Thinking like an engineer: an active learning approach

625 Pages·29.967 MB·English

by  Stephan, Elizabeth A;Sill, Benjamin L;Bowman, David R;Park, William J

THINKING LIKE
AN ENGINEER
AN ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACH
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THINKING LIKE
AN ENGINEER
AN ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACH
Elizabeth A. Stephan
Clemson University
David R. Bowman
Clemson University
William J. Park
Clemson University
Benjamin L. Sill
Clemson University
Matthew W. Ohland
Purdue University
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN-13:978-0-13-606442-8
ISBN-10:0-13-606442-6
CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii
PART 1 PART 2
ENGINEERING ESSENTIALS 1 PROBLEM PARADIGMS 97
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 1
ESTIMATION 101
EVERYDAY ENGINEERING 5
5.1 GENERALHINTSFORESTIMATION 104
1.1 CHOOSINGACAREER 5
5.2 SIGNIFICANTFIGURES 105
1.2 CHOOSINGENGINEERINGASACAREER 6
5.3 REASONABLENESS 109
1.3 CHOOSINGASPECIFICENGINEERINGFIELD 8
5.4 NOTATION 113
1.4 GATHERINGINFORMATION 16
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 116
1.5 PURSUINGSTUDENTOPPORTUNITIES 18
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 2 SOLVEM 119
ETHICS 28
6.1 DEFININGSOLVEM 119
2.1 ETHICALDECISION-MAKING 29 6.2 REPRESENTINGFINALRESULTS 125
2.2 ENGINEERINGCREED 34 6.3 AVOIDINGCOMMONMISTAKES 125
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 36 IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 129
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 3
GRAPHING GUIDELINES 132
DESIGN AND TEAMWORK 43
7.1 GRAPHINGTERMINOLOGY 132
3.1 THEDESIGNPROCESS 43
7.2 PROPERPLOTS 133
3.2 BRAINSTORMINGINTHEDESIGNPROCESS 45
7.3 GRAPHINTERPRETATION 140
3.3 EXPERIMENTALDESIGN:PERIODANALYSIS 46
7.4 MEANINGOFTHELINESHAPES 143
3.4 PROJECTTIMELINE 48
7.5 GRAPHICALSOLUTIONS 149
3.5 CRITERIAANDEVALUATION 50
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 153
3.6 WORKINGINTEAMS 55
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 58
CHAPTER 8
INTERPOLATION 165
CHAPTER 4
8.1 SINGLEINTERPOLATION 166
ENGINEERING COMMUNICATION 63 8.2 COMPLEXINTERPOLATION 169
4.1 BASICPRESENTATIONSKILLS 64 IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 172
4.2 SAMPLEPRESENTATIONS 66
4.3 BASICTECHNICALWRITINGSKILLS 69 CHAPTER 9
4.4 COMMONTECHNICALCOMMUNICATIONFORMATS 72 STATISTICS 176
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 79
9.1 HISTOGRAMS 177
9.2 STATISTICALBEHAVIOR 180
ENGINEERINGESSENTIALS REVIEW 89
9.3 DISTRIBUTIONS 183
v
vi
CONTENTS
9.4 CUMULATIVEDISTRIBUTIONFUNCTIONS 190 PART 4
9.5 STATISTICALPROCESSCONTROL(SPC) 192
SCRUPULOUS
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 200
SPREADSHEETS 333
PROBLEMPARADIGMSREVIEW 206
CHAPTER 13
EXCEL WORKBOOKS 341
PART 3 13.1 CELLREFERENCES 341
13.2 FUNCTIONSINEXCEL 344
UBIQUITOUS UNITS 223 13.3 LOGICANDCONDITIONALS 349
13.4 LOOKUPANDDATAVALIDATION 355
13.5 CONDITIONALFORMATTING 358
CHAPTER 10
13.6 SORTINGANDFILTERS 361
FUNDAMENTAL DIMENSIONS IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 367
AND BASE UNITS 235
10.1 THEMETRICSYSTEM 236 CHAPTER 14
10.2 OTHERUNITSYSTEMS 239
EXCEL GRAPHS 376
10.3 CONVERSIONPROCEDUREFORUNITS 239
10.4 CONVERSIONSINVOLVINGMULTIPLESTEPS 242 14.1 AVAILABLEGRAPHTYPES 377
10.5 CONVERSIONSINVOLVING“NEW”UNITS 247 14.2 STATISTICSINEXCEL 379
10.6 DERIVEDDIMENSIONSANDUNITS 248 14.3 AUTOMATEDCALCULATIONS 383
10.7 EQUATIONLAWS 250 IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 389
10.8 CONVERSIONINVOLVINGEQUATIONS 253
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 256
CHAPTER 15
MODELS AND SYSTEMS 396
CHAPTER 11
15.1 LINEARFUNCTIONS 397
UNIVERSAL UNITS 261 15.2 LINEARRELATIONSHIPS 400
11.1 FORCE 261 15.3 POWERFUNCTIONS 414
11.2 WEIGHT 263 15.4 EXPONENTIALFUNCTIONS 417
11.3 DENSITY 264 IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 423
11.4 AMOUNT 269
11.5 TEMPERATURE 272
CHAPTER 16
11.6 PRESSURE 275
MATHEMATICAL MODELS 429
11.7 GASPRESSURE 280
11.8 ENERGY 282 16.1 SELECTINGATRENDLINETYPE 429
11.9 POWER 286 16.2 INTERPRETINGLOGARITHMICGRAPHS 438
11.10 EFFICIENCY 287 16.3 CONVERTINGSCALESTOLOGINEXCEL 445
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 293 16.4 DEALINGWITHLIMITATIONSOFEXCEL 445
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 452
CHAPTER 12
SCRUPULOUSSPREADSHEETSREVIEW 459
DIMENSIONLESS NUMBERS 302
12.1 COMMONDIMENSIONLESSNUMBERS 302
12.2 DIMENSIONALANALYSIS 304
12.3 RAYLEIGH’SMETHOD 308
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 316
UBIQUITOUSUNITSREVIEW 320
vii
CONTENTS
PART 5 19.3 LOGICANDRELATIONALOPERATORSINMATLAB 544
PUNCTILIOUS 19.4 CONDITIONALSTATEMENTSINMATLAB 545
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 549
PROGRAMMING 483
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 17 LOOPING STRUCTURES 554
ALGORITHMS, PROGRAMS, 20.1 forLOOPS 554
AND FUNCTIONS 489 20.2 whileLOOPS 560
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 563
17.1 SCOPE 489
17.2 WRITTENALGORITHMS 491
PUNCTILIOUSPROGRAMMINGREVIEW 566
17.3 GRAPHICALALGORITHMS 493
17.4 PROGRAMSINMATLAB 498
17.5 DEBUGGINGMATLABCODE 510
COMPREHENSIONCHECKANSWERS 577
17.6 FUNCTIONSINMATLAB 511
INDEX 588
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 516
EXCELFUNCTIONS 598
MATLABFUNCTIONS 599
CHAPTER 18 GREEKLETTERS 600
INPUT/OUTPUT IN MATLAB 519 NOMENCLATUREANDUNITABBREVIATIONS 601
MISCELLANEOUSEQUATIONS 602
18.1 INPUT 519
EQUATIONSANDGEOMETRICFORMULAS 603
18.2 OUTPUT 521
SIUNITSANDPHYSICALCONSTANTS 604
18.3 PLOTTING 523
18.4 STATISTICS 527
IN-CLASSACTIVITIES 532
CHAPTER 19
LOGIC & CONDITIONALS 540
19.1 TRUTHTABLES 540
19.2 BINARYNUMBERS 542
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PREFACE
A
touruniversity,allstudentswhowishtomajorinengineeringbeginintheGen-
eral Engineering Program, and after completing a core set of classes, they can
declare a specific engineering major. Within this core set of classes, students are
requiredtotakemath,physics,chemistryandatwo-semesterengineeringsequence.
Over the past 10 years, our courses have evolved to address not only the changing
qualitiesofourstudents,butalsothechangingneedsofourcustomers.Thematerial
taught in our courses is the foundation upon which the upper level courses depend
fortheskillsnecessarytomastermoreadvancedmaterial.Itwasforthesefreshman
coursesthatthistextwascreated.
We didn’t set out to write a textbook: we simply set out to find a better way to
TellmeandI
teachourstudents.Ourphilosophywastohelpstudentsmovefromamodeoflearn-
forget.Teachme
ing, where everything was neatly presented as lecture and handouts where the
andImayremem-
instructor was looking for the “right” answer, to a mode of learning driven by self-
ber.Involveme
guidedinquiry.Wewantedstudentstoadvancebeyond“plug-and-chug”andmemo-
andIlearn.
rization of problem-solving methods—to ask themselves if their approaches and
BenjaminFranklin
answers make sense in the physical world. We couldn’t settle on any textbooks we
likedwithoutpatchingmaterialstogether—onechapterfromthistext,fourchapters
from this one—so we wrote our own notes. Through them, we tried to convey that
engineering isn’t always about having the answer—sometimes it’s about asking the
right questions, and we want students to learn how to ask those sorts of questions.
Real-worldproblemsrarelycomewithalloftheinformationrequiredfortheirsolu-
tions. Problems presented to engineers typically can’t be solved by looking at how
someone else solved the exact same problem. Part of the fun of engineering is that
everyproblempresentsauniquechallengeandrequiresauniquesolution.Engineer-
ingisalsoaboutarrivingatananswerandbeingabletojustifythe“why”behindyour
choice,andequallyimportant,the“whynot”oftheotherchoices.
We realized quickly, however, that some students are not able to learn without
Educationiswhat
sufficientscaffolding.Structureandflexibilitymustbemanagedcarefully.Toomuch
surviveswhenwhat
structure results in rigidity and unnecessary uniformity of solutions. On the other
hasbeenlearnthas
hand,toomuchflexibilityprovidesinsufficientguidance,andstudentsflounderdown
beenforgotten.
manyblindalleys,thusmakingitmoredifficulttoacquirenewknowledge.Theten-
B.F.Skinner
sion between these two must be managed constantly. We are a large public institu-
tion,andourstudentbodyisverydiverse.Ourhopeistoprovideeachstudentwith
the amount of scaffolding they need to be successful. Some students will require
morebackgroundworkthanothers.Somestudentswillneedtoworkfiveproblems,
Thelargertheisland
ofknowledge,the andothersmayneedtowork50.Wetalkagreatdealtoourstudentsabouthoweach
longertheshoreline learner is unique. Some students need to listen to a lecture; some need to read the
ofwonder. textoverthreetimes,andothersjustneedtotryaskillandmakemistakestodiscover
RalphW.Sockman what they still don’t understand. We have tried to provide enough variety for each
typeoflearnerthroughoutthetext.
ix