2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Many mechanical engineering undergraduate laboratory courses in dynamic systems and controls are primarily software-based, with laboratory assignments involving computer simulation modeling. While such simulation assignments may appeal to traditional mechanical engineering undergraduate students, especially male students, laboratory exercises that are hardware-based may appeal to a wider variety of students. In particular, the addition of physical experimentation should have an impact on male / female diversity, as there is some scientific evidence that female undergraduate students prefer kinesthetic learning to males, which involves moving the body and learning from the senses. In this work, a completely refurbished dynamic systems laboratory course is implemented into an undergraduate mechanical engineering program for the purpose of producing excellence in student learning and engagement. The new laboratory assignments involve physical experimentation, which is a modification to the previous course that included only simulation projects. Custom-made exercises include physical measurement and analysis of sound pressure signals, and reverse engineering of products using the Raspberry Pi compute platform. Coding of Raspberry Pi boards is accomplished using MATLAB Online and Simulink Online. Student engagement with both the new hardware-based course and previous simulation-based course are assessed using survey methodology, with a questionnaire deployed that includes short answer questions. The responses are inductively coded and reported in this work. Moreover, lessons learned from designing and assigning original dynamic systems physical experiments to mechanical engineering undergraduate students are highlighted.