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Search Tools and Written Reports

February 2nd, 2011 by ab18

A critical part of any project revolves around research and in depth study of the problem, current and potential solutions, etc. At the same time, it is also very important to be able to document technical details and support arguments in a proper manner. While the teams had already been making use of technical memos at each stage of the design process, to document their findings, this lecture was meant to provide them with a clear purpose for their efforts, and ways that they could improve their presentation.

A great deal of emphasis was laid on how to structure the technical memos, especially using the idea that the most important information needs to be put first, and then must follow a sequential order of significance. Another very important point made was that as engineers, we must be able to quantify our objectives and arguments as much as possible and use graphs and tables to illustrate our point better rather than being vague and qualitative. A set of activities were carried out to encourage the students to be able to critically analyse technical memos and writing styles in engineering.

The next part of the lecture and the area that the ALs were most involved in was around the subject of research and search tools. The students were told to not only to try to use the right tools, but also to make sure that they were asking the right question. Given the information overload that occurs today with the Internet especially, it is crucial that students starting their research careers are able to sift through all the information and sort out the good from the bad. The concept of peer reviewed papers and primary literature was also introduced and, examples of places where these could be found and referenced were mentioned, such as Google Scholar, etc. Following the lecture, the apprentice leaders spent some time with the teams discussing the tools at hand and showing them how to use them to find specific data relevant to their projects. Some time was also spent starting some of the preliminary research for each of the teams, in order to get them started on the information accumulation.

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Teamwork

February 1st, 2011 by Joey Spinella

The Wheelchair Team, "AGP - Arthrogryposis Going Places" at a social activity

Teamwork is hard work.  On the teams I’ve experienced, some teams seem to instantly connect, ready to work together effectively and efficiently.  Other teams take a while to warm up to each other.  And other teams just don’t seem to work at all.  Sometimes, the best solution I’ve had for a dysfunctional team is to try to do parts myself, and then push the rest onto other people in the group.  But for design projects, teamwork is absolutely essential.  Not only does having people to work with allow greater productivity, it also allows better ideas, wider outlooks, and a variety of skill sets.

So how do we cultivate good teams?  It’s so easy just to think about the challenging team situations we’ve been on.  How could any of us Apprentice Leaders know how to work perfectly with a team?  How could we even claim to have figured it out?  For the most part, teamwork is just something that happens.  In my experience on teams, I mostly just think about myself and the idea we are all working towards.  Other people come into play when they can help make my life better or bring us closer to the goal.  So to sit with these teams of students, and not think about ourselves, or even necessarily about the projects, but just about shear teamwork and what healthy teamwork looks like, it can be enlightening.  Suddenly all my tendencies to dominate groups I’m in become obviously inappropriate.  Suddenly my greatest desire is to see each member contribute in some way and feel “enfranchised.”  If I see one student taking complete control, I see that student as an enemy to the good of the team.

Not only is this kind of meta-analysis challenging, it’s also hard to know how fruitful it is.  Once I’ve arrived at some level of understanding, how can I actually do something to push a team in the right direction to grow as a team?  Or how do I know when a team has “arrived?”

One thing we AL’s did to try and build team connectedness was throw a social for one of the teams.  We set a rule: no talking about the project for the duration of the social event.  Instead, we hung out, played pool, drew pictures, and learned some about each other.  I thought everything was perfect, until I realized that the same dynamics that bothered me in the classroom were also present in this social interaction.  Once having put on these group-interaction analytical goggles, could I never take them off?

And even though I don’t know what I’m doing, it is encouraging to see all the teams moving closer together.  Maybe the point of this isn’t to “arrive” anywhere, but to leave where we used to be?

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Balancing Leadership

January 25th, 2011 by lam4

The first set of technical memos have been turned in and graded, and the groups are on their way towards solutions. The first memo tasked groups with outlining their projects. One thing that became evident was that there was a disparity between the quality of the memos. This seemed directly correlated to the amount of interaction and feedback they had gotten from the A.L.’s during the writing of the memos. Groups that had been utilizing outside resources were much better prepared in writing their memos. However, this is likely a greater reflection on our (A.L.’s) leadership, than on the groups themselves.

One major challenge we have been facing is how to adequately interact with the groups, when there are 3 mentors to 2 groups. In the case of the Shriner’s groups, we have been having a divide where one leader has been shepherding the forearm rotation group and the other two have been effective paired to the wheelchair modification group. This divide led to a lot of really positive interaction in the forearm rotation group. However, it also meant that the wheelchair group was not getting as strong of a leadership role from us. We realized that our roles might not have been clearly communicated to the freshman. Therefore, we addressed the two groups as a whole in order to convey two major points.

  • We are all working with both groups
  • We are open and desiring feedback (via e-mail or in person)

We are still debating as to how best shift between groups. We don’t know if it is best to work with one group one day, and another group the next, or if we should be fluidly moving between both groups throughout the day. One major concern brought up was how to share what each group had been accomplishing with each other. For now, we are attempting a GoogleDoc that we jointly access and provide updates on what the groups were talking about and doing while we were with them. We will see if this is an affective solution. We are also trying to address the issue of having it appear that two A.L.’s are paired and the other is alone. We hope that by mixing up what two are together when talking to a group we can address this. For now, we are realizing that the three Shriner’s mentors each have different leaderships styles that are all pertinent for the groups to be exposed to. Thus, we need to work towards finding a balance in our interactions. Further, we hope to solicit feedback to help us become better leaders.

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Client Meetings: Rice Teams

January 21st, 2011 by ab18

Right from the start, it was made extremely clear to the teams how important a resource their clients would be to them. Their clients were the ones who, of course, provided us with the projects, and were also the best people for the teams to interact with early on. The teams were encouraged to prepare an entire list of questions prior to the actual meeting so that they could interview the clients efficiently and professionally. Additionally this forced them to think about the most crucial aspects of the project and prioritize which factors were the most critical to investigate further into, which was a very constructive process overall. Each team for the Rice project came up with a list of about 20 questions for their respective projects.

The OEDK roof team talks with Bart Sinclair, Assistant Dean of Engineering

The OEDK Roof team was the first one that Camille and I interacted with, and their client was Dr. Bart Sinclair, the Associate Dean of Engineering, and the brains behind the OEDK Green Roof project. The main focus of the team was to try to learn more about the roof itself, which they have not been allowed onto yet, due to safety concerns. They geared their questions to trying to understand what the roof actually looked like, as well as what the current system was on top of the roof. Understanding the deficiencies of the current system was very important to them, along with really trying to understand what were the final achievable goals that were expected of them. Although initially slightly hesitant in their questioning, the team picked up in confidence, especially after Dr. Sinclair’s friendly and detailed answers to all their questions.

After about 4-5 questions into the Roof team’s interview, we moved over to the Surrey team’s meeting. This transition was a touch untidy, and since then we have decided to only switch every class period between teams. The Surrey team was meeting with Mr. Richard Johnson, Director of Sustainability for Rice; Ms. Susann Glenn, Manager of Communications for Facilities, Engineering and Planning (FE&P) and Mr. William Heath, the Equipment Repair Supervisor for FE&P, representing the current golf cart operators.

Member of the Surrey team make their first contact with their Rice clients.

It was apparent in the meeting that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Glenn were extremely enthusiastic about the Surrey project, and couldn’t wait to see the Rice students get started on modifying it for FE&P’s use. Mr. Heath however, was a greater voice of caution and gave very practical advice on what he expected from his carts and why he was worried by the Surrey and its extensive use. The team was once again extremely proficient at asking probing questions that dealt with the technical side of the design and user requirements, but also the very necessary logistical aspects of the project, such as which departments would be using the Surrey, and how current operations are carried out by FE&P. A very impressive point about this group was how they had identified some of the constraints with the Surrey and asked the sponsors of the project what sort of initial ideas they had about these problems. For example the question of whether the Surrey would be required to reverse or not was brought up and the team carefully noted the additional requirement for the Surrey. They also learned a great detail about the current golf carts used, and tried to find out what sort of incentives could be used to convince the staff to move from the carts to the Surreys.

Both teams had a slightly different approach to the way they asked their clients questions. The Roof team all participated in the interview, with each person assigned certain questions to ask Dr. Sinclair, while on the other hand the Surrey group was seen to have a couple of spokespeople for the entire team who dictated the bulk of the interview, with an occasional question from the others as it fit into the flow of the conversation. A very encouraging sign to notice was the efficient and organized manner in which the teams decided to schedule regular meeting with the sponsors to provide them with updates and ask further questions about their projects.

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Client Meetings: Shriners

January 21st, 2011 by aco1

Dr. Gogola, back left, explains the difficulties with current technology for measuring forearm rotation.

On Thursday, the design teams met with the clients in order to discuss the projects.  I worked with the Forearm Rotation team as they prepared for their meeting with Dr. Gogola, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Shriner’s Hospital and the client for this project.  During the preceding meeting, the freshmen had generated a list of questions to ask the client to clarify the details of the project; in addition, they created a google document to enable every team member to continue adding/editing the list of questions after class.  As Dr. Gogola is the client for both Shriners projects, the two groups only had half of the total time to ask her questions and thus had to use their time very efficiently.

Before class, one of the team members printed out a copy of the question sheet for each member of the team.  These questions had been divided into “Design” and “Logistics” categories and ranked by importance in case there was not enough time to ask all the questions.  Fortunately, this turned out to be unnecessary as Dr. Gogola sped through the questions, giving informative, complete, and succinct answers to all of them, as well as offering ideas of her own.  By the end of the day, the team had learned much from Dr. Gogola’s experience in the field.  In addition, she had given the team her contact information as well as offered several dates and times when the team could visit Shriners to observe firsthand the existing methods for measuring range of motion.

Wheelchair group members look on as Dr. Gogola explains Pedro's condition.

In the wheelchair group, team members were itching to learn specifically about their client, whose name is Pedro.  They learned that Pedro’s disability, arthrogryposis, makes some of his joints in his arms and legs immobile.  They also learned more specific information about Pedro’s situation and why this design project is necessary.  It was very exciting to meet Dr. Gogola and schedule a time to meet Pedro in person.

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Marshmallow Challenge

January 14th, 2011 by lam4

Students struggle to create a standing marshmallow structure using only string, tape, and spaghetti

The marshmallow challenge was overall a successful way to engage students and evaluate group work. The most difficult part of the process was working on the preparations for the challenge over winter break. As we were not able to get together, collaboration was difficult. We used a GoogleDocs to attempt to work jointly on the technical memo as well as assigning jobs. However, it was difficult to work under time constraints, especially considering our differing abilities to access the internet.

One of the most important things we did was test run the challenge. This allowed us to have a personal insight during discussions but also showed us what aspects of the challenge would need to be arrange. We found 3 to be the ideal number for working on the task, as two was too small and four would have led to a lack of tasks. We divided the various tasks before and during the challenge to different members of the Apprentice Leaders. Having each person with an assigned role and place to be made the challenge run smoothly. We also did not pick up on verbal cues that we needed to be transitioning to leading the class- this was later clarified by our faculty advisors, but would have been useful to know about beforehand.

Some things we would change:

  • Work on the memo before break
  • Trial run the start of the challenge: i.e. who says what, and how to facilitate the movement of teams and distribution of supplies
  • Less discussion time (10min)

Some things we would keep:

  • Predefined roles and jobs
  • Discussions facilitated by A.L’s and advisors amongst each group
  • Limited rules
  • Awards to the winning team and most creative

Overall, the challenge seemed to be really fun for the groups. It was a good way to asses the strongest leaders of the group. In addition, it was a good platform to show that as engineers, we will fail; but, it is ok to fail. It was also good to have discussion to get students conversing about engineering and leadership.

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Design Project Pitches

January 12th, 2011 by raj2

In preparation for the ENGI 120 class the faculty advisers along with the Apprentice Leaders scoped and selected design projects. We selected three campus projects and three Shriners hospital projects to pitch to the students. However, only four projects would be selected and implemented. The projects that were pitched are as follows:

Rice Projects

  1. OEDK Green Roof Moisture Detection Project – The goal of this project is to design and build an efficient moisture detection system that ties into controlling the irrigation system for the green roof and will allow the plants on it to thrive using the minimum amount of water.
  2. Surrey Adaptation Project – The goal of this project is to design additional storage capacity for the surrey and make other enhancements or modification as recommended by FE&P.
  3. Dish Drop project – The goal of this project is to assess the dish drops at the eleven residential colleges, design improvements for the two slowest and most congested dish drops, and design an ideal dish drop configuration for future serveries.

 Shriner’s Projects

  1. Walk Upright Prompter – The goal of this project is to develop a device that would alert a child when he/she is no longer standing upright
  2. Forearm Rotation Measurement – To develop a method and required materials to accurately and consistently measure the range of rotation of the forearm (radius and ulna) relative to the upper arm (humerus).
  3. Wheelchair Propulsion System for Users with Arm Disabilities – The goal of this project is to develop an adaptation that allows a patient to use his/her existing range of motion and strength to propel both sides of a non-motorized wheelchair

After we selected these viable design projects before Christmas break, we had to prepare project pitches for the ENGI 120 students. Each Apprentice leader was in charge of pitching one project. To prepare us for this potentially nerve-racking task, the Faculty Advisers brought in Tracy Volz, the communication specialist, to coach us on our presenting skills. During our practice pitches Dr. Volz and the other faculty advisers offered constructive criticism. Dr. Volz caught everything down to cracking knuckles, defensively standing in with your arms crossed, and even slide aesthetics.

When the first day of ENGI 120 came and it was time to pitch the projects, all of the Apprentice Leaders did a great job. All of the work, practice, and constructive criticism resulted in a great first impression of the Apprentice Leaders and the freshmen were very excited about the project options. Despite that the project pitches went past the ending time of the class, the freshman seemed to stick with us and stay engaged. The transition between Dr. Saterbak lecturing and the Apprentice Leaders presenting could have been a little tighter, but overall the first day went very well.

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Where Did We Come From?

January 10th, 2011 by Joey Spinella

RCEL AL Joey Spinella chats with John Doerr at the Nov 5 launch celebration.

The Rice Center for Engineering Leadership was launched on November 5, 2010 from a $15 million dollar grant from Rice engineering alumni Ann and John Doerr.  To prepare for the launch, a group of twenty students met weekly to discuss solutions to the world’s biggest engineering problems.  Students formed research teams and took turns leading the class in seminars, as topics ranged from global warming and green energy to cyber security and wikileaks.  Out of those twenty students and some recommended peers, applications were received and six RCEL Apprentice Leaders were chosen – Becca Jaffe, Leslie Miller, Camille Panaccione, Apoorv Bhargava, Andrew Owens, and Joey Spinella.

What are we doing?  Setting out to change the way engineering education is done at Rice.  Rice University offers excellent technical engineering degrees, filled with theory and mathematical proofs and analytical brute force.  But Rice could improve in allowing students more hands on experience before they are thrown into their mythical “senior design projects,” right before being expelled into the workforce or graduate school.

RCEL AL Becca Jaffe looks on as Ann Doerr shares in a launch breakout session

This thought process started in May of 2010, when Dr. Embree led a trip including two of the RCEL Apprentice Leaders to schools that excel in those “hands on” experiences for underclassmen.  On their sojourn across the United States, they learned about various engineering leadership programs and noticed how many of them included design opportunities for underclassmen students.  To implement what they learned, the course ENGI 120 was organized.  ENGI 120 seeks to distinguish itself from other Rice courses offered to freshmen by being the first ever complete, semester-long design course.  And this is not trivial, book-learning design, but design to contribute to the communities we live in and make an immediate difference.

Once we RCEL Apprentice Leaders were chosen, we set immediately to work, meeting with Mark Embree and Ann Saterbak to think of potential design problems to present to the freshmen students.  For a while, it seemed like we couldn’t think of enough legitimate ideas, but soon we had key connections with Shriner’s hospital and the Rice administration and some great opportunities emerged.  This whole process of setting up a course and choosing projects was not a neatly organized experience for us Apprentice Leaders.  Instead, every meeting we came to, we didn’t know quite what to expect.  From the beginning, Embree told us, “This course is not for complainers.  If you are looking for everything to be handed to you and to work out smoothly, this is not the opportunity for you.”  This very quickly proved to be true, as we realized in November that we would be lucky just to finish all preparation just in time for each class period.

To prepare, we met over lunch weekly starting in mid-November.  Finding mutually agreeable meeting times was a continual challenge near the end of the semester.  To select the six projects we would present to the freshmen students, we constructed a Pugh matrix and rated the projects in comparison to each other.  After they were chosen, we were given the task of each preparing a technical memo to describe one of the projects to the freshmen students.  Additionally, we were set in charge of running the team building portion of the second class period, for which we chose to do the “Marshmallow Challenge.”  By the time we had these assignments, we were already on Winter break.  And before we knew it, the semester had started.

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Blog Kick off

January 9th, 2011 by cpp2

ENGI 120 is a new engineering design class for freshmen students. They will solve problems from Shriner’s hospital and the Rice University campus with assistance from Dr. Saterbak, Dr. Embree, Dr. Griffin, and the Apprentice Leaders. The Apprentice Leaders are upperclassmen students who will act as mentors for the design projects. The campus projects include designing an automatic irrigation system for the OEDK green roof and modifying a surrey for FE&P to use as an alternative to golf carts. The Shriner’s projects include designing a forearm rotation measurement device and modifying a wheelchair so that a patient may use the wheelchair with his existing range of motion and strength. This blog will document the progress of the projects from the perspective of the Apprentice Leaders as well as the freshmen students. It will include written descriptions of classroom activities as well as pictures of the students throughout the design process. The Apprentice Leaders and the freshmen students will write about why they joined this class and what they hope to gain. They will also write about what excites them this semester as well as challenges that they face.

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