WPI at ASEE 2024

For example, Picard, Hardebolle, Tormey, and Schiffman (2021) found limited growth in professional skills in small, short-term project experiences. One potential amplifier of developing professional skills is self-efficacy. Capstones that employ project-based learning may be particularly well-positioned to scaffold students’ sense of confidence in their ability to accomplish more than they previously thought (Fini, Awadallah, Parast, & Abu-Lebdeh, 2018). This paper uses three sets of analyses to examine the extent to which intensive capstone project experiences can assist in developing students’ self-efficacy alongside professional skills, as well as the contribution of self-efficacy and professional skills to long-term career preparedness. Methodology: These questions are examined with a sample of 2,101 alumni from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) who completed a survey in 2021 about their educational experiences and its impact on their lives after graduation. All undergraduate students at WPI are required to complete a 9-credit major qualifying project in the final year to graduate. A series of hierarchical multiple linear regression models were constructed and assessed to determine the relative contributions of variables in predicting self-efficacy, each type of skill, and career preparation. Results: The first series of models found that the capstone experience has a moderately sized positive effect on self-efficacy, even after controlling for student demographics, response bias, courses in the major, and other project experiences. The second series of models found a similar effect on the development of communication skills, information use skills, and teamwork skills. Finally, the third series of models demonstrated that self-efficacy, communication skills, and information use skills all significantly contribute to alumni’s preparation for their current career; teamwork skills, however, did not. Conclusions/Significance: Self-efficacy is often implicit in the theories of action guiding capstone design (Pembridge & Paretti, 2019). The studies described in this paper explicitly confirm the significant role of capstones in developing students’ self-efficacy and their importance in preparing students for future engineering careers. This paper also extends prior research that stops short of assessing whether the self-efficacy and professional skills gained in capstones translates to career success.

A predominant hurdle in preparing engineers for this dynamic future is the prevalent risk-averse educational paradigm, significantly influenced by students' apprehension of failure. This fear often confines them within their academic silos, preventing the exploration of interdisciplinary realms and hindering departure from their technological comfort zones during their educational journey. In response, we introduced "Innovation Through Making," a multidisciplinary, project-based course designed to encourage quick learning, resilience, and the development of durable, adaptable skills. This course integrates Innovation and Entrepreneurship into the Engineering Sciences curriculum, providing students with practical experience in digital fabrication and engineering design. Through iterative design and prototyping, students tackle environmental or societal issues, using human-centered design and value creation principles.

Targeted surveys in these advanced courses further confirmed the significance of addressing this matter. A market review, informed by these insights, was conducted to shape the course description. RBE students at WPI traditionally undertake programming courses from the Computer Science (CS) department; however, up to 30% encountered difficulties due to the mismatch between their needs and the CS-taught curriculum. The key differentiator of the RBE-tailored programming course, in comparison to traditional CS courses, is its project-based nature, where students learn programming concepts and directly apply them to real robotics projects. This work primarily focuses on the imperative of introducing a dedicated first-year programming course into the RBE curriculum, designed specifically for robotics, while highlighting WPI RBE's pioneering role in robotics education and the project-based approach that sets it apart. We aim to enhance the educational experience and preparedness of our students, ensuring that they are well-equipped to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving field of robotics. The pedagogical theory and approach underpinning this course will be presented, and the expected outcomes will be discussed, along with methods of assessment to evaluate its effectiveness. This endeavor is an effort to further enhance our existing RBE curriculum's excellence and adapt to the changing landscape of robotics engineering education while inspiring existing and future RBE departments in their creation of a curriculum.

This study uses an experimental design to assess the efficacy of a new app. Participants included 245 first- and second-year students in three sections of Statics at two universities (Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Bucknell University). Another 197 WPI students who took Statics before the app was created serve as a comparison group. Of the participants, 37% are women and 14% BIPOC. Data were collected using the retrospective Student Assessment of their Learning Gains - an NSF-funded and validated survey that asks students how much they learned for each of a set of learning objectives and the extent to which they attribute their learning to specific learning activities. Items were combined to construct measures of growth in self-efficacy related to statics, content mastery, and willingness to seek help. Independent sample t-tests and hierarchical multiple linear regression were used to assess learning outcomes and differences across genders and app use. Results: Students who had the app available and completed half or more of the games reported significantly greater gains in their ability to draw appropriate FBDs for given systems than those who did not have the app available to them. In a second set of analyses with the students who completed at least half the games in the app, using the FBD app was a significant predictor of content mastery after controlling for the influences of demographics, the professor, self-efficacy, attending lecture, listening to and participating in class discussion, and group project work. Other significant predictors included attending lectures and self-efficacy. Women who used the app reported greater gains in self-efficacy related to Statics and willingness to seek help than men; there were no gender differences in content mastery. Multiple linear regression models indicate that these gender effects remain after controlling for BIPOC status, the professor leading class, the influences of attending lecture, listening to, and participating in class discussion, group project work, and using the FBD app; among those who did not use the app, women reported fewer gains in self-efficacy than men after these controls. Implications: Each year, more than 600,000 students enter engineering programs in the United States (Roy, 2019). These students plan to master a challenging skill set that requires them to understand how to model and analyze real world problems. Frustrating core course experiences can dissuade students from continuing to pursue an engineering degree and subsequent career (Geisinger & Raman, 2013). These findings provide emerging evidence that gamifying learning can be useful for all students taking Statics, but particularly for women.

Our team conducted wind tunnel experiments and ANSYS Fluent simulations in 2D and 3D to evaluate the effectiveness of these riblets in reducing drag on an airfoil. From this research, we found that our designs were capable of reducing drag forces by about 5% over a Reynolds number interval of 70,000 to 115,000 and up to 13% at the low Reynolds number of 45,000. This led us to recommend their implementation on small or low speed components, as our findings can majorly increase the efficiency of vehicles operating at moderate Reynolds numbers.