Miniaturized Inexpensive Hands-On Fluid Mechanics Laboratory Kits for Remote Online Learning

Hands-on laboratory experiments are known to improve student learning in engineering and science. In parallel, the Internet’s rise has created new and unprecedented opportunities for remote learning. Development of laboratory experiences completed remotely is the natural blending, extension, and evolution of these two educational phenomena. We report creation of inexpensive Hands-On Learning Module (@HOLMTM) fluid mechanics laboratory kits paired with an online undergraduate fluids mechanics course, which can be seamlessly inserted into any ABET-accredited baccalaureate mechanical engineering curriculum. The physical kit is small and inexpensive, enabling it to be shipped to a remote learner who then assembles each experiment, collects data, and performs analysis at his/her location. Kit experiments retain all the features, robustness, and rigor of full-scale brick-and-mortar laboratories. Here, data collected from one laboratory kit beta-tested with junior and senior mechanical engineering students is used as an example. Analysis of both indirect and direct assessments indicates that learning outcomes are achieved to a very high level. The @HOLMTM approach is therefore demonstrated as a viable alternative to conventional brick-and-mortar teaching lab techniques now used by all accredited mechanical engineering Bachelor of Science programs. This new approach provides the opportunity for mechanical engineering B.S. programs to offer their students rigorous hands-on fluid mechanics lab experiences without need or expense of maintaining physical laboratory spaces and equipment. Additional benefits of on-line instruction; including massively parallel instruction, asynchronous content delivery, and multimedia presentation to address a variety of learning styles; are also enabled by this new approach. Introduction Despite the rise of remote education delivered online, including Engineering Master’s programs, nowhere does there exist an ABET-accredited undergraduate mechanical engineering program taught exclusively on-line. [1] To understand why, a quote from the Online Engineering Web portal at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is instructive. It states that “because many undergraduate engineering classes have laboratory requirements, [NCSU does] not offer an undergraduate online degree in engineering.” [2] While the University of North Dakota claims to offer an online mechanical engineering B.S. degree, it nonetheless still requires remote learners to travel to campus to complete laboratory activities in dedicated college-affiliated brick-and-mortar facilities. [3] We believe insistence that undergraduate mechanical engineering students complete lab experiments at brick-and-mortar facilities is outmoded. We propose an alternative approach with potential to revolutionize distance undergraduate mechanical engineering education: Hands-On Learning Module (@HOLMTM) laboratory kits. These kits maintain the centrality of laboratories in the mechanical engineering curriculum while allowing undergraduate engineering courses to be taught fully remotely and on-line. In this new paradigm, remote learners receive in the mail an inexpensive @HOLMTM kit containing experiments integrated into the online course they are taking. Following assembly instructions, learners build each apparatus, run experiments, collect and analyze data, and author lab reports. By describing here selected @HOLMTM experiments, we show that these exercises are essentially miniaturized versions of larger-scale experiments found in brick-and-mortar engineering teaching laboratories. They function robustly and in the same capacity. Thus, @HOLMTM kits address and measure the same learning outcomes typically assessed by conventional lab experiences in brickand-mortar facilities, and they can facilitate a transition to online education for undergraduate mechanical engineering programs. Background Are laboratory experiences required for successful undergraduate engineering education? Blosser summarizes the history of laboratory use in science and engineering education starting from the 19 th Century when “laboratory instruction was considered essential because it provided training in observation, supplied detailed information, and aroused pupils’ interest.” [4] According to Blosser, however, the value of teaching labs was questioned in the 1970’s and 1980’s by several studies that examined student achievement, attitudes, critical thinking, cognitive style, science understanding, skill development, interest level, retention in courses, and the ability to work independently. Some studies found no significant differences between groups who had lab experiences verses groups that did not. [5] However, in the intervening period of the early 21 st Century, numerous reviews and studies (more than can be cited practically here) refuted the late 20 th Century view and confirmed that laboratories are an important component of student learning in the sciences and engineering. [6-8] In their historical description of undergraduate engineering education laboratories, Feisel and Rosa [9] point out that by the 1990’s, ABET had established criteria that explicitly required laboratory practice. [10] The later ABET EC2000 criteria did not explicitly require laboratory instruction, but it referred to experiments, use of modern tools, and institutional support. [11] These ABET mandates implied need for teaching labs, and instilled the sense that labs are essential for engineering education. Many engineering programs have therefore institutionalized attainment of the following ABET Criterion 3 Student Outcomes through laboratory experiences: (b) an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data (e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems (g) an ability to communicate effectively (k) an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. As Feisel and Rosa further point out, lack of feasible ways to offer remote lab experiences prior to the Internet made brick-and-mortar laboratory teaching facilities essential. [9] However, even after the Internet became available, inertia instilled in the engineering education community the erroneous belief that laboratory experiences must occur in brick-and-mortar facilities. Despite this inertia, some attempts have been made to create remote laboratory experiences in engineering and the sciences and to evaluate how well students learn from these remote labs. For example, Corter and colleagues explored student achievement of learning objectives using cantilever beam experiments where content was delivered through three different means: 1) hands-on, 2) remote, and 3) simulated. One group of students studied the loading and deflection of a real, physical cantilever beam in a conventional brick-and-mortar laboratory. A second student cohort ran the same experiment, but they performed it via the Internet on an instrumented and remotely-actuated apparatus. The third cohort studied a computer simulation of the deflecting cantilever with no corresponding physical hardware. [12] The researchers found that the remote and computer simulated labs were at least as effective as the traditional brick-and-mortar lab experience. In some cases, students responded positively to the remote lab experiences and performed better under that pedagogy. In a more detailed follow-up study using the same three cantilever experiment delivery methods, Corter and colleagues studied the impacts of remote labs on group dynamics. They found that for in-person labs, student group data collection is more effective than individual data collection whereas this effect is reversed for remotely-operated labs. The researchers also found that students rated remotely-operated labs as less effective than simulated labs; however despite their perceptions, students who had completed remotely-operated labs fared better on tests. [13] Ma and Nickerson performed an extensive literature review of the pros and cons of hands-on, simulated, and remote laboratories. [14] They found that hands-on lab adherents emphasize importance of design skills. Remote laboratory adherents do not discuss design. They also point out that modern brick-and-mortar laboratory experiments are often mediated by technology. So these labs are just virtual experiments delivered locally. The only instance we found in the peer-reviewed literature of a STEM instructor sending experiments home to remote learners to cover a full course is the work of Hoxha1 and colleagues. Here the Spartan physical resources of the authors’ war-time Albanian chemistry classroom necessitated development of lab experiments students could perform with items acquired from their households. The chemistry class itself was not offered remotely online, but the labs had to be completed by students at home to provide hands-on learning given lack of physical classroom resources. [15] In a private communication, L. Feisel credits Professor William C. Beston of Broome Community College (now retired) as the first engineering faculty member to conceive of and attempt mailing engineering lab kits to remote learners. [16] However, no additional information on this work was found in the peer reviewed literature. When contacted, Professsor Feisel indicated this work had been absorbed into the online B.S. electrical engineering program at Stony Brook University. Stony Brook University as well as Arizona State University both achieved ABET accreditation of fully online electrical engineering B.S. degree programs in 2014, proving that brick-and-mortar facilities are not essential to obtain program accreditation through the ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC). Stony Brook offers the final two years of a four-year degree fully online to remote learners. It recommends that students complete lower division courses (which do include physics and