Adding A Hands On Laboratory Experience To The Freshman Engineering Programming Class At Clarkson University

Clarkson University received a grant from the National Science Foundation to effect curriculum reform by adding more hands-on experiences in engineering classes. The first class for attempted reform was the freshman engineering class ES100, Introduction to Engineering Use of Computers, a second-semester freshman year course taken by approximately 350 students; nearly all engineering majors. One of the desired changes to the course was to incorporate laboratory experiments that could be performed by the students to further pique their interest in engineering and to generate real-world data sets for processing, analysis and reporting. The experimental system developed was designed around an alternative energy system, i.e., a fuel cell apparatus. This setup included a solar panel, an electrolyzer, two gas holding tanks, two fuel cells and a variety of load devices, e.g., thermoelectric cells, small motors, etc. Details of the experimental setups and the logistics to incorporate these into the class are presented.