Receiving First Place Award for Best Student Paper
Author: Stephen Pierson | Major: Mechanical Engineering | Semester: Summer 2022
I travelled to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Midwest Section 2022 Conference to present my paper on the topic of introducing hands-on manufacturing education into the undergraduate curriculum of my major, mechanical engineering. I authored this paper in an effort to bring attention to some of the technical deficiencies young mechanical engineers experience early in their careers due to the failure of the current curriculum to teach the skill of designing for manufacturability (DFM). My paper proposes a new lab course for undergraduates designed to teach principles of DFM through computer-aided manufacturing software and CNC machining. The goal of this course would be to better prepare students for the jobs they are likely to go into post-graduation and reconcile mechanical engineering curriculum with the demand for engineers who understand conventional manufacturing processes and how to design for them.
This trip allowed me to present my ideas in front of a group of individuals who are both knowledgeable and invested in improving engineering education. My paper was well-received and won 1st place amongst all student-authored papers presented. The feedback I got from my audience was largely positive as well, and the people I talked to after my presentation agreed with both the points I made and many of the curriculum changes I proposed. The industry consensus that manufacturing is one of biggest weakness of recent-graduate engineers seems to be shared by many in the educational domain as I found out during this trip. In addition, presenting at my first academic conference contributed to my professional development by allowing me to make connections and experience introducing new ideas to a large group of people through public speaking. I was able to network with graduate program coordinators at other universities and exchanged contact information with multiple professors with similar interests.
Meeting other undergraduates at the conference also left an impact on me; the projects that some fellow students there have been working on are very impressive and left me feeling inspired about what I want to pursue in the future. Many of the students presenting their work there were from other schools in Arkansas (Arkansas Tech, Arkansas State, and UAFS), so learning what other students are up to all around the state was insightful and a reminder that the University is not alone in having a strong engineering program. I would definitely recommend any student with an interest in engineering education to attend an ASEE conference because it’s a tremendous professional experience to publish a paper on a relevant topic and network with peers and potential mentors alike. This experience has also helped lay the groundwork for presenting my research at future conferences; I am currently working on a journal paper on the topic of assessing the performance of heat sinks produced by advanced manufacturing techniques, so when I go to present that paper I will be prepared. I plan to increase the impact of my paper by recording my presentation and slides and submitting the video to my department’s YouTube channel to hopefully create more traction for adding an emphasis on manufacturing in the current educational framework at the University of Arkansas.