Programme - Day 2

After a short introduction from Chalak Omar, the chair of the second day of the conference, and the obligatory housekeeping information, the opening plenary will be delivered by our keynote presenter, Professor Simon Guest . This will be followed by a question and answer session.

"If it ain't broke, don’t fix it: building on success",

Presented by Professor Simon Guest , Head of Civil Engineering at Cambridge University

In his keynote presentation, Simon will discuss how we can embed practical education into engineering courses? We will consider what can be learned from the Structural Design Course, a cornerstone of the Cambridge undergraduate engineering curriculum. The course is a design-build-test exercise: first-year students build a metal truss structure with a maximum dimension of about 1m to carry a load of about 3kN. The course has been essentially unchanged for 60 years: it remains the most popular, and the most memorable, part of the student experience. It is resource intensive, but its continuation is never questioned – and indeed, during the pandemic, our first priority was to work out how to let this course run.

This talk will explore why the course has been so effective. What can we learn from its success? What can we do to make other practical engineering education exercises equally successful, and equally embedded in engineering education?

In this session, a choice of two facilitated workshops will be taken place. Each workshop will last 45. Choose which of the of the following you are interested in and head to the correct workroom.

1. "Take-Home Lab Kits - A survey for your thoughts"

Michael Johnson, University of Limerick

Workroom 1

This interactive presentation will present findings from a study of take-home electronic kits for home laboratory use in a University engineering setting. By gathering, comparing and contrasting actual audience views in real time, the presentation will investigate the use of take-home kits and real-world data gathered from students at the University of Limerick on the same topic. Viewpoints considered will include benefits of such take-home kits, ease-of-use and their relevance to the course content they are working with.

Using examples of the kits combined with the audience's own experiences from pandemic teaching practices, participants will be introduced to the kits and their capabilities, example experiments which could be executed on them, etc. before being asked for their initial opinions of the kits through the use of real-time, interactive polling software. Collated opinions from the audience will then be compared and contrasted with actual feedback from undergraduate engineering students who used these kits for actual laboratory practice during covid-19 restrictions.

2. "Gamification of education: designing an educational card game"

Elton Rodrias, University College London.

Workroom 2

‘Edutainment’, or educational entertainment has been around since the 1970’s, from the simplicity of solving a crossword puzzle on the back of a cereal box to the implementation of Virtual Reality in the subject of complex fluid mechanics. In a pedagogical environment, how do educators ensure that the information they are passing on is not lost in the midst of texts typically found in any academic subjects?

Although safety and safety assessments are key components of any Chemical Engineering degree, these topics are often overlooked by the students, who typically find them tedious, uninteresting and intangible. We have designed here an educational card game, codenamed ‘0 Days Since’ to teach students about the most common safety assessments used in industries on which Chemical Engineering is part of. Historic industrial accidents are a core part of the game, highlighting the importance of safety assessments while adding a realistic dimension to the game. The objective of the game is to assemble a team of safety assessment experts and tackle industrial crises, ultimately preventing the safety sign to be reset to ‘0 days since the last incident’ (as the title suggests). While the topic is transversal to chemical engineering, this project directly supplements many undergraduate modules, serving as a refresher on safety assessments. This game is designed to be competitive and enjoyable while being educational.

From designing artwork to setting the rules, undergraduate and postgraduate students were involved along the way to ensure that the depths of the topic are right, while keeping the intrinsic motivations of the game. The artworks are individually crafted by two undergraduate students, taking in their own flair and creativity in interpreting each concept and card. This card game is funded by UCL Changemakers, which is a part of UCL 2034’s long-term strategy of student-staff partnership, bridging the gap between teaching and learning. Additionally, we will explore more into the benefit of a student-staff partnership, some key learnings on game designs including breakdown of each process step, and tips and tricks of maintaining the sensitive balance between an educational and an entertaining card game.

Following the facilitated workshops, coffee and refreshments will be available in the moonscape

Have you got an idea about engineering education that you haven't had a chance to work up? A seed of a concept that is worthy of exploration but you haven't had the time to give it the attention it deserves? Would you like to tell other people about it?

In the ideas exchange, delegates will be asked to present their ideas or work in progress. The intention of this session isn't to present finished work, but to seek out collaborators for ideas that you feel might be impactful if implemented.

Presentations will be limited to 3 minutes each - so keep to the point. If you are using slides, keep the to a single slide.

3 minute presentations will also be given to present posters that will be on display during the day.

1. "Using competition as a motivator in engineering group work".

Alistair John, University of Sheffield.

Background: Project-based group modules are often used in engineering degrees as they replicate real world engineering practice and provide an opportunity to experience the engineering project lifecycle of designing, building and testing a product. Competition is a known motivator and is often used in these type of modules to encourage student engagement.

Hypothesis: This study investigates to what extent including a competitive aspect in project-based group work acts as a motivator for students. Additionally, the study compares how motivating or stressful the students found the competitive aspects when they directly influence the module grades or not. The purpose is to find out a) whether competition is beneficial as a motivator and b) whether this competition should influence the students’ grades or not to best motivate them and provide optimal learning.

Method: Second year aerospace engineering students took two project-based group design modules in the same semester. Both modules involved the design of a engineering artefact (a bridge and an air system), where the student groups were competing to design the lowest-mass successful artefact. In one module the mass and success of their artefact influenced their grades, in the other there was no influence on grades, but the winning teams received a small prize (trophies). The students were asked to fill out a questionnaire towards the end of the module and 57 responses were received.

Results: The questionnaire results provide the students’ responses relating to how motivating or stressful they found the competitive aspects of each module. The results also provide information on what motivates students to work hard on a module. The results show that the students find competition motivating, and the majority agree that the competitive aspects of the modules motivated them to work harder. They found the module where their grades influenced by the competition slightly more motivating, though they found this significantly more stressful. Their comments confirm that they find competition motivating but stressful when it influences their grades.

Conclusion: The results show that competition can be successfully used as a motivator in engineering group projects, but when the competition has a direct effect on the students’ grades, this results in a significant (and unnecessary) increase in stress that does not provide much additional benefit. It is recommended that a competitive environment should be used to increase motivation, but to avoid it becoming so stressful and overly competitive it should have little or no impact on grades. This helps to maintain intrinsic student motivation while nurturing a positive learning environment.

2. "A Semi-Batch Reactor for Teaching Practical Control".

Bernard Treves Brown, University of Manchester.

The University of Manchester has a Siemens PCS7 Distributed Control System (DCS) in its chemical engineering pilot hall. This represents a significant investment and for several years there has been concern that it was merely being used as an automation tool for individual experiments; students were not learning about the capabilities of a modern DCS. Following work by Derevjanik et al. (Derevjanik, M.; Badri, S.; and Barat, R. A semi-batch reactor experiment for the undergraduate laboratory, Chemical Engineering Education Vol 45/2, 120–125). We developed a new experiment which aims to control the temperature of a semi-batch reaction by adjusting the flow rate of cooling water. At present this is difficult with the small temperature difference and low thermal transfer between the reactor and its cooling jacket in this all-glass system. However, the reactor is charged using a peristaltic pump and the minor reactant is dosed with a gear pump. This introduces students to different types of pump. The flow of cooling water is controlled with a motorised ball valve. Serendipitously, we found that the model chosen has significant hysteresis, which students characterise as part of the practical. Students are explicitly introduced to the control capabilities of the DCS, and the integration possibilities are demonstrated by including a visit to the building control room. Student comments have been very positive and a second rig is being built so that all students can perform the experiment.

A presentation by one of our sponsors: GUNT. Through its headquarters in Hamburg and UK office in Hampshire, GUNT engineers develop, manufacture, and supply didactic equipment that is designed specifically for teaching in universities, colleges, technical and vocational schools, giving students a hands-on practical approach to help understand even the most complex principles.

In addition to our broad range of equipment, GUNT have developed innovative tutorial software and web-based E-learning modules, these form a comprehensive range of teaching materials and videos to assist both Student and teacher.

Combined with augmented reality, digital acquisition of test results and network capability, multiple users can access real time data, all of which are designed to complement our product range and to meet Industry 4.0 criteria.

Interactive demonstrations will be on show in the Moonscape and Structures lab for you to browse. These will be run on a drop in basis, so wander over to the demonstration areas to see what is going on.

1. "Drone design projects (How they develop student skills from Y1 to Y3)".

Simon Hayes, University of Sheffield

2. "Paper Column (gamification)"

Matteo Di Benedetti, University of Sheffield

3. "Photoelasticity"

Harry Day, University of Sheffield

4. "Using Unity for Extended Reality Teaching - Oculus Quest Demo"

Krys Bangert, University of Sheffield

5. Showcasing methods to expand the scalability of complex hands-on laboratory experiences using digital-twinning

Peter Martin, Director of R&D, Quanser

Eat some food.

A presentation by one of our sponsors: Shimadzu. Shimadzu is a leading Japanese company involved in the manufacturing of Precision Analytical Instrumentation. Born from a rich history in engineering by following our core principles of Kaizen (Change for the Better) and an ethos of “Excellence in Science”.

Our strategy of innovation through extensive investment in research and development is core to Shimadzu's approach to the manufacture of innovative solutions. Our analytical and measuring instruments, and industrial machinery are now used for a broad range of applications in a wide variety of industries.

Shimadzu provide the quality solutions for LC, LCMS, GC, GCMS, TOC, ICP, AA, EDX, UV-VIS, FTIR, Fluorescence, MALDI-MS, Multicapillary Electrophoresis, Material Testing Machines, Particle Size Analysers, Micro Hardness Testers, High Speed Video Cameras and Balances.

"Practical teaching is a team sport."

The panel session is an opportunity to pose questions to voices you don't normally hear from in the world of practical engineering education. How is it that we empower the collaboration with technical staff, demonstrators, teaching assistants, industry and students? On the panel will be:

• Krys Bangert, Technical Team Leader and former Teaching Technician in the Diamond.

• Sarah Archibald, Learning Support Manager.

• Rowena Stevenson, a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

• Fudail Ajaz, a Student.

Following the panel session a coffee break will be available in the moonscape.

"How do we assess practical skills?" A whole conference discussion about the difficulties faced when implementing assessment strategies for laboratory or workshop teaching. The discussion will result in some conclusions drawn or the identification of next steps.

During the presentations, there will be no time for Q&A.

1. "A curriculum design framework for online courses: application to a BIM course".

Nick Mount, Sarah Davidson, Lina Erlandsson, Kirstie Coolin, Luis Neves, Marlies Gration. University of Nottingham

As the past two years have shown, teaching science and technology in an online environment is extremely challenging. A simple transition of in-person practices to an online environment results in poor student experience, low engagement and a consistent reduction in attainment. This was, in no short measure, a consequence of the lack of practical engineering learning. On the other hand, the need for live long learning in engineering and the appetite for online learning is greater now than ever before. Providing the later, while avoiding the pitfalls of online learning requires re-thinking teaching and learning design, with a strong focus on the design of activities that allow learners to experiment, build and test solutions.

In this paper, we explore a novel learning design approach that focus on the development, exploring and evidencing of changes in competencies in the context of lifelong online learning and, particularly, its application to the development of a set of online courses on Information Management in the Built Environment.

This learner-based approach starts by evaluating the intended impact on the learning experience on the learner, in terms of conceptual understanding, practices and behaviours. From this, competencies are characterized and tasks that evidence those competencies are devised. With those in mind, activities that support the development of those competencies are identified. The process is developed in a set of structured workshops that join convenors, content developers, platform and tools experts. These workshops result in a manifest that define the structure of each learning block, the activities that need to be developed and the links between these. These are then implemented in a LMS.

Applying the proposed framework in the development of a set of learning blocks on Information Management in the Built Environment enabled us to identify the strengths of the framework but also provided guidance on how to further enhance it.

2. "Students’ perception towards virtual reality in chemical engineering educations"

Maryam Mohammad Zadeh, University of Nottingham

Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming popular in engineering education as it provides an engaging environment, typically set around a meaningful context, that can support students’ learning of real-world practice. Particularly, there is potential for chemical engineering students to use VR tools and get trained on how to monitor and operate chemical plants, and how to deal with hazardous situations using a completely safe environment where they can learn from their mistakes.

This study aims to understand the perceptions of UG and PG chemical engineering students towards the use of VR environments for conceptualising a 3D virtual plant using a 2D P&ID (Piping and Instrumentation Diagram) drawing and hazard training. A comparison between the UG and PG groups showed that while UG students believed VR simulation was mostly helpful to visualise how theoretical concepts were reflected on real-world scenarios, PG students found VR mainly useful to understand the consequences of safety decisions they had to make and how they should deal with the outcomes.

Day 2 will be wrapped up with some closing remarks.