A collaborative robotics engagement project

This paper reports on an evaluation of a collaborative robotics engagement project involving teachers from local schools and an academic from Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Engaged community projects are aimed at building stronger relationships between universities and their local communities (Sandman, Williams & Abrams, 2009). This partnership leads to mutually beneficial outcomes, builds community capacity, and can focus on aspirations and access to higher education for school students (Scull & Cuthill, 2010). The Robotics@QUT project aimed to build a partnership between local teachers and the university in order to provide students from a low SES area opportunity to engage in robotics-based Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) activities. Students from low SES regions are underrepresented at university and less likely to pursue studies in these fields (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent, & Scales, 2008). Having teachers who provide engaging STEM activities is an important motivating factor for students to enjoy STEM and do well in STEM subjects (Tytler, Osborne Williams Tytler & Clark, 2008).

Process modelling and simulation of tissue damage during mechanical peeling of pumpkin as a tough skinned vegetable

Food waste is a current challenge that both developing and developed countries face. This project applied a novel combination of available methods in Mechanical, agricultural and food engineering to address these challenges. A systematic approach was devised to investigate possibilities of reducing food waste and increasing the efficiency of industry by applying engineering concepts and theories including experimental, mathematical and computational modelling methods. This study highlights the impact of comprehensive understanding of agricultural and food material response to the mechanical operations and its direct relation to the volume of food wasted globally.

Starting out in STEM : a study of young men and women in first year science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses

In late 2011, first year university students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses across Australia were invited to participate in the international Interests and Recruitment in Science (IRIS) study. IRIS investigates the influences on young people's decisions to choose university STEM courses and their subsequent experiences of these courses. The study also has a particular focus on the motivations and experiences of young women in courses such as physics, IT and engineering given the low rates of female participation in these fields. Around 3500 students from 30 Australian universities contributed their views on the relative importance of various school and non-school influences on their decisions, as well as insights into their experiences of university STEM courses so far. It is hoped that their contributions will help improve recruitment, retention and gender equity in STEM higher education and careers.

Digital tablets as a tool for blended learning in power engineering education

Digital tablets have been identified as a tool for enabling blended learning and supporting online teaching and learning. A small scale trial was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of this technology when applied to power engineering education. Critical findings and experiences gained from this trial, including potential benefits, presentation techniques and the resulting student feedback are presented in this paper.

An exploration of the professional competencies required in engineering asset management

Engineering asset management (EAM) is a rapidly growing and developing field. However, efforts to select and develop engineers in this area are complicated by our lack of understanding of the full range of competencies required to perform. This exploratory study sought to clarify and categorise the professional competencies required of individuals at different hierarchical levels within EAM. Data from 14 field interviews, 61 online surveys, and 10 expert panel interviews were used to develop an initial professional competency framework. Overall, nine competency clusters were identified. These clusters indicate that engineers working in this field need to be able to collaborate and influence others, complete objectives within organisational guidelines, and be able to manage themselves effectively. Limitations and potential uses of this framework in engineering education and research are discussed.

Robotics for sustainable broad-acre agriculture

This paper describes the development of small low-cost cooperative robots for sustainable broad-acre agriculture to increase broad-acre crop production and reduce environmental impact. The current focus of the project is to use robotics to deal with resistant weeds, a critical problem for Australian farmers. To keep the overall system affordable our robot uses low-cost cameras and positioning sensors to perform a large scale coverage task while also avoiding obstacles. A multi-robot coordinator assigns parts of a given field to individual robots. The paper describes the modification of an electric vehicle for autonomy and experimental results from one real robot and twelve simulated robots working in coordination for approximately two hours on a 55 hectare field in Emerald Australia. Over this time the real robot 'sprayed' 6 hectares missing 2.6% and overlapping 9.7% within its assigned field partition, and successfully avoided three obstacles.

Ethnographic notes on visualization practices in tissue engineering

Visual information is central to several of the scientific disciplines. This paper studies how scientists working in a multidisciplinary field produce scientific evidence through building and manipulating scientific visualizations. Using ethnographic methods, we studied visualization practices of eight scientists working in the domain of tissue engineering research. Tissue engineering is an upcoming field of research that deals with replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues, or organs to restore or establish normal function. We spent 3 months in the field, where we recorded laboratory sessions of these scientists and used semi-structured interviews to get an insight into their visualization practices. From our results, we elicit two themes characterizing their visualization practices: multiplicity and physicality. In this article, we provide several examples of scientists’ visualization practices to describe these two themes and show that multimodality of such practices plays an important role in scientific visualization.

Analysis of distance learner value assessment of distance education in engineering

Numerous research studies have evaluated whether distance learning is a viable alternative to traditional learning methods. These studies have generally made use of cross-sectional surveys for collecting data, comparing distance to traditional learners with intent to validate the former as a viable educational tool. Inherent fundamental differences between traditional and distance learning pedagogies, however, reduce the reliability of these comparative studies and constrain the validity of analyses resulting from this analytical approach. This article presents the results of a research project undertaken to analyze expectations and experiences of distance learners with their degree programs. Students were given surveys designed to examine factors expected to affect their overall value assessment of their distance learning program. Multivariate statistical analyses were used to analyze the correlations among variables of interest to support hypothesized relationships among them. Focusing on distance learners overcomes some of the limitations with assessments that compare off- and on-campus student experiences. Evaluation and modeling of distance learner responses on perceived value for money of the distance education they received indicate that the two most important influences are course communication requirements, which had a negative effect, and course logistical simplicity, which revealed a positive effect. Combined, these two factors accounted for approximately 47% of the variability in perceived value for money of the educational program of sampled students. A detailed focus on comparing expectations with outcomes of distance learners complements the existing literature dominated by comparative studies of distance and nondistance learners.

The role of laboratory exercises in modern power engineering education at the University of Queensland

The University of Queensland (UQ) has extensive laboratory facilities associated with each course in the undergraduate electrical engineering program. The laboratories include machines and drives, power systems simulation, power electronics and intelligent equipment diagnostics. A number of postgraduate coursework programs are available at UQ and the courses associated with these programs also use laboratories. The machine laboratory is currently being renovated with i-lab style web based experimental facilities, which could be remotely accessed. Senior level courses use independent projects using laboratory facilities and this is found to be very useful to improve students' learning skill. Laboratory experiments are always an integral part of a course. Most of the experiments are conducted in a group of 2-3 students and thesis projects in BE and major projects in ME are always individual works. Assessment is done in-class for the performance and also for the report and analysis.

Mechanical tension as a driver of connective tissue growth in vitro

We propose the progressive mechanical expansion of cell-derived tissue analogues as a novel, growth-based approach to in vitro tissue engineering. The prevailing approach to producing tissue in vitro is to culture cells in an exogenous “scaffold” that provides a basic structure and mechanical support. This necessarily pre-defines the final size of the implantable material, and specific signals must be provided to stimulate appropriate cell growth, differentiation and matrix formation. In contrast, surgical skin expansion, driven by increments of stretch, produces increasing quantities of tissue without trauma or inflammation. This suggests that connective tissue cells have the innate ability to produce growth in response to elevated tension. We posit that this capacity is maintained in vitro, and that order-of-magnitude growth may be similarly attained in self-assembling cultures of cells and their own extracellular matrix. The hypothesis that growth of connective tissue analogues can be induced by mechanical expansion in vitro may be divided into three components: (1) tension stimulates cell proliferation and extracellular matrix synthesis; (2) the corresponding volume increase will relax the tension imparted by a fixed displacement; (3) the repeated application of static stretch will produce sustained growth and a tissue structure adapted to the tensile loading. Connective tissues exist in a state of residual tension, which is actively maintained by resident cells such as fibroblasts. Studies in vitro and in vivo have demonstrated that cellular survival, reproduction, and matrix synthesis and degradation are regulated by the mechanical environment. Order-of-magnitude increases in both bone and skin volume have been achieved clinically through staged expansion protocols, demonstrating that tension-driven growth can be sustained over prolonged periods. Furthermore, cell-derived tissue analogues have demonstrated mechanically advantageous structural adaptation in response to applied loading. Together, these data suggest that a program of incremental stretch constitutes an appealing way to replicate tissue growth in cell culture, by harnessing the constituent cells’ innate mechanical responsiveness. In addition to offering a platform to study the growth and structural adaptation of connective tissues, tension-driven growth presents a novel approach to in vitro tissue engineering. Because the supporting structure is secreted and organised by the cells themselves, growth is not restricted by a “scaffold” of fixed size. This also minimises potential adverse reactions to exogenous materials upon implantation. Most importantly, we posit that the growth induced by progressive stretch will allow substantial volumes of connective tissue to be produced from relatively small initial cell numbers.

Mechanical influences on endothelial cell network formation in vitro

While both the restoration of the blood supply and an appropriate local mechanical environment are critical for uneventful bone healing, their influence on each other remains unclear. Human bone fracture haematomas (<72h post-trauma) were cultivated for 3 days in fibrin matrices, with or without cyclic compression. Conditioned medium from these cultures enhanced the formation of vessel-like networks by HMEC-1 cells, and mechanical loading further elevated it, without affecting the cells’ metabolic activity. While haematomas released the angiogenesis-regulators, VEGF and TGF-β1, their concentrations were not affected by mechanical loading. However, direct cyclic stretching of the HMEC-1 cells decreased network formation. The appearance of the networks and a trend towards elevated VEGF under strain suggested physical disruption rather than biochemical modulation as the responsible mechanism. Thus, early fracture haematomas and their mechanical loading increase the paracrine stimulation of endothelial organisation in vitro, but direct periodic strains may disrupt or impair vessel assembly in otherwise favourable conditions.

Molecular dynamics simulation of mechanical behavior of osteopontin-hydroxyapatite interfaces

Bone is characterized with an optimized combination of high stiffness and toughness. The understanding of bone nanomechanics is critical to the development of new artificial biological materials with unique properties. In this work, the mechanical characteristics of the interfaces between osteopontin (OPN, a noncollagenous protein in extrafibrillar protein matrix) and hydroxyapatite (HA, a mineral nanoplatelet in mineralized collagen fibrils) were investigated using molecular dynamics method. We found that the interfacial mechanical behaviour is governed by the electrostatic attraction between acidic amino acid residues in OPN and calcium in HA. Higher energy dissipation is associated with the OPN peptides with a higher number of acidic amino acid residues. When loading in the interface direction, new bonds between some acidic residues and HA surface are formed, resulting in a stick-slip type motion of OPN peptide on the HA surface and high interfacial energy dissipation. The formation of new bonds during loading is considered to be a key mechanism responsible for high fracture resistance observed in bone and other biological materials.

Sustainable development as a meta-context for engineering education

At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, there is unprecedented awareness of the need for a transformation in development, to meet the needs of the present while also preserving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, within engineering, educators still tend to regard such development as an ‘aspect’ of engineering rather than an overarching meta-context, with ad hoc and highly variable references to topics. Furthermore, within a milieu of interpretations there can appear to be conflicting needs for achieving sustainable development, which can be confusing for students and educators alike. Different articulations of sustainable development can create dilemmas around conflicting needs for designers and researchers, at the level of specific designs and (sub-) disciplinary analysis. Hence sustainability issues need to be addressed at a meta-level using a whole of system approach, so that decisions regarding these dilemmas can be made. With this appreciation, and in light of curriculum renewal challenges that also exist in engineering education, this paper considers how educators might take the next step to move from sustainable development being an interesting ‘aspect’ of the curriculum, to sustainable development as a meta-context for curriculum renewal. It is concluded that capacity building for such strategic considerations is critical in engineering education.

Exploring sustainability themes in engineering accreditation and curricula

Purpose This paper aims to present key findings from an inquiry into engineering accreditation and curricula renewal. The research attempted to ascertain conceptions of requisite sustainability themes among engineering academics and professionals. The paper also reflects on the potential role of professional engineering institutions (PEIs) in embedding sustainability through their programme accreditation guidelines and wider implications in terms of rapid curricula renewal. Design/methodology/approach This research comprised an International Engineering Academic Workshop held during the 2010 International Symposium on Engineering Education in Ireland, on “accreditation and sustainable engineering”. This built on the findings of a literature review that was distributed prior to the workshop. Data collection included individual questionnaires administered during the workshop, and notes scribed by workshop participants. Findings The literature review highlighted a wide range of perspectives across and within engineering disciplines, regarding what sustainability/sustainable development (SD) themes should be incorporated into engineering curricula, and regarding language and terminology. This was also reflected in the workshop discussions. Notwithstanding this diversity, clusters of sustainability themes and priority considerations were distilled from the literature review and workshop. These related to resources, technology, values, ethics, inter- and intra-generational equity, transdisciplinarity, and systems and complex thinking. Themes related to environmental and economic knowledge and skills received less attention by workshop participants than represented in the literature. Originality/value This paper provides an appreciation of the diversity of opinion regarding priority sustainability themes for engineering curricula, among a group of self-selected engineering academics who have a common interest in education for SD. It also provides some insights and caveats on how these themes might be rapidly integrated into engineering curricula.

Sustainable development as a meta-context for engineering education

At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, there is unprecedented awareness of the need for a transformation in development, to meet the needs of the present while also preserving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, within engineering, educators still tend to regard such development as an ‘aspect’ of engineering rather than an overarching meta-context, with ad hoc and highly variable references to topics. Furthermore, within a milieu of interpretations there can appear to be conflicting needs for achieving sustainable development, which can be confusing for students and educators alike. Different articulations of sustainable development can create dilemmas around conflicting needs for designers and researchers, at the level of specific designs and (sub-) disciplinary analysis. Hence sustainability issues need to be addressed at a meta-level using a whole of system approach, so that decisions regarding these dilemmas can be made. With this appreciation, and in light of curriculum renewal challenges that also exist in engineering education, this paper considers how educators might take the next step to move from sustainable development being an interesting ‘aspect’ of the curriculum, to sustainable development as a meta-context for curriculum renewal. It is concluded that capacity building for such strategic considerations is critical in engineering education.