ISE Professor James Allison Evolves Hands-On Learning Project

Assistant professor James Allison continues to champion a more hands-on approach to learning in his courses in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (ISE).

After generating a significant footprint on the GE 100 class during the 2012 fall semester, Allison is developing a curriculum program, “Advancing Undergraduate Learning Through Extensive Use of Hands-On-Model-Based Design Projects,” to be used not only for the introductory-level course, but also for two 400-level classes during the 2013 fall semester.

The department-wide initiative is already producing results. Last fall, Allison, in just his second year at Illinois, along with several graduate and undergraduate students, introduced the “trebuchet project” for his GE 100 course. The trebuchet is designed to catapult an object through the air. Allison’s crew designed the trebuchets specifically so GE 100 students would need to assemble them and make several design decisions. After adjusting their designs using trial and error, students then used MATLAB software to come up with better designs that maximized the range of the projectile.

“The goal was to develop a connection between the math and physics they were learning with engineering design,” Allison said. “It fed a desire to bring more hands-on activities into the curriculum. The trebuchets are really a toy, but it’s not a big leap to go from this mechanical system to some other mechanical system that a company might be designing.”

Allison’s road to becoming a college professor was a little unorthodox, but it reinforced his belief in the hands-on approach. Fresh out of high school, he worked as a technician and earned a degree in automotive technology. Allison worked his way up to management at a car dealership then went back to school for his engineering degree, eventually earning a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.

“I really like designing and building things,” said Allison, who earlier this semester held an open demonstration on how to disassemble a transmission. “In auto shop class, I would often think ‘Why did the engineer design it this way?’ In high school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer, but I wasn’t finished learning about cars at a technician level, yet.”

Following the successful trebuchet project, his contacts at MathWorks encouraged Allison to apply for a $40,000 grant from the company. Allison’s proposal was a success and the funds will work in tandem matching funds from the College of Engineering, A GATE grant, and funds receivedby the ISE department from classroom equipment to develop an active automotive suspension testbed. The testbed will be used as a hands-on demonstration in multiple courses taught by Allison. One of the stipulations for the MathWorks grant requires Allison to make all curriculum available, including the plans, drawings and models. This will enable other institutions to adopt those teaching tools.

“It is pretty rare for faculty members to use mechanical systems simulations products from MathWorks,” Allison explained. “They were excited about someone getting into depth using those products.”

In GE 410, students design a suspension system for a solar car. Right now their final designs exist only as drawings or CAD models, but with the completion of the suspension testbed, students will have an opportunity to see how well their design performs in real life. The testbed will be a scaled-down model of one-fourth of an automotive suspension test bed, which includes one wheel and its suspension systems supporting a mass that represents the car.

Once GE 410 students complete their project, they can load their design into the processor that controls the test bed. In addition to changing the active control system according to their design, the physical system design will be loaded onto the processor, and the testbed will reconfigure itself automatically. A hydraulic shaker will simulate bumps from a rough road, and the students will see firsthand how well their design performs.

The project will demonstrate the increased importance of employing a model-based approach when performing both physical and control system design. In addition, students will learn how a mechanical system needs to be designed differently when it is actively controlled compared to a passive system. At the freshman level, students will use the software to focus on core concepts instead of implementation details. 

The software will also be used for GE 413 (Engineering Design Optimization), course Allison is reviving after a five-year hiatus.

“One of the main objectives is to have the students make a strong connection between the theory and computer models and how an engineer might use this in a realistic design problem,” Allison said.

“When I went through junior high and high school, we had shop classes, so I had lots of hands-on experiences,” he concluded. “Because students today don’t often have that kind of experience, it’s a challenge to try to teach them to design mechanical systems they may never have seen before. This will enable us to bridge that gap.”

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If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Mike Koon, writer/editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-1256.