NSF Award
2434693
With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving <br/>Institutions (HSI Program), this Educational Instrumentation project at the University of <br/>Houston-Clear Lake will strengthen undergraduate learning in Mechanical Engineering, <br/>Engineering Physics, and Aerospace Engineering. Specifically, this project will secure a metal <br/>additive manufacturing (AM) machine, which will allow students to: (i) be engaged in hands-on learning by incorporating metal AM technology into core engineering courses, such as Materials Science, Manufacturing Processes, Engineering Physics Design Project, Composite <br/>Materials, Additive Manufacturing, and Senior Design/Capstone Projects, and (ii) to compete <br/>in state and national level design and manufacturing challenges. An estimated 180 students <br/>and six (6) faculty will utilize the project-funded equipment each year. In addition to <br/>providing improved experiences in different engineering courses, the new equipment will <br/>also be used to conduct undergraduate research on AM alloy development and extreme <br/>environment materials. This equipment will also facilitate manufacturing, prototyping, and <br/>characterization for senior design/capstone projects. <br/><br/>The goals of this project are to enrich the learning and experiences of undergraduate students <br/>by providing critical hands-on metal AM experiential learning experience in Mechanical<br/>Engineering, Engineering Physics, and Aerospace Engineering courses. The project will <br/>contribute to the academic and manufacturing communities by producing educational and <br/>research content in metal 3D printing including design for manufacturing, principles of metal <br/>AM, process development strategies for AM, process-structure-property relationship in <br/>metal AM, and applications. The findings will be disseminated through open-source lecture <br/>content, conferences, and publications, thereby advancing the state of knowledge in <br/>engineering education and AM that are critical for US manufacturing competitiveness in the <br/>global economy. The project will assess the impact of the project-funded equipment using <br/>the milestones of (i) timely receipt and installation, (ii) number of faculty and student <br/>training, (iii) number of the developed hands-on projects using this 3D printer, (iv) support <br/>of senior design projects and student design challenges (v) tracking matrices such as usage <br/>logs to maintain detailed logs of system usage, including hours of operation, types of projects, <br/>and number of users. This project is funded by the HSI Program, which aims to enhance<br/>undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and increase capacity to <br/>engage in the development and implementation of innovations to improve STEM teaching <br/>and learning at HSIs.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
