I-Corps L: Hands-on Modules for Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer, A Market Transition

通过NSF创新团队学习计划（I-Corps L），该项目将开发方法，以与教科书相当的价格增加台式流体力学和传热实验的规模和影响。工程教育需要现实的动手学习经验，可在整个课程。然而，目前可用于教室使用的设备主要限于机器人和电子设备，尽管许多其他工程分支将从类似的创新中受益匪浅。目前，在化学，机械和土木工程领域，设备的尺寸大，成本高，只能在大学最后两到三个学期的实验室环境中进行实践。该项目将解决这一问题，提供小型化的热流体系统，每套成本约为1至200美元。拥有这样的系统可以在标准教室的整个工程课程中实现现实的动手学习。除了改进教学，在课程的早期阶段曝光将提高招聘和保留在工程专业。目前可用的设备开发的项目组包括文丘里计，壳管式换热器，双管换热器，和液压损失仪所有大约相同的大小作为精装教科书。这些代表了机械，化学和土木工程中感兴趣的设备和工艺。在课堂上，该设备允许学生将理论概念和相关性与物理现实联系在一起，他们可以操纵，观察，获取数据，甚至带回家进行家庭作业练习。学习是加强了设备是常见的较大规模的工业或试点规模的实验室设备的知识。教师不必使用其他不太相关的动手示例中的示例，例如冷却咖啡杯。学生可以进行实验和分析数据从实际设备在工业中使用的微型表示。这个I-Corps for Learning项目将有助于促进这些设备的广泛使用，不仅在传统方案中，而且在资源有限的方案中，以及在远程教育和大规模在线课堂应用中。

Through the NSF Innovation Corps for Learning Program (I-Corps L), this project will develop ways to increase the scale and impact of desk-top fluid mechanics and heat transfer experiments at a price comparable to that of a textbook. Engineering education requires realistic hands-on learning experiences, available throughout the curriculum. However, the equipment currently available for classroom use is limited primarily to robotics and electronics, though many other branches of engineering would benefit immensely from similar innovations. Currently, in the fields of chemical, mechanical and civil engineering the large size and high cost of equipment allows for hands-on experiences only in a laboratory setting scheduled for the final two to three semesters of college. This project will address this problem by making available miniaturized thermal fluids systems with a cost of approximately one to two hundred dollars per set. Having such systems available enables realistic, hands-on learning throughout an engineering curriculum in the standard classroom. Besides improvements to instruction, exposure at an earlier stage in the curriculum will enhance recruitment and retention within engineering majors.The currently available equipment developed by the project team includes venturi meters, shell and tube heat exchangers, double pipe heat exchangers, and a hydraulic loss apparatus all approximately the same size as a hardbound textbook. These represent equipment and processes of interest in mechanical, chemical and civil engineering. In the classroom, this equipment allows students to link theoretical concepts and correlations to physical reality in a compact device they can manipulate,observe, take data and even take home for homework exercises. Learning is enhanced by the equipment being miniaturizations of common larger scale industrial or pilot scale laboratory equipment. The instructor will not have to use examples from other not-so-relevant hands-on examples, such as cooling of a coffee cup. Students can conduct experiments and analyze data from miniature representations of actual equipment utilized in industry. This I-Corps for Learning project will help to promote broad usage of such equipment, not only in conventional programs, but also those with limited resources, and in distance education and massive on-line classroom applications.