Computer Applications in Engineering Education最新文献

An important part of the education of chemical engineers involves the design and assessment of heterogeneous catalytic reactions. They pose fundamental phenomena and constitute invaluable industrial processes. Progressing in this field, especially in graduate-level courses, entails solving nonlinear differential equations systems, which can only be achieved by using efficient and reliable numerical techniques. In this work, we solve nonisothermal one-dimensional reaction-diffusion BVP considering convection in the boundary conditions, by applying orthogonal collocation and arc-length continuation. Particularly, we predict the effectiveness factor as a function of the Thiele modulus for the main three particle geometries: plane slab, cylinder, and sphere. For chemical engineering students, such problems are at the zenith of the discipline, and the results of such calculations can elucidate basic and advanced concepts of mass and heat transfer as well as chemical reaction engineering. Both Chebyshev and shifted Legendre polynomials were used to transform the boundary value problem into a set of algebraic nonlinear equations. In addition, we also compare our findings against the available analytic solutions whenever possible. Codes in Scilab, Matlab®, and Mathematica© were developed for the solution of such problems and are available in the Supporting Information. There are two possible approaches to compute effectiveness factors: (a) integration as per definition versus (b) differentiation and nonlinear system. It is demonstrable that software performance is dependent on the approach, and that the differentiation approach yields better results.

It can be very difficult and demanding to keep students interested and motivated to learn difficult concepts and ideas; this is especially true if the task seems difficult and unique to the students. The digital generation enjoys using mobile applications. The study's goal was to encourage instructors to use digital assessment tools and approaches to enhance students' psychological abilities, such as motivation, enjoyment, and performance in learning. The study used the educational technology application Kahoot for formative assessment. The main objective is to determine how the use of the online game “Kahoot” affects the students' motivation, enjoyment, engagement, concentration, and learning outcome, which is a supplement to traditional teacher-centered learning. Quantitative research was carried out, volunteered participants were divided into two groups: Kahoot (n = 32) and paper-based (n = 32), and were given lectures on a particular topic in mechanics for a specific period. Lately, quiz was conducted in groups; the participants in the Kahoot groups gave the test on Kahoot mobile application, while the student in the paper-based group traditionally gave the quiz, data was collected from the participants in both groups using a Likert-scale questionnaire to determine their perceptions of participants on the above-stated themes. Then, the mean, standard deviation, z-test and t-test were used to determine the perceptions in both groups. The findings from the study ultimately agreed to the hypothesis that effective learning, motivation, engagement, and fun were all in the Kahoot-based group compared to the paper-based group with a statistically significant difference.

New technologies are providing opportunities for the design of novel educational methodologies. Virtual laboratories can simulate real conditions, thus reducing the workload of teachers and students, and removing the costs associated with laboratory or pilot plant tests. The present work describes the creation of a virtual and interactive lab using the Easy JavaScript Simulation (EJsS) 6.0 tool. The solar photo-Fenton process for the degradation of the Acetamiprid pesticide (ACTM) as a micropollutant model in wastewater was implemented in discontinuous mode in a stirred tank reactor (STR) and in continuous mode in a raceway pond reactor (RPR). The objective was to achieve a virtual tool that would allow easy, intuitive connection to different devices (laptops, tablets, and smartphones), simplifying the difficulties related to teaching technology. This contribution details the design and implementation process of the model for its use as support material for theoretical classes. The virtual tool presented in this article is an example of how the EJsS platform can be used to teach dynamics systems in chemical engineering.

Saikat Kumar Shome*, Sandip Jana, Partha Bhattacharjee, “On learning-based approaches in power electronics engineering curriculum: A high switching inchworm motor drive case study” Volume 28, Issue 4, July 2020, Pages 867–879.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cae.22258

A new affiliation is added to all the authors. This error was purely unintentional and was the result of an oversight during the submission and editing process. The correct details are mentioned below.

Sandip Jana^1,2, Saikat Kumar Shome^1,2,* and Partha Bhattacharjee^1,2

¹CSIR—Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute, Durgapur 713209, India.

²Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201002, India.

We apologize for the error.

Recently, automatic judgment systems have been widely used in various computer science lectures, and these systems are mainly developed for languages with a console-based practice environment. On the other hand, embedded systems such as Arduino are executed in a hardware-based environment and their verification is conducted by manually checking the operation of the hardware. Therefore, it is not easy to automatically judge the Arduino system developed by students. In the embedded system, hardware and software have to be developed at the same time, and it increases effort and time for the instructors to teach students, especially in practice-based learning. The study in this article proposes an Arduino practice judgment system based on the function execution log in virtual execution environment. It performs both Fritzing-based hardware configuration checking and source code testing based on virtual execution environment, where hardware operations are replaced by mock-up functions. In addition, more diverse practices are possible by providing an experimental environment where students can freely enter input data and check the results. A case study shows that the developed system can be applied to the lectures and help reduce instructors' work and increase students' understanding through the system.

This quasi-experimental study investigates the impact of gamification on learning outcomes and course engagement in the computer programming course, a mandatory course in the Electronics and Communication Technology and Mechatronics Technology departments. The experimental group (EG) (N = 48) utilized leaderboards for gamified weekly online formative exams, while the control group (N = 48) used nongamified exams. Our hypothesis was that the EG would exhibit higher quiz completion rates and improved learning. However, the findings indicate no significant difference between gamified and nongamified approaches in terms of learning and course engagement. Although the EG completed more quizzes, it did not result in a substantial difference. Correlations reveal a positive relationship between theoretical exam scores and the number of completed quizzes, suggesting that gamification may not directly enhance learning. Notably, the overall impact of quiz completion on learning is more pronounced when considering all participants. Furthermore, the decline in quiz completion rates after the third week in both groups suggests that gamification may yield an innovative effect but lacks long-term sustainability. These results suggest that gamification may be suitable for short-term activities, such as 2–3 weeks, and may not sufficiently engage all students in the lesson.

The current personalized recommendation methods for teaching resources of university courses suffer from poor recommendation effectiveness due to the absence of user tags. To address this issue, a new personalized recommendation method based on cluster analysis is proposed. The proposed method leverages web crawler technology to obtain user tags, followed by processing the tags to remove meaningless terms, normalize word forms, and perform data processing. The processed tags are used to calculate user interest preferences for each tag cluster generated by clustering. Based on this, a user interest model is built, and user similarity is calculated to determine the recommendation score of each resource. The recommended resources are then ranked according to their recommendation score and presented to the target user. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves high accuracy, recall rate, and F1 value for personalized recommendation of teaching resources in colleges and universities. In comparison, the method proposed in this paper has a significantly shorter recommendation time of 10.65 s. Further, the proposed model not only takes less time but also has higher recommendation efficiency when compared with existing personalized recommendation methods.

Rigid solid body dynamics is a key element of the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum. In a context of reverse engineering and/or sustainable development, being able to analyze the mechanical and material properties of a system without damaging it is a required skill. In this work, two systems based on wheels rolling over horizontal paths without sliding are studied: an unbalanced hollow cylinder and a wheel with displaced mass assembly. Four generations of last year's bachelor's students in mechanical engineering, representing a hundred people a year, followed a total of 12 h of practical sessions working on such systems. Without focusing on the programming part, this paper aims at showing how computer tools can help and improve a rigid solid body dynamics course. The objectives were to develop, apply, and analyze this teaching sequence, allowing students to (i) perform and characterize experimental measurements, (ii) establish systems motion equations, and (iii) think about dynamics results through cross-talks between different techniques such as geometrical and analytical methods as well as computer-assisted design tools. Different analysis methods of these systems could be discussed in the context of the classes, successfully bringing pertinent reflections to the students. The possibility of transferring such discussions to other contexts proved to be wide, thanks to computer science, dynamics software, other analysis methods and applications.

In private and expensive experimental laboratory studies, there are problems such as difficulty in accessing measuring devices and materials, space and time problems, and insufficient technical support due to the need for expertise. In this study, a fiber optic laboratory (FOL), which can be used for educational and scientific research purposes, has high installation costs and has difficulty in accessing devices, was designed and realized as a remote accessible/fully controllable. All devices in the proposed laboratory have been virtualized on the MATLAB App Designer platform, and communication protocols have been defined and made remotely accessible and controllable. In the proposed system, the user accessed remotely can perform all device controls, record the measurement results, take the measurement average as much as he wants to increase the measurement accuracy, monitor the experimental setup with a camera, and receive expert support. Afterward, a sample experiment was set up on the system and the results were compared. The proposed laboratory has a high potential to establish international collaborations in remote/flexible work and scientific research. Finally, a scale was applied to FOL undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral student groups. The Cronbach α coefficient showing the reliability of the applied model was found to be .934.

In the transmission and distribution networks, both active and reactive power play significant roles. While active power does the beneficial work, reactive power maintains the voltage that necessitates management from a system reliability perspective. The voltage variation from the nominal range may result in unintentional operation and early component failure. To maximize the amount of real power that can be transported over the power-transmitting media, the system must also control reactive power flow. In a three-phase unbalanced distribution system reinforced with distributed generator units (DGUs) and shunt capacitor units (SCUs), this paper suggests a teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO) approach to be applied to combinatorial problems for simultaneous reduction of real power loss and net reactive power flow, enhance voltage stability index (VSI) and minimize aggregated voltage deviation index. A multiobjective formulation based on TLBO has been implemented to choose the ideal sizes and placements of DGUs and SCUs in large distribution networks. The case studies have been carried out on an IEEE 33-bus standard system and a large 123-bus unbalanced system. The analysis of the IEEE 33- and 123-bus test systems reveals the economic efficiency of the suggested TLBO algorithm. Notably, by applying DG and capacitor simultaneously in the 33-bus system, a significant reduction of 59.35%, 55.05%, and 50.76% (phases a, b, and c), and for the 123-bus system, a significant reduction of 43.65%, 19%, and 48.65% (phases a, b, and c) in total active power losses have been achieved. The results suggest that the proposed method renders significant improvement in voltage stability and reduces power losses concerning the base case for both test systems.