Proposal No.: 9721375 PI: Kline University: Wayne State University ABSTRACT This REU project is designed as a two year, continuous program to expose junior and senior engineering students to mechanical engineering research in both a university and an industrial setting. The overall goal is to increase the number of students who continue on to graduate study following the completion of their engineering degree, especially for female and minority students. Six students each year will be accepted to the program, and recruitment efforts will be directed at local community colleges and universities with limited research opportunities for undergraduates as well as Wayne State. During their first year, participating students will spend one summer (full-time) and two semesters (10 hours/week) becoming acquainted with the research activities within either the Bioengineering Center or the Advanced Composites Research Laboratory, or both, of Wayne State University. They will be introduced to the techniques used within these laboratories and will begin to develop an independent project to be completed during their second year of participation. For the summer between their junior and senior years, students will work in an industrial internship conducting research in a more applied setting. These internships will be matched with the students' overall interests and typically draw on the skills learned during their first year of participation. During the second year of the program, each student will work (20 hours/week) to complete an independent research project and present the results of their research at a regional conference. All research activities are supplemented by a program on oral and written communication skills. In addition, during the winter semester each second year student will develop a teaching module directed at middle and high school students based on their research and results. These teaching modules will be presented to secondary school students invited from the Detro it Public School District. The students and their teachers, with coaching from the university students, will then develop lesson plans and materials based on the lectures which they have heard so that the material can be presented to their peers within the Detroit Public School system. The goals of this portion of the program are to introduce secondary school students to engineering research, provide role models for them in the field of engineering most of the participants in this REU program have been female or members of minority groups, and have the participating secondary school students act as ambassadors of science and engineering to their peers within the school district.
