April 2005

Welcome to the April issue of Connections, the American Society for Engineering Education's free e-newsletter.

Spotlight On Our Sponsors:

• Autodesk - Higher Education Program
  www.autodesk.com/education
  
  
• NI - Signal Processing Toolkit
  http:/digital.ni.com/express.nsf/
  express?openagent&code=
  aa8jtn
  
  
• Professional Publications FE & PE Review
  www.ppi2pass.com
  
  
• Hewlett Packard - Create-A-Calculator Contest!
  www.hp.com/calculators

Autodesk - Higher Education Programs

As the world's leading supplier of PC design software and digital content-creation tools, Autodesk wants to be your partner in preparing your students for future careers. Together we can expand the range of teaching and learning opportunities for you and your students and help build a bridge to their future. To learn more about Autodesk's programs for higher education, visit www.autodesk.com/education.

NI LabVIEW Signal Processing Toolkit for Windows

Click here for more on the National Instruments Signal Processing Toolset, a suite of software tools, example programs, and utilities for time-frequency analysis and digital filter design. With this toolset, you can experiment with and develop using modern analysis techniques that include wavelets, super-resolution (model-based) spectral analysis, and joint time-frequency analysis (JTFA).

http://digital.ni.com/express.nsf/
express?openagent&code=aa8jtn

Helping You Build Professional Engineers

Professional Publications, Inc. understands that building a successful career takes years of education, experience and growth.

Licensure is the cornerstone of an engineer's career. For over 25 years, PPI has been dedicated to helping you help your students pass the FE and PE exams. We have the resources you need:

• The #1 FE and PE review products.
• The most-visited web site, with exam info, FAQs, Instructor's Corner, and more.
• Exam Cafe (www.ppiexamcafe.com), for online exam practice and assessment tools that are fast, easy, and affordable.
• And now your support for the FE and PE exams can be especially rewarding! Join the new PPI Sales Partner Program (www.ppipartner.com) to earn commissions or discounts just for referring students to PPI books.

Visit www.ppi2pass.com today!

CHALLENGE YOUR STUDENTS TO BE INVENTORS

HP-Scholastic Create-A-Calculator Contest 2005!!
Over $39,000 in Cash Scholarship Awards and Calculators!

Hewlett Packard Company and Scholastic Administrator launched its third annual Create-a-Calculator Contest 2005 on March 1 for Universities and College students. Competing students will offer innovative ideas to complement HP's exciting calculator technology.

Criteria for Winning:
Undergraduates in university and community colleges: CAD designs, formulae, theories, practical/theoretical evidence for how these ideas will work, graphics/screen, design aesthetics/ergonomics, wireless capabilities. Additional criteria information for submissions is posted on the contest websites listed below.

Judging panel: American Society of Engineering Education, Hewlett Packard Company and Scholastic Administr@tor and Teen Network magazines.

Six winners will receive scholarship awards and prizes. Additional prizes awarded to top participating schools, faculty, and runners-up. Visit: www.hp.com/calculators, www.scholasticadministrator.com and ASEE's www.engineeringk12.org for more information. All contest entries must be received by May 31, 2005.

Welcome to the world of K-12 engineering!

Introducing engineering into the K-12 classroom connects science and math concepts to the everyday engineering that surrounds us. TeachEngineering.com helps teachers enhance learning, excite students and stimulate interest in science and math through the use of hands-on engineering. With a fully searchable, digital library of standards-based lesson plans, and a myriad of "Living Laboratories" that bring real-world engineering principles into the classroom, TeachEngineering's comprehensive curricula are hands-on, inexpensive, and relevant to children's daily lives.

TeachEngineering.com is a joint effort of the University of Colorado, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Duke University, Oregon State University, and the American Society for Engineering Education, and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Bring the world of engineering into the K-12 classroom with TeachEngineering.com. You don't need knowledge of engineering to use these curricula!

Search TeachEngineering.com's digital library at www.teachengineering.com.

Engineering, Go For It!
2nd Edition - Coming Fall 2005!

ASEE is thrilled to announce the production of the second edition of Engineering, Go For It! The new edition is shaping up to be even bolder, fresher, and more up-to-date with today's rapidly changing technologies. It gives a fuller picture of how engineering and technology shape our lives and more tips on how to get started and succeed in engineering and technology. Opportunities to sponsor custom copies of the second edition featuring your institution's own, four-color promotional content on the back covers, are now available.

Visit www.engineering-goforit.com for sponsorship details for the second edition of Engineering, Go For It!

New and Improved Journal of Engineering Education!

The Journal of Engineering Education is a peer-reviewed international journal published quarterly by the American Society for Engineering Education. It serves as an archival record of the leading scholarly research in engineering education. Visit www.asee.org/publications/jee/ to read it online.

In this Issue:

I. Science and Technology Briefs

• No More Noisy Brakes - A Georgia Tech engineer has devised a possible solution for silencing those squealing brakes.
• A Leg Up - A Canadian engineering firm is set to offer the first commercially available bionic leg.

II. Congressional Hotline

• House Approves $284 Billion for Highways and Transit
• NASA Nabs Budget Increase But Tough Choices Remain

III. Teaching Toolbox

• A World-Class Act - Engineering students are traveling far and wide to improve the lot of some of the world's poorest communities.
• Salaries Rise, But Not Much - The latest survey of faculty salaries shows that tight 2003-04 budgets constrained salary raises.

IV. Feature Articles

• The Cheating Culture - Professors say that college students are cheating now more than ever. And engineering students are no exception.
• Remade in Japan -Japan is focusing on revitalizing its slipping engineering education, altering the tradition of grads who are guaranteed jobs.

I. Science and Technology Briefs

NO MORE NOISY BRAKES
Consumers make a lot of noise about squealing brakes. Though brakes that squeak pose no safety risk, they're an annoyance and they cost automakers $100 million a year in warranty work. It's a "perceived problem with the quality of the car," says Kenneth A. Cunefare, a mechanical engineer and acoustics researcher at Georgia Tech who has devised a possible, low-cost solution to the problem. Brakes squeal when their pads touch the rotors at low speeds. That results in a vibration that creates high-pitched squeals. Fixes such as putting in damping materials and replacing the pads often don't work, or don't last. Cunefare's solution is a piezoceramic actuator that slots into the brake piston. It's made from stacks of piezoelectric materials that expand or contract when an electric current passes through the layers. Every time the brakes are applied, the actuator injects a burst of a "dithering" frequency to the pads, which suppresses the squeal. Test devices haven't been affected by brake wear, or extremes in temperature, or humidity. The test model costs $130, but Cunefare thinks mass production would get that figure down to around $30. A small price to pay for a bit of motoring peace and quiet.

A LEG UP
It may look like a conventional artificial leg, but a new prosthetic created by a Canadian engineering firm is set to become the first commercially available bionic leg. Developed by a team of 60 biomechanical, electrical, software, and mechanical engineers, Victhom Human Bionics' prosthetic features sensors in the amputee's shoes that send signals to an artificial memory, which reacts in real time to mimic the movement of a normal leg. "Current models are devices that just absorb the mechanical energy at the joints," explains Benoit Côte, Victhom's chairman and CEO. "But when you walk there are times when you need to absorb energy and times when you need to expend energy. Our prosthetic can do both."

Currently there are 20 amputees putting the leg through its paces before the device is released this fall to the public. "They all report that they can do a lot of things that were impossible before," Côte says, "like walking fast, walking on a steep slope, climbing stairs, and even just sitting down and standing much more naturally." The prosthesis is powered by a rechargeable battery and weighs exactly what a normal human leg weighs-for a man 5 feet 9 inches tall, about 10 pounds.

Back to the index.

II. Congressional Hotline

House Approves $284 Billion for Highways and Transit
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved H.R. 3, the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, which is more commonly known as the highway bill. With a vote of 417 to 9, the House approved $284 billion for this six-year bill, generously funding federal highway, transit, and highway safety programs.

More than $50 billion of the bill will go toward helping people get around out of their cars. The thousands of off-road projects range from more than $400 million for a Los Angeles subway extension to $150,000 for a historic bike path in Pascagoula, Miss., hometown of Republican Sen. Trent Lott, the former majority leader.

The Senate will soon debate the bill, which includes $225 billion for roads and $6 billion for safety programs. The rest, $52.3 billion in the House bill and $51.6 billion in the Senate version, is directed toward public transit.

"Compared to the previous six-year bill, H.R. 3 represents a 42-percent increase in investment in highways, transit, and safety programs," said Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. "H.R. 3 will put Americans to work by creating the kind of jobs that support families and increase our tax base. It is a much-needed legislation that will move our country toward a stronger economy."

To read more about the highway bill, visit: www.house.gov/transportation/.

NASA Nabs Budget Increase and More Money for R&D
For FY 2006, NASA escapes the tight funding squeeze facing other domestic programs, winning a 1.6-percent budget increase with a total budget of $16.5 billion. This increase of $260 million, however, is much smaller than the boost NASA got in 2005, when it won an $820-million increase.

NASA's R&D would increase 4.6 percent, or $508 million, with the FY 2006 budget thanks to money freed up by the Space Shuttle's expected return to flight this spring.

In spite of the budget increase and the resources NASA would receive for its plans to finish construction of the International Space Station, explore the solar system, and develop the technologies needed for future moon and Mars missions, tough budget decisions remain. NASA would cancel a servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope and would make steep cuts to aeronautics research, the earth sciences portfolio, and biological and physical research.

The cuts, however would allow for increased resources to solar system exploration and R&D for moon and Mars mission technologies. Robotic moon and Mars exploration would increase 17 percent to $858 million, and the development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle within a new Constellation Systems program would gain 113 percent, moving funding up to $1.1 billion.

For detailed information on the NASA budget analysis, visit: www.aaas.org/spp/rd/nasa06p.htm.

Back to the index.

III. Teaching Toolbox

A World-Class Act
LAST JANUARY, Dale Meck, then a senior civil engineering student at Cornell University, found himself deep in the interior of Honduras at the end of the rainy season, slogging through mud that was, at times, up to his knees. Meck, 22, was there with six other students and two engineering faculty members to assist a local group working to bring water to remote villages. The Cornell contingent designed software that can be used on the fly in hardscrabble areas to estimate the cost and feasibility of planned water-supply systems: a money-saving application for communities where money is even scarcer than clean water.

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/sept04/a_world_class_act.htm.

Salaries Rise, But Not Much
The latest survey of faculty salaries is out. For engineering academics, here's the good news: Only law professors earn more. The bad news: Overall faculty salary increases in the 2003-04 academic year were miserly, thanks mainly to tight budgets at public schools. On average, engineering faculty earned $84,784 annually, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources survey of 793 institutions of higher learning. The average for law profs: $109,478. Coming in third: business faculty at $79,931. Bringing up the rear, liberal arts professors at $52,234. Overall, salaries last year rose just 2.1 percent, a full point lower than the previous year's average. Public school salaries increased a mere 1.4 percent; private school salaries jumped 3.3 percent. For engineering faculty, the biggest raises went to instructors, whose salaries increased an average 3.1 percent; full profs received the most meager raises, averaging just 1.9 percent. Engineering faculty at private schools on average earn more than their public-school brethren: $86,245 versus $84,208, a difference of 2.36 percent. Law schools also employ the highest average number of full professors: 60.7 percent. The percentage for engineering: 46.2 percent. The average across all disciplines is 33 percent.

Back to the index.

IV. Feature Articles

The Cheating Culture
By Jeffrey Selingo

Last spring, John K. Schueller, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, learned from some seniors in his control-theory class that a few of their classmates had cheated on an exam by whispering answers and showing their papers to one another.

Schueller was surprised. After all, he had proctored the exam along with a teaching assistant and thought his presence in the room would have discouraged cheating. Now he wondered what to do about the next exam. The class had 104 students crammed into a small lecture hall, so prohibiting students from sitting next to one another was impossible.

His solution? The next test would have two versions. When Schueller graded that exam, though, he discovered that one student had answers from the other version. To Schueller, it was a clear-cut example of cheating and he decided to pursue charges through the university's judicial system, his first case in 18 years of teaching at the university. "I was told by older faculty not to waste my time," Schueller says.

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/sept04/feature_cheating.htm.

Remade in Japan
By Lucille Craft

TOKYO - Japan's ivory towers are being shaken to their foundations by plunging budgets, dwindling enrollments, and soul-searching about the value of what's taught in college classrooms. At the epicenter of this education earthquake rumbling through the world's second-largest economy are the nation's nearly 300 public and private engineering schools.

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/sept04/feature_remade.htm.

Back to the index.

4th ASEE/AaeE Global Colloquium

ASEE, partnering with the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AaeE), is announcing a call for papers for the 4th Global Colloquium on Engineering Education. The colloquium will be held in Sydney, Australia, from September 26-29, 2005. The colloquium in Sydney will have the following themes: globalization of engineering education, the K-12 pipeline, and the transformations of the disciplines. It will provide an excellent opportunity for international leaders and policy makers from industry, academe, and government to gather and discuss the major challenges in preparation for the next generation of engineering innovators. For more information, visit www.gcee2005.com.

Connections is brought to you by the American Society for Engineering Education.

Over 12,000 engineering and engineering technology faculty members and administrators enjoy the many benefits and services that ASEE offers. The Society's award-winning magazine ASEE Prism and academic publications (Journal of Engineering Education and Profiles of Engineering Colleges) keep members up to date with the best and latest in engineering education, engineering research trends, and academic issues, while 47 professional interest groups and a varied selection of meetings provide professional development and networking opportunities that no other society can offer within the engineering education community. Members also receive reduced rates at local and national conferences, discounts on ASEE products, money-saving members-only discounts on financial, insurance, and travel programs, plus an ever growing variety of online services. Our goal is to focus on issues that matter the most to you in our publications, meetings, and on-line services, and to enable you to interact with others who share your specific engineering and educational interests. To join online, just go to www.asee.org/members, or contact our member services department at 202-331-3520 for further information.

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