CPACE Minutes Mar 21, 2011

Agenda:

1) Review Minutes:

Minutes are on the wiki, Mark will not read them. They look quite complete.

If people would go ahead and check out the last minutes and make any corrections if there are any, that would be great. We will not read them now.

We will begin with Neeraj: He will give his handout to Claudia to post on the Wiki.

Met with CE 221 faculty. That course may not have a data intensive real life problem, although it may help them think computationally. It might not be laid out like a text book problem - but if it was couched in a real life problem ...

Plan you have is basically showing how the tunnel runs from campus from McDonnell Hall to the Cyclotron. CE 495 students need to design 4-5 designs to keep the water main in use during construction. Need to work with soils guys to make sure that it's feasible given the soil around it. Need to figure out how to keep structure in place for 3-4 years. Truss needs to be designed, self weight of pipe and water flow ... It's not a lot of number crunching, but they still need to think through this logically and sketch it out logically to find their solution. Truss analysis is key - must be done first - in approximately 2 weeks. This problem could also be tackled in recitation, which is mandatory. Could be done as a group activity. Assessment might be difficult, if done as homework, it could be clearer.

There's not place in statics where you would get millions of data points. No CE courses would lend themselves to that type of data - no hydraulic data like in EGR 102.

Calculations involved in doing this task are not simultaneous. Maintaining equilibrium is the goal of the equations'. The art of this is setting up the equations correctly, reflecting correct balance.  Basically trig equations, solvable with a calculator. The whole system is an equilibrium problem.

Could this task be done in such a way that they could computationally tested using simulations? Where will it break? Could they do it as a computational problem? Put parameters on the materials, finding different levels of stress, etc. trying more than one case is possible. Design and then test it to destruction - what if situations. Making it more computationally authentic. Testing the design in software before we decide which way to build.

Neeraj will run it by Gilbert and see if they can do that (computational problems)

Can quickly build systems and iterate them.

Before you lay out your computational problem, there needs to be some logical thinking.

2) Evaluation update Mary Anne:

Maryanne:  Went to an evaluators meeting in Florida in late January with a group of people who are evaluating  - all the CPATH partners. Learned what we should have been doing here:

They need a PDF of our IRB. Mark will get it to them.

CE21 in place of CPATH - goals are listed on Maryanne's notes.

Common themes (problems): They could develop new programming that the faculty liked, but if the advisors weren't on board, it didn't happen.

Marketing to students who weren't really sure they wanted to be identified in computer related careers. Some people who think they want to go into computers take a few classes and then leave.

How to measure progress or impact of CPATH projects - several projects discovered that capstone projects - how you analyze them - pre-post testing and interviews can bring out new information that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Person coming to MSU was not there - at the conference.

Different idea of a model - they were not scientists - they want to know about trends and how the projects seems to work.

CPACE II is considered interdisciplinary and not just science.

Reminded that we all need to be publishing results.

This meeting did not help much in terms of getting ready for the April visit.

(Missed some things at this point! A few minutes of the dialogue)

3) Update on subgroup meetings

AP Collection Process

Went back and forth, had subgroup meeting, made a set of linear steps to get authentic problems, getting stuck because of the scoping component. Made more sense to see it as a cyclical process - merry go round - instead of linear. Need some exemplar from faculty to take to industry, not the other way around.

CHE 210 Daina, Abdol

Daina: met with instructor about authentic. Point of class is that it's an applied math class + chemical engineering. Type of problem that will be useful will be very specific. Will include a transport down to the molecular level. Transfer of energy, momentum and mass that can be modeled by equations that are similar.  Things kind of look the same! Authentic problems that we offer the students must be in the molecular realm.

How many industries would be looking at problems at the molecular level. Might be a problem. It's not going to be process engineering that you see at Dow, Shell, or BP. It's a sophomore level class, which might be a challenge. It will need to be simplified down. One option for this semester is a problem related to auto industry. Converting waste energy from engines into something useful. He was out of town this week, but DB will touch base with him.

Project deadline is early April to Robert Ofoli to use as a final project for his class.

This class is at the molecular level.

All students in CHE 210 have taken EGR 102

Getting the problem so that it's simplified to the sophomore level is going to be the challenge with this problem.

We sort of bypassed going out into industry, but for this class we needed to find an appropriate problem.

Cindee: We're trying to get some momentum here, are we looking to use this as the authentic problem, or are we going to go out to a business to also see if we can find a similar authentic problem.

DB: We can certainly find a problem from industry, but we aren't sure how much money is being spent on it now. And for what will work in this class, we can go out and look, but it will be different once we move on to the next set of classes. We won't need such specific types of problems.

Mark: For it to work in this class, it must be at molecular level, not typically what you find in an industrial setting.

Cindee: Concerns about outreach to AB members

Albemarle or Perrigo are drug/pharma companies that we could potentially target. They recruit our students.

Automotive might be a good place to look as well.

Cindee's trying to get a sense of timing of this - classes that we're talking about are immediately in the cue, the others courses are coming up which informs timeline - so we can reach out to AB folks  or industry.

DB: Would having examples of problems that have been done in the classes before be useful?

Whatever context we can give whenever we go out (not just CSW) is the ultimate goal all along.

Mark: Next step is identifying subsequent courses, use existing course as starting off point and do alignment that way. Momentum for the merry go round.

Now checking on list of courses and pre-requisites.

Done early! Thank you Mark!! J