9351813 Wygant The purpose of this project is to use portable oxygen and heart rate equipment to improve the ergonomic components of four undergraduate courses. The telemetric data gathering system requested in this grant will allow undergraduate students to perform ergonomic and physiological experiments on-site, in local industries. Typical projects that students will work on with the portable equipment will include: 1. Energy expenditure measurement for physically demanding jobs. 2. Cardiac measurement and evaluation of alternative ergonomic task designs. 3. Biomechanical and physiological job analysis of industrial operations. 4. Job stress analysis of different tool and machine designs. 5. Job evaluation of work task for improvements in enabling technologies and assistance with conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Expanding laboratory experiments to include data collection from actual work sites will enhance students' educational experiences and provide a stronger foundation for them to become practicing engineers. Giving students multiple opportunities to work on-site throughout their undergraduate engineering program will allow them to gain the perspective of real world problem solving. We believe this will greatly strengthen the undergraduate engineering curricula.
