Project oriented design based learning – staff perspectives

The focus of this paper is to get staff perception on design based learning in their respective disciplines and how they could be aligned to the newly proposed model, in project oriented design based learning (PODBL). In academia, students and staff are supposed to work together in order to achieve a balanced learning and teaching process. By using different teaching and learning approaches, teachers are aware of escalating the student knowledge to fulfill current technology needs. This paper is part of a continuing process of a research project, which analyses better teaching and learning approaches in engineering. As part of this research, face-to-face interviews with staff members of the school of engineering in Deakin University who are teaching engineering design were conducted. The interview questions are based on
qualitative analysis. The questions covered here are designed to determine the staff level of experience from teaching engineering using design based learning approach as an educational model. From the analysed results, this research encourages the school to practice a unique pedagogy that will accomplish the students learning outcomes.

The role of the facilitator in a project/design based learning environment

The Project Oriented Design Based Learning (PODBL) is a teaching and learning approach (TLA) that is based on engineering design activities undertaken during a project. PODBL encourages independent learning and a deep approach to student learning outcomes. The Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training (CADET) is a new engineering building with cutting edge technology facilities at Deakin University. It acts as a catalyst for a pedagogical change in the way that Engineering is delivered. This paper is focused on the role of the facilitator in a project/design based learning environment and it also looks in to appropriate staff development training for a project/design based learning environment.

A text analytics evaluation of a first-year engineering project-based unit

In the undergraduate engineering program at Griffith University in Australia, the unit 1006ENG Design and Professional Skills aims to provide an introduction to engineering design and professional practice through a project-based learning (PBL) approach to problem solving. It provides students with an experience of PBL in the first-year of their programme. The unit comprises an underpinning lecture series, design work including group project activities, an individual computer-aided drawing exercise/s and an oral presentation. Griffith University employs a ‘Student Experience of Course’ (SEC) online survey as part of its student evaluation of teaching, quality improvement and staff performance management processes. As well as numerical response scale items, it includes the following two questions inviting open-ended text responses from students: i) What did you find particularly good about this course? and ii) How could this course be improved? The collection of textual data in in student surveys is commonplace, due to the rich descriptions of respondent experiences they can provide at relatively low cost. However, historically these data have been underutilised because they are time consuming to analyse manually, and there has been a lack of automated tools to exploit such data efficiently. Text analytics approaches offer analysis methods that result in visual representations of comment data that highlight key individual themes in these data and the relationships between those themes. We present a text analytics-based evaluation of the SEC open-ended comments received in the first two years of offer of the PBL unit 1006ENG. We discuss the results obtained in detail. The method developed and documented here is a practical and useful approach to analysing/visualising open-ended comment data that could be applied by others with similar comment data sets.

Design for additive manufacturing: trends, opportunities, considerations, and constraints

The past few decades have seen substantial growth in Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. However, this growth has mainly been process-driven. The evolution of engineering design to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by AM and to manage the constraints associated with the technology has lagged behind. This paper presents the major opportunities, constraints, and economic considerations for Design for Additive Manufacturing. It explores issues related to design and redesign for direct and indirect AM production. It also highlights key industrial applications, outlines future challenges, and identifies promising directions for research and the exploitation of AM's full potential in industry.

Agent-based hybrid framework for decision making on complex problems

Electronic commerce and the Internet have created demand for automated systems that can make complex decisions utilizing information from multiple sources. Because the information is uncertain, dynamic, distributed, and heterogeneous in nature, these systems require a great diversity of intelligent techniques including expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. However, in complex decision making, many different components or sub-tasks are involved, each of which requires different types of processing. Thus multiple such techniques are required resulting in systems called hybrid intelligent systems. That is, hybrid solutions are crucial for complex problem solving and decision making. There is a growing demand for these systems in many areas including financial investment planning, engineering design, medical diagnosis, and cognitive simulation. However, the design and development of these systems is difficult because they have a large number of parts or components that have many interactions. From a multi-agent perspective, agents in multi-agent systems (MAS) are autonomous and can engage in flexible, high-level interactions. MASs are good at complex, dynamic interactions. Thus a multi-agent perspective is suitable for modeling, design, and construction of hybrid intelligent systems. The aim of this thesis is to develop an agent-based framework for constructing hybrid intelligent systems which are mainly used for complex problem solving and decision making. Existing software development techniques (typically, object-oriented) are inadequate for modeling agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. There is a fundamental mismatch between the concepts used by object-oriented developers and the agent-oriented view. Although there are some agent-oriented methodologies such as the Gaia methodology, there is still no specifically tailored methodology available for analyzing and designing agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. To this end, a methodology is proposed, which is specifically tailored to the analysis and design of agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. The methodology consists of six models - role model, interaction model, agent model, skill model, knowledge model, and organizational model. This methodology differs from other agent-oriented methodologies in its skill and knowledge models. As good decisions and problem solutions are mainly based on adequate information, rich knowledge, and appropriate skills to use knowledge and information, these two models are of paramount importance in modeling complex problem solving and decision making. Follow the methodology, an agent-based framework for hybrid intelligent system construction used in complex problem solving and decision making was developed. The framework has several crucial characteristics that differentiate this research from others. Four important issues relating to the framework are also investigated. These cover the building of an ontology for financial investment, matchmaking in middle agents, reasoning in problem solving and decision making, and decision aggregation in MASs. The thesis demonstrates how to build a domain-specific ontology and how to access it in a MAS by building a financial ontology. It is argued that the practical performance of service provider agents has a significant impact on the matchmaking outcomes of middle agents. It is proposed to consider service provider agents' track records in matchmaking. A way to provide initial values for the track records of service provider agents is also suggested. The concept of ‘reasoning with multimedia information’ is introduced, and reasoning with still image information using symbolic projection theory is proposed. How to choose suitable aggregation operations is demonstrated through financial investment application and three approaches are proposed - the stationary agent approach, the token-passing approach, and the mobile agent approach to implementing decision aggregation in MASs. Based on the framework, a prototype was built and applied to financial investment planning. This prototype consists of one serving agent, one interface agent, one decision aggregation agent, one planning agent, four decision making agents, and five service provider agents. Experiments were conducted on the prototype. The experimental results show the framework is flexible, robust, and fully workable. All agents derived from the methodology exhibit their behaviors correctly as specified.

Autonomous underwater vehicles in a hazardous non-deterministic environment

This research investigated the cooperation of multi underwater robots to perform a task. This combined engineering design, electronics and consensus control to create systems capable of achieving the task. Challenges such as underwater radio communications were researched and a simulation framework was created and tested on virtual and real systems.

Using the psychrometric chart in building measurements

This paper centres around the presentation of multiple measured results on a psychrometric chart. The psychrometric chart was programmed in Microsoft Office Excel to accommodate measured results. It was written because existing programs appear not to cater for the researcher wishing to enter results electronically onto the chart. Furthermore, many existing charts are complex and cluttered displaying up to ten attributes, being intended for engineering design, whereas presenting the behaviour of living and working environments is focused on wet and dry bulb temperature and relative humidity. As well as results, users would also like to specify and adjust the ‘comfort zone’ (a shaded area on the chart) for different ‘adaptive’ or ‘seasonal’ conditions. The comfort zone is bounded by lines of constant heat loss from the skin, relative humidity and wet-bulb temperature. The paper presents various applications of the psychrometric chart for the analysis and reporting of research and discusses the programming of Microsoft Office Excel to generate the chart and display user data.

Effect of strain ageing on the mechanical properties of partially damaged structural mild steel

ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the strain ageing effects on the mechanical properties of the partially damaged structural mild steel. Since repairing partly damaged structures may not occur immediately, the strain ageing effect can significantly influence the structural behaviour. The changes due to this effect have not so far been considered in the civil engineering design guidelines. In order to investigate strain ageing effects, two-stage experimental tests are carried out on the mild-steel specimens. In the first stage, partial damage is made using quasi-static loading. During the second stage, the strength and ductility of the specimens are examined after 2 and 7 days ‘ageing’ at room temperature and the results are compared with the corresponding no-age samples. The microstructure of the specimens is examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). To illustrate the effect of strain ageing on the global behaviour of steel structures, a numerical example is provided in which strain ageing impacts on loading capacity and deflection of a steel beam. Finally, the stress–strain relation of partially damaged mild-steel material incorporating strain ageing effects is expressed by calibrating the parameters of Ramberg–Osgood model.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of wrought and additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V cylindrical bars

Titanium alloys are widely used in various engineering design application due to its superior material properties. The traditional manufacturing of titanium products is always difficult, time consuming, high material wastage and manufacturing costs. Selective laser melting (SLM), an additive manufacturing technology has widely gained attention due to its capability to produce near net shape components with less production time. In this technical paper,microstructure,chemical composition,tensile properties and hardness are studied for the wrought and additive manufactured SLM cylindrical bar. Microstructure,mechanical properties and hardness were studied in both the longitudinal and transverse directions of the bar to study the effect of orientation. It was found that additive manufactured bar have higher yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and hardness than the wrought bar. For both conventional and SLM test samples, the yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and hardness was found to be high in the transverse direction. The difference in the properties can be attributed to the difference in microstructure as a result of processing conditions. The tensile fracture area was quantified by careful examination of the fracture surfaces in the scanning electron microscope.

A taxonomy and mapping of computer-based critiquing tools

Critics have emerged in recent times as a specific tool feature to support users in computer-mediated tasks. These computer-supported critics provide proactive guidelines or suggestions for improvement to designs, code, and other digital artifacts. The concept of a critic has been adopted in various domains, including medical, programming, software engineering, design sketching, and others. Critics have been shown to be an effective mechanism for providing feedback to users. We propose a new critic taxonomy based on extensive review of the critic literature. The groups and elements of our critic taxonomy are presented and explained collectively with examples, including the mapping of 13 existing critic tools, predominantly for software engineering and programming education tasks to the taxonomy. We believe this critic taxonomy will assist others in identifying, categorizing, developing, and deploying computer-supported critics in a range of domains.

Beyond construction…..A cross-disciplinary approach to improved learning and teaching in built environment degrees

More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related causes. Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills those most vulnerable in the third world. Leadership in managing cross-disciplinary teams is required to present economical, viable community-based solutions. This project utilised the skills of undergraduates across different disciplines of construction, project management, engineering, design, and communication, to work alongside industry mentors in a team to design, build and present an innovative, sustainable water sanitation solution for a Bangladesh community. The semester-long project enabled undergraduate students to develop skills in client relationships, teamwork, and communication as well as discipline skills of project management and construction. The real-world problem necessitated a paradigm shift away from discipline-based knowledge transference towards skills for the future. The project utilised approaches such as negotiated curriculum and assessment; self-directed, flexible participation in learning; use of social media as a learning tool and cross-disciplinary teamwork. Results from student surveys and interviews indicate that this project directly enhanced students’ work-readiness skills and recognition of the importance of problem solving using cross-disciplinary understandings. Students reported greater self-confidence for tackling future workplace challenges. The results also illustrate strong levels of student satisfaction with the cross-disciplinary approach and the importance of skills in client relationships. The project and its outcomes have implications for how learning and teaching occurs in built environment disciplines and has the potential to create significant impact on the calibre of future built environment graduates.