Teaching

This is my 14th year teaching at Western Carolina University.  I have taught courses to freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students in a variety of different sub-disciplines of mechanical engineering.  Overall, I have taught 76 courses with 23 different courses titles.  Details on select courses are shown below.

ENGR 331 – Design for Manufacturing
This course teaches Seniors in Engineering about manufacturing methods and how knowledge of these principles can be used to improve product design.  A multitude of design for assembly (DFA) and design for manufacturability (DFM) principles are employed.  The course has individual projects and group projects focusing on design optimization to enhance product performance and reduce cost.  Worst-case and statistical stack up tolerance analysis and Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) calculations are performed to ensure that the overall design can be assembled properly without fit problems.

ET 141 – Engineering Materials and Processes
This course is targeted for Freshman.  Students learn about different materials used by engineers to produce products and the processed used to shape them.  Content includes crystal structures, equilibrium diagrams, ASIS/SAE steel designation system, heat treatment, and general properties of a variety of different materials.  Processes include hot working, cold working, rolling, drawing, extruding, casting, milling, turning, laser cutting, water jet cutting, EDM, etc.  The course includes lecture and hands on laboratory activities.

ET 593 – Simulation and Analysis of Engineering Systems
Three elements are necessary for a thorough understanding of an engineering system; 1) a solid theoretical foundation and a thorough understanding of the engineering principles pertaining to the problem; 2) well developed computer simulations based on sound theory that take into account complex system interaction, and 3) real world experiments that confirm the computer simulations. This course is designed to provide engineering students with the conceptual foundation and technical skills needed to understand and predict behavior of engineering systems. Students will learn how to create mathematical models of various engineering systems and use MATLAB to run computer simulations and predict system performance.  The early portion of the course will focus on understanding the concepts of mathematical modeling and learning basic computer techniques to perform the simulations.  The latter portion of the course will focus on applications of these basic principles, independent research to learn additional techniques applicable to the student’s specific project, and advanced techniques presented in the course.

ET 660 – Innovation in Engineering Design
This graduate level course enhances students’ understanding of innovation in product and process design. The course introduces several techniques to enhance innovation in engineering.  Each day an assignment is given to lead students through the creative design process.  The initial assignment is to invent a new product, process or service.  Through later assignments the idea is develops applying principles learned at each lesson to their original creative idea.  Class time includes small group discussion to help each student develop their projects and discuss the design details.

ET 662 – Lean Six Sigma for Manufacturing and Design
This graduate level course will introduce students to the principle of lean manufacturing and six sigma quality. The course will begin with a discussion of Lean principles with a focus on how to use these principles to improve the flow of a manufacturing process and reduce waste.   Next, we develop a fundamental understanding of product variability and statistics.  With this foundation, we learn to apply six sigma (6s) techniques to improve a manufacturing process. The course will then shift form manufacturing to design where statistical methods are used to determine stack-up tolerances that take into account variability of multiple component systems.  Finally, the course will close with a study of Design for Six Sigma Manufacturability (DFSS).  The course will include several projects to practice the skills learned.

ET 688 – Directed Projects
This course is designed for graduate student who work full time and are enrolled on the graduate program and taking classes in the evening.  Students apply principles learned in other courses to a real problem at their workplace.   Students propose a project, perform that activities, and report on the progress to their project adviser.  The Project adviser assist the students with challenges and guides the student work ensuring proper depth and focus.

ET 332 – Strength of Materials
This course is designed to introduce engineering technology students to the concepts and techniques needed to solve deformable body problems.  Students will build upon the problem solving skills developed in their statics course where they solved rigid body stationary problems to now include stationary deformable bodies.  Fundamental principles of stress, strain, elasticity, material strength and stress concentrations will be explored.  These concepts will be applied to solve axial, torsional, beam and, combined loading problems.

ENGR 350 – Principles and Practice III
This course is the third is a series of course in the engineering project-based learning core at WCU.  The course guides Juniors through the product development process taking into account engineering design principles including integration of business requirements.  Content includes idea conception, researching and pitching an idea, product planning, identification of customer needs, product specifications, development of conceptual designs, down-selection, concept testing, and design for manufacturability.  Special topics on professional, ethical, global, environmental, and contemporary issues are also included.

ENGR 400 & 450 – Engineering Project Management Lab
The last two course in the engineering project-based learning core at WCU is a two semester senior design project.  Each team of students develop an engineered product or process for an external customer.  Every team works on a different project and has a customer contact and a faculty mentor.  Every year I have mentored anywhere from one to three teams.  As a faculty mentor, I teach the students how to interact professionally during our weekly teleconference with the customer.  I assist with the design process and provide specialized technical training when needed.  The course includes, development of customer requirement, conceptual designs, design reviews, customer specifications, detailed design, prototype development, prototype testing, design optimization, and a final public presentation.

Other Courses
Additional course include the following:  ENGR 190 “Technology Systems”, ENGR 211 “Material Science”, ET 333 “Strength of Materials Lab”, ET 352   “Fundamentals of Thermal Engineering and Applied Thermodynamics”, ET 389 “Cooperative Education”, ET 420 “Advanced Engineering Materials”, ET 425 “Metrology and Reverse Engineering”, ET 461 “Engineering Project Management Lab”, ET 471 “Engineering Project Management Lab”, ET 493-50 “Special Topics: Engineering Biomechanics”, ET 593-02 “Special Topics: Simulation and Analysis of Engineering Systems”, ET 593-80 “Special Topics: Design for Six Sigma Manufacturability”, ET 680 “Independent Study”, ET 688 “Directed Project”, ET 698 “Comprehensive Exam: Thesis Defense”, ET 699 “Graduate Student Thesis”