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Providing Meaningful Hands-on Design Experience in the Remote-learning Environment with a Miniature Mechanical Testing Kit

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Design Pedagogy

Tagged Division

Design in Engineering Education

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37620

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/37620

Download Count

323

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Paper Authors

biography

Xinyue (Crystal) Liu University of Toronto

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Crystal Liu is a graduate student at the University of Toronto in the department of Materials Science and Engineering. Her research focuses on engineering design and education. She obtained her BASc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 2019. She has worked in product development and is interested in application of technology and design in engineering education research.

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Yasaman Delaviz York University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-4858-6584

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Yasaman Delaviz is an Educational/Curricular Development Specialist in the Faculty of Health at York University. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Yasaman has extensive knowledge of curriculum design, development, and delivery and has taught numerous undergraduate-level courses at the University of Toronto and OCAD University.

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Scott Ramsay University of Toronto

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Scott Ramsay is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada, and a registered professional engineer in Ontario. Scott earned his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Toronto. Scott's current primary academic interests are in improving the quality of undergraduate engineering education through the use of various reusable learning objects. Scott has taught extensively in Material Science, teaching courses ranging from introductory materials science to thermodynamics, diffusion, materials selection, manufacturing, biomaterials, and building science.

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Abstract

Laboratory work teaches students how technical knowledge is applied in practice and has long been recognized as a crucial component of a complete undergraduate engineering experience. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many engineering programs have been unable to provide these traditional hands-on activities in the remote learning environment. To address this challenge within our program at the University of Toronto, a low-cost, open-source miniature mechanical testing kit (MMTK) was designed and deployed in a third-year engineering design course.

Students in their junior year in this course were delivered the kits and were responsible for assembly, sample testing, as well as designing and performing experiments using the MMTK. Students were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the activities. Results showed the MMTK was a useful tool that provided students with a unique hands-on experience during the pandemic. Activities with the MMTK have generally increased students’ confidence with hands-on work and conducting experiments. Future work will include further development of the MMTK for use more broadly within engineering research and education.

Liu, X. C., & Delaviz, Y., & Ramsay, S. (2021, July), Providing Meaningful Hands-on Design Experience in the Remote-learning Environment with a Miniature Mechanical Testing Kit Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37620

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