living with the lab
boosting hands-on learning in engineering education
projects

The Living WITH the Lab curriculum is almost completely project driven. The projects provide the setting for the just-in-time delivery of course content, including fundamental science and engineering topics, software tools, fabrication skills, control and data acquisition hardware, and communication skills. Links to the projects in each of the three freshman courses are provided below.

Course Project Description and Links

ENGR
120

PUMP PROJECT: Teams of two students model, fabricate, and evaluate the performance of a centrifugal pump in ENGR 120. More information is available on the ENGR 120 download page.
ENGR
121
FISHTANK PROJECT: Teams of two to four students fabricate a system to provide closed-loop control of the temperature and salinity of a small volume of water. Students fabricate and calibrate their own conducitity sensor and RTD and learn to switch heaters and values using their microcontrollers. More information is available on the ENGR 121 download page.
ENGR
122
DESIGN OF A SMART PRODUCT: Teams of two to four student conceive, design, fabricate, test, and demonstrate a smart product to a panel of judges. More information is available on the ENGR 122 download page.
College of Engineering and Science
Louisiana Tech University
Ruston, Louisiana
 

Project supported by the National Science Foundation's Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Program under Award No. 0618288.Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.