2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work details two dimensions involved in designing the educational experience in an undergraduate engineering mechanics laboratory course, centered around the course goals. The two main goals in the course were: 1) to provide students with hands-on learning experiences in materials testing to enable them to connect these experiences with theoretical concepts taught in the related lecture course, and 2) to teach undergraduate engineering students how to prepare a formal engineering laboratory report. Custom equipment for materials testing was designed and constructed in order to meet the first goal in an economically reasonable manner. Writing-intensive pedagogy was used to meet the second goal, with weekly individual writing assignments and one-on-one feedback meetings with every student to promote learning and writing skills improvement. This publication provides some details regarding how the development of custom materials testing laboratory equipment and workbenches shaped the laboratory experience, and also outlines the writing-intensive course structure used to support the development of students' writing skills.