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Innovation to Entrepreneurship in the First Year Engineering Experience

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division – Design and Entrepreneurship

Tagged Division

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

Page Count

17

Page Numbers

26.969.1 - 26.969.17

DOI

10.18260/p.24306

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/24306

Download Count

593

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Paper Authors

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José Antonio Riofrío Western New England University

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José A Riofrío received his B.S. in Engineering Physics from Elizabethtown College in 2003, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2005 and 2008, respectively. At Vanderbilt, José focused his research in controls, mechatronics and mechanical design. After obtaining his Ph.D., José worked in the Fluid Power industry designing servo-pneumatic control systems for various motion-control applications, such as packaging, automation, and animatronics. In the fall of 2011, José became an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Western New England University, where he now teaches various courses in solid mechanics, mechatronics, and first-year engineering.

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Robert Gettens Western New England University

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Rob Gettens is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Director of the First Year Engineering Program at Western New England University.

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Anthony D. Santamaria Western New England University

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Dr. Anthony D. Santamaria completed his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Davis specializing in nuclear imaging of transport phenomena in fuel cell and battery technology. While completing his engineering degree he served a one year fellowship in the UC Davis Graduate School of Management as a Business Development Fellow focused on entrepreneurial skill building. He subsequently worked as a postdoc in the Electrochemical Technologies Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developing materials characterization techniques for fuel cell and flow battery systems. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Western New England University in Springfield, MA.

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Thomas K Keyser Western New England University

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Dr. Keyser is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Western New England University. He received his BSME in 1988 from New Mexico State University his BSIE in 1991 from Colorado State University – Pueblo and his PhD in IE from Clemson University in 1995. His teaching and research interested include, production scheduling and optimization, entrepreneurial engineering, quality engineering and discrete event system simulation. He is a member of ASEE and a senior member of IIE.
Address: Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Western New England University, 1215 Wilbraham Rd., Springfield, MA 01119; Phone: 413-782-1210; Email: thomas.keyser@wne.edu

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Ronald E. Musiak Western New England University

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35 Years teaching experience in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Fundamentals at Western New England University,
former Director of Engineering Fundamentals,
20 years industrial experience (prior to and concurrent with teaching),
currently Professor Emeritus at WNEU and Fellow of Electronics at FloDesign Sonics.

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Harlan E Spotts Jr. Western New England University

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Professor of Marketing in the College of Business

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Abstract

Innovation to Entrepreneurship in the First Year Engineering Experience Traditionally first year engineering programs focus on fundamental engineering skills andintroduce students to the engineering design process. More recently using the KEEN (KernEntrepreneurial Engineering Network) philosophy there is momentum to push engineeringeducation further by fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in young engineers. At XXXUniversity the first year engineering program has been revamped using a combination ofelements including entrepreneurially minded learning (EML), Problem Based Learning (PBL),Active Collaborative Learning (ACL) and a design framework based on the “living with the lab”program developed at YYY University (NOTE YYY University is not associated with thisabstract) under a National Science Foundation award. The First Year Engineering program at XXX University spans four common courses for allengineering majors. This work focuses on two courses, the Introduction to Engineering course, afour credit course offered in the first semester and the Data Acquisition and Processing course, athree credit course offered in the second semester. The framework behind the Introduction toEngineering course is a series four challenges based off of an arduino robot platform. Throughthis platform traditional skills such as computer aided design (CAD), basic programming,teaming, basic statistics, innovation, the engineering design process, technical writing and oralcommunications are taught using both ACL and PBL techniques. A degree of EML is presentedin this course through artificial budget requirements that are built into the projects. Moving into the second semester first year students are guided further in EML concepts in theData Acquisition and Processing course. In this course a smart design project forms the basis ofthe EML experience which includes such skills as seeking opportunities using painstorming,accessing market interest, accessing technical feasibility, designing for manufacturability, andproviding a cost analysis of an eventual finalized product. The entrepreneurial impact of this comprehensive program is assessed through surveys whichgage the students’ awareness of EML concepts. This paper will present an overview of the ACL, PBL and EML techniques used in the FirstYear Engineering Program at XXX University. Note that a companion paper focusing on thesmart design projects is being submitted concurrently.

Riofrío, J. A., & Gettens, R., & Santamaria, A. D., & Keyser, T. K., & Musiak, R. E., & Spotts, H. E. (2015, June), Innovation to Entrepreneurship in the First Year Engineering Experience Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24306

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