this issue is not really about the
ability to distinguish, for example, between the ninth and
tenth best designs, nor to rate the designs on an absolute
scale, but rather only to rank order the designs. The reader
can be assured that there was no similarity in quality
between the best and worst design. Further, few engineering
faculty are likely to assign all As and Bs in their
sophomore classes as the students seem willing to do.
Session F2H
Other than providing the grading rubric (Table II) and a
brief discussion of it, no attempt was made prior to the
project to educate these students in subjective or critical
evaluation.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described and presented the results from, an
individual design, fabricate and test project from an
introductory design course taken in the sophomore year of a
BSME program. The purposes of the paper were
to describe an effective problem for introductory
design,
to present examples of the students artifacts and their
testing results, and
to illustrate the students reluctance to seriously
evaluate themselves and their peers or a general
weaknesses in their evaluation skills.
To further emphasize this last point, students undervalued
the best designs and greatly overvalued the worse designs
which resulted in a grouping of grades from B to A for
projects that the instructor rated from F to A+. In most
cases these engineering students were unable to make the
decisions to separate the good or poor designs from the
average designs. Perhaps this result is not surprising since
engineering students generally are not exposed to subjective
decision making and critical evaluation, e.g., unlike a visual
arts student. If engineering students are expected to be able
to make these judgments, perhaps we should provide more
instruction and insight.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Engineering students (and perhaps engineering and/or
engineering design faculty) would benefit from an exposure
to the design process in the visual arts, e.g., interior
design, industrial design, and/or architecture.
The
suggestion is that it could be very beneficial to have trained
artists discuss and demonstrate design in early engineering
design courses. It would be even more interesting to have
early engineering and visual design classes meet together.
As demonstrated in [7], there are projects that engineering
and visual design students can work on together to the
benefit of both groups.
FIGURE 10
HORIZONTAL SUNDIAL AT LONDON WETLANDS CENTRE, BARNES,
LONDON [3]
REFERENCES
[1] Richard Bannerot, Experiences in Teaching Sophomore Design in
Mechanical Engineering, presented at the International Conference
on Engineering Education 2004: Global Excellence in Engineering
Education, Gainesville, FL, October 16-21, 2004. Available on
Conference
CD
and
posted
at
conference
website:
http://www.ineer.org/Welcome.htm
[2] http://www.cpcug.org/user/jaubert/jsundial.html (details of the theory
and construction of sun dials).
[3] http://www.sundials.co.uk/ (Sundials on the Internet a guide to lots of
information about sundials).
FIGURE 11
HORIZONTAL FLORAL SUNDIAL NEAR DUNMOW IN ESSEX, UK, FROM
AROUND 1865 [3]
Session F2H
FIGURE 13
VERTICAL SUNDIAL AT TRELOARS COLLEGE, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND [3]
FIGURE 12
VERTICAL SUNDIAL IN BITOILA, MACEDONIA (12X5 METERS) WITH WALL
DECLINATION NINE DEGREES TO THE EAST. [3]