Research In The Undergraduate Environment

Abstract

After ten years in body design and automotive safety at Ford Motor Company he joined the Mechanical Engineering department at Cal Poly. He teaches mechanics, design, stress analysis, and finite element analysis courses and serves as co-advisor to the student SAE chapter. Charles Birdsong, California Polytechnic State University Charles Birdsong has expertise in vibrations, controls, signal processing, instrumentation, real-time control, active noise control, and dynamic system modeling. He received his BSME at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, MS and Ph.D. at Michigan State University where he worked on active noise control applications for the automotive industry. He has worked in the vibration test and measurement industry helping to drive new technologies to market and working with industry to meet their emerging needs. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Cal Poly in the Department of Mechanical Engineering teaching dynamics, vibrations and controls and is involved in several undergraduate and master's level multidisciplinary projects.

Introducing undergraduate research in Numerical Analysis of Engineering Systems course

“…The aforementioned advantages of UR come with many challenges especially in non-PhD granting universities. 12–15 These challenges include the steep learning curve that the students go through to become productive; the variation of the level of knowledge and background of students; the lack of resources (staff, equipment, materials and supplies, etc. ); the short timeframe available for the students to do research; and the large amount of time the mentors spend guiding the students, because usually most undergraduate students have never participated in research before.…”

Mechanical Characterization of Sn and Shape Memory Alloy InTl Nanowires as Part of an Undergraduate Research Experience

“…The purpose of the program was to involve high-achieving students who have completed their sophomore year of study in an intensive ten-week program involving research activities to motivate them to obtain higher education and research careers. Undergraduate research programs of other disciplines in the past have shared such objectives [1][2][3] . The first author of this paper, who was a junior undergraduate student during the program, was selected through a highly competitive selection process to work with a research group on multifunctional Page 25.926.3 materials and Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) at the Aerospace Engineering Department at Texas A&M University.…”

Board 131: Investigating the Impact of a Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Research Experience on Student Learning (Work in Progress)

“…Providing undergraduate engineering students co-curricular learning opportunities to deepen their knowledge of recent STEM advances will enable them to become engineers who are primed to innovate and push the boundaries of existing knowledge. It also provides students access to a research community for interaction with other researchers [8] and opportunity to engage in active learning [9].…”

“…Schuster & Birdsong [8] report challenges that come with undergraduate research experiences, namely that most traditional research institutions prefer to engage doctoral students who can be on the project for four to six years. However, there is a growing shift and demand for undergraduates to be involved in research as evidenced by the sustained popularity of undergraduate research experiences.…”