Student Focused, Student Built

Student Focused, Student Built        

   The success of the NSF Advanced Technological Education program has been well documented over the years.  Thousands of STEM students have benefited from the curricula, career pathways, internships, summer camp experiences, and other activities offered by ATE projects and centers, and hundreds of technical programs continue to feel the positive effects of ATE funding.  A smaller number of students work directly with PIs as part of the project staff; they contribute significantly to project success, but also have a unique opportunity to build a body of work that sets them apart from other job seekers after graduation. 

Teri and Kem from Highland Community College

    Two of these students, Teresa Vowell and Kemalie Winter, from Highland Community College in Freeport, Illinois, showcased their work in web design, graphic design and animation, scriptwriting, and display design at this year’s ATE Principal Investigator’s Conference.  According to Project Director Phil Pilcher, Teri and Kem have been an integral part of the project team: “We knew from previous ATE projects that it’s good to have resources that are available year-round. While we rely on faculty as subject matter experts, their activities are concentrated in a two-month period during the summer break, and the full-time college staff is often too overloaded to respond when needed.  Kem and Teri devote some hours to the project every week, which allows for a continuity of effort that produces significant results.”

    These results may be seen at www.WindTechTV.org , the project website designed and maintained by the students. Working under the direction of project PI Jeff Davidson and Co-PI Pilcher, the students developed proposals for the web design, launched a prototype site in March, 2011, and completed the site architecture during the summer of 2011. HCC computer science instructor Jeremy Monigold guided Kem and Teri through the build process.  “They were very eager to complete a large scale project for a real world client, but those opportunities are scarce for students,” said Monigold, who serves as technical advisor to the site.  “WindTechTV let them stretch their skills and add new ones, while learning how to turn the wishes of the project leaders into a reliable working site.” Because the site relies heavily on video and animation, Teri and Kem also confronted the challenges of delivering media from a content delivery network server.

    The students faced a completely different challenge when it came to designing a display for the 2011 PI conference. Pilcher specified that all display materials must fit in a standard suitcase and meet the airline weight limit of 50 pounds.  “We looked at commercial displays, but thought that we could get something cheaper, lighter, and smaller if we did it ourselves,” he said.  “I had seen what Teri and Kem did with WindTechTV.org, and was confident that they could deliver. What they produced is beautiful, functional, and lightweight. People are astonished when I tell them how little it cost, and that it was built by our students.”  

    When asked to describe the experience of working on a funded research project, Teri had these thoughts:  “It was an incredible learning experience!  We used skills acquired in our Dreamweaver, Flash, Web Programming, and Graphic Design classes that were taken as part of the Web Design degree.  I was able to hone my skills to the degree that I am currently teaching Dreamweaver at HCC, and will be teaching Flash Animation next semester. I also feel more confident now about launching my own web design business.” Kem added: “The projects that we worked on in class covered basic concepts, but they seemed abstract until we actually built a working site for a client. The WindTechTV project helped me bridge the gap between concept and real-world expectations. When I started the project, my goal was to build a functional, attractive web site, but I have expanded my goals to include writing, animation, and video production.”

    These students are emblematic of the ATE vision that recognizes students as life-long learners as well as the needs of the modern workplace. Both looked to their local community college for training in a new career after pursuing successful careers in other fields. “We were very fortunate to have students of this caliber enrolled at HCC when we looked for a design team,” said Pilcher, “but without ATE support, their skills could not have been put to use, and they would have had a very different community college experience. I’m sure many students in ATE-supported programs would say the same thing.”

My Trip to NACK at Penn State University and Nanotechnology:

The Millennium Science Complex

One of the great gems that www.TeachingTechnicians.org offers is exposing faculty to high quality low-cost or no-cost professional development events. An example of this was a rich and rewarding NACK (Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge) workshop that I had the privilege to attend in October, 2012 at no cost to my cash-strapped science department and college.

Nanotechnology and nanoscience involves the study and application of extremely small particles in the order of 1- 100 nm (nanometer) in size. This is not a new discovery; we have known that objects we handle or deal with are made up of atoms. What is new is that for almost 2 decades, scientists and engineers have been working diligently to master the intricacies of these nanoscale materials. What they are finding and the applications that this would lead to are very exciting to say the least. Some 40 universities in 19 states are involved with the government in what is called the National Nanotechnology Initiative Network (NNIN). I took a trip to Pennsylvania State University to attend a 4-day workshop provided by the NACK, funded by the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to learn more about nanotechnology. Part of the mission of this ATE Center is building partnerships between research universities and 2-year Community and Technical Colleges through the sharing of resources such as courses, laboratory facilities and staff, and creating educational pathways for student development in the nanotechnology field.

    The great thing about nanotechnology is that it is multi-disciplinary in nature, which was evident from the pool of participants invited to this total immersion nanotechnology workshop. Participants were from 4-year and 2-year institutions and represented disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, material science, civil/structural engineering, engineering technology and Microsystems education. The participants came from South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Texas. This was a hands-on workshop where we were immersed in the study of nanotechnology with corresponding labs in Introduction to Plasma, Introduction to FESEM (Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope), Introduction to SPM (Scanning Probe Microscope), Introduction to PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition), and Introduction to Photolithography and Dry Etch.

   The labs were done in the cleanrooms in the Materials Research Institute Building and the super cleanroom at the 297,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art  Millennium Science Complex, that houses the Materials Research Institute and the the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. In the Millennium Complex we mingled with scientists from all walks of life busy conducting their own research. We were told that companies use the facilities for their own research at minimum cost to test their ideas and also get access to expert help when needed. Using these facilities, academic and industry are able to perform research which ranges from fabrication of a wide range of devices to characterization of materials in diverse fields. The building also has a vibration-free quiet sub level floor for nano- and micro-scale characterization of organic and in organic materials. The cleanrooms are equipped with highly advanced filtering and vibration control systems. The filtration and air flow patterns help these rooms to maintain a clean environment. A clean environment is critical in working with particles at a nanoscale because air particles, bacteria or any other contaminants can prove disastrous to one's nano materials. Of the two cleanrooms we utilized, one had 100 or fewer particles per 0.1 micrometer cubed area and the other 10 or fewer particles per 0.1 micrometer cubed area. The floors and tables for equipment are made with special materials to minimize vibrations that would impact the production of a nano product.

Joshua Phiri doing some Nanoscience

 Since these cleanrooms have a controlled level of pollutants, one has to dress in the cleanroom attire per existing protocol. This is an effective factor in maintaining an extremely clean environment. Prior to the workshop we were given apparel guidelines for the cleanroom facilities tour at Penn State. The instructions included dressing in long-sleeve shirts, long pants and closed-toe shoes. Unacceptable attire included skirts, hooded sweatshirts, bulky sweaters, suit jackets, high heeled shoes and large boots. Once in the gown rooms, which are also environmentally controlled and outfitted with cleanroom benches, we donned cleanroom hood, face veil, masks, gloves, safety glasses and boots. The gowning process followed a prescribed gowning procedure as instructed by a member of the nanofab lab. The cleanroom garments were worn over the street clothes. Afterwards, the degowning procedure was a reverse of the gowning procedure, which is last on, first off. It was interesting to note that cameras were allowed but with no flash as the lighting in the cleanroom is tightly controlled to avoid light contamination. It appears that cleanliness and special lighting are essential when working with nano materials. Similarly, no notebooks or paper were allowed except for specially prepared paper.

   The course work for this workshop and the course structure was done very well. The discussion of the course material was presented by really gifted and inspiring teachers. The discussion of pumps and valves and how critical they are to this industry left me with knowledge that I can easily adapt to my physics classes. The discussion of every day physics involving resistors, capacitors and inductors in and as sensors left me with a knowledge that will bring these topics alive in any physics or electronics class. In addition, we received ready-to-use course materials that will be useful in my classes for years to come. But this course was mainly about nanotechnology, the ability to create materials and devices at a nanoscale (one-billionth of a meter). One could not help, after attending this course, but be excited about the future. It is a truly interdisciplinary field that permeates all fields of study. This is indeed one of the most promising areas of science and engineering. From this perspective the future really looks bright. Nanotechnology is poised to revolutionize and impact several industries ranging from health care, aerospace, aviation, electronics, aviation, automotive, energy, defense, cosmetics…the list seems endless. The impact will be felt in every aspect of our lives.

Nanotechnology Cleanroom equipment

    While the future is bright, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome and questions to be answered, such as scalability in manufacturing, regulatory standards, and disposal issues. The barriers to implementation at a two- year college such as mine include lack of proper infrastructure (cleanrooms, equipment, etc.). From this trip, I found out that the infrastructure can be very expensive. To create and install a cleanroom and the corresponding equipment is not a cheap venture. The good news is that some of these requirements are already used for research at a number of research universities. Hence cooperation with the scientists at these universities is needed to allow students from 2-year colleges to have access to this equipment. Some universities like Penn State and the University of Minnesota now offer a capstone semester course in nanotechnology for associate degree programs in nanotechnology; however, this would only be an option if the research university has a robust nanotechnology research component like the one at Penn State. Additional hurdles to implementation at a college such as mine include the limited knowledge of how local companies are incorporating nano products in their businesses. Even if local businesses were interested, some may not have the capacity to produce nano products at a large scale. An Industry partnership model such as Penn State’s is an ideal example of having a local research university as champion of the venture. Our future steps include polling local industries on their interest in this technology and finding a 4-year research university champion to optimize the opportunity and minimize the cost of this great field of study. Nanotechnology is an enabling technology: if we can define the skills needed by local industry and create a curriculum that addresses those skills, our industry could expect well-rounded technician graduates. The potential for this market in the years to come could simply grow exponentially.

Problem-Based Learning That Fits: Transforming SCATE’s Approach into Your Own Program

South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) has been helping educators implement Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in classrooms for years. But often schools can take the SC ATE curriculum and transform it into their own unique approach. That’s what Phil Regalbuto, instructor in Electronics Engineering Technology at Trident Technological College in Charleston has been doing for some time.

Shifting from Standard Solutions to Custom SolutionsOriginally, SC ATE’s Problem-Based Learning approach formed the core of Engineering Technology Foundations (EGR 140), a course that introduces students to fundamental concepts of electrical, mechanical, and other systems related to engineering technology, along with a healthy dose of workplace readiness skills. But the original projects have changed over the years.

For instance, when making presentations for workplace readiness, students are no longer offered PowerPoint as an option. “When EGR 104 was created, Power-Point was new and exciting, but what we have seen over the years is death by PowerPoint,” Regalbuto explains. “By forcing them out of the PowerPoint mold, we’ve forced them into doing some really creative things,” including brochures, flyers, websites, and even videos.

Other SC ATE components have been dropped in favor of new projects. Regalbuto has dropped the original mechanical project in favor of building trebuchets. “We got money from our foundation, and bought some kits, like a heavy-duty erector set.” After a series of mechanical labs about different forces and levers, the students build their trebuchets and compete against each other for accuracy.

The final project is building a break room, which often brings out real craftsmanship. “I’ve had people make models of the break room detailed to where they’re putting in LED lighting.”

Spreading Problem-Based Learning to Other Courses

One benefit of exploring the SC ATE database is that problem-based projects do not need to remain in the courses for which they were originally designed. For instance, Regalbuto now uses the problem-based approach in Introduction to Engineering (EGR 270), which covers the application of computers in engineering, including programming.

“I give them a Lego Mindstorms robot. It’s created,” explains Regalbuto, “but their project is to get it through a maze.” The robot is required to travel all the way down and back through the maze. Failing to get the robot down to the end of the maze means failing the project, reaching the remote end is a “C”, and returning

up the maze results in minimal “A.” For a perfect score, the robot must return to the starting box. “At the end of the semester, I have to kick them out of the lab, because they want to get that 100, and I won’t let them unless they stop it in the starting box. I have three or four out of about 40 every semester who manage to do it.”

Problem-Based Learning and the Evolving Educational Experience

Experience with project-based learning opens up new inroads for students and

instructors alike. One of Regalbuto’s many hats is Lead instructor for the Mechanical

and Electrical Engineering programs’ senior project, in which students have to design

and build an instructor-approved project. Their projects have ranged from automatic

dog washers to solar pool heaters to roller coasters. Two students bounced a laser off a window and amplified the signal so that they could hear what was going on in the room.

How many of these projects are found in the SC ATE database? None of them!

“These are all original,” explains Regalbuto. “We’ve taken the idea of project-based learning and turned it into a capstone course in which they choose the project. When you give them these kinds of things, they tend to go the extra mile. You don’t really have to push them.”

“We’ve just added Mechanical Engineering students to the senior project in the last four years. Some projects have an electrical and a mechanical component. We have two people working in a team on it. They start off in the EGR 104 courses and projects and finish with the senior project class.”

Lessons Learned Along the Way

Here are some things that Regalbuto has noted about PBL:

• Students really like project-based learning. Regalbuto notes that students “want to be creative, and they don’t get much opportunity to do that in some other courses.”

• Giving direction is key. While you shouldn’t do the project for them, you can give students concrete information at the beginning and encourage them along the way to bring out their own creativity.

• Expect some apprehension in the beginning. When students first encounter project-based learning, they may be hesitant. “A lot of them, at the beginning of the course, are asking ‘How can I get an A?’ or ‘Is this going to be on the test?’” The apprehension will pass.

• Mix up your teams. Much of problem-based learning involves teamwork. Regalbuto

says results are much better when you mix them up.

• Expect greater results in the end. Students take learning more seriously when the project is their own instead of something they are forced to do.

Phil Regalbuto is an Instructor in Electronics Engineering Technology and Engineering Transfer

at Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina. He came to Trident Tech in August 1990, and was one of the faculty on the original ATE grant in the late 90s. Prior to coming to TridentTech, he worked in industry for 14 years.