A paper written by four members of the Northern Essex Community College faculty was recently published and presented at the 2013 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n
Four NECC professors, Michael Pelletier, Linda Desjardins, Paul Chanley, and Lori Heymans, co-wrote \u201cFirst-year Project-Based Engineering: Secret Weapon for Student Success\u201d based on a class designed by Chanley and Pelletier and taught at NECC.<\/p>\n
This project-based first-year introductory course, \u201cEngineering Essentials and Design\u201d, now offered at NECC, was designed to introduce students to engineering through project based learning.<\/p>\n
This class emphasizes working in teams on hands-on projects that require using Excel and MATLAB, a numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. Assignments in this class include graphing data for Ohm\u2019s Law and the speed of sound in air, distance measuring using ultrasound, and more. Students are also required to make presentation on various projects and the results obtained. Through the success of this class this course is now part of the NECC curriculum and is required for all engineering majors.<\/p>\n