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Research Experiences for Teachers – IE Challenge – UA07-RET1 and 2

This project creates an IE competition amongst Junior High and High School students to stimualte the interest in the subject.

Sponsor:

National Science Foundation

Research Team:

Edward A. Pohl, Melissa Miller , Randall Reynolds, C. Richard Cassady

Universities Involved:

University of Arkansas

Start Date:

07/01/06

End Date:

12/31/06

Summary:

This project creates an IE Challenge for Junior High and High School students with the intent to develop student’s interest in industrial engineering as a career option.
“IE Challenge 2006”

Want to see what Industrial Engineering is all about? Take the IE Challenge. Put together a team to design and construct a workstation for assembly of a simple product. Design a manufacturing process for a simple product. Organize your team and workstation in order to be the most effective team.

A team of judges will evaluate the project based upon the following criteria:

Entry Paper – All participating teams must submit a report of their project. This report should contain the following information: relevant information and research to support ideas, analysis of layout design and worker productivity, safety, discussion of assembly process, speed of manufacture, quality control, use of an ergonomically sound workstation, and mathematic procedures to solve the problems given. A flow chart for the production process and layout of the workstation area should be included.

Demonstration – Semifinalist teams will come to the University of Arkansas – Fayetteville campus and compete before a panel of judges. Each team will be given a 10′ x 10′ work station and a standard 6′ table. Teams are responsible for bringing any other materials needed. Each team will perform three fifteen minute demonstrations for judging purposes. At least one complete product must be assembled during each of the judging sessions.

Oral Presentation – Three finalist teams in each division will give an oral presentation along with their posters. Presentations will be scored using a rubric, with a total of 28 points possible.

All semi-finalists will travel to the University of Arkansas – Fayetteville campus for final judging at the Bell Engineering Center. This will provide exposure to other entries from around the state. Semi-finalists will receive awards and recognition, with the top three finalists in each division receiving additional awards, including individual trophies for each team member. Also, participation in academic competitions can enhance a college or university application resume!
The IE Challenge was held at Bell Engineering Center on the University of Arkansas campus on December 9, 2006. Junior high teams from Farmington, Gravette, and Osceola, Arkansas submitted papers prior to this date, then were invited to the U of A Fayetteville campus to compete for the top three awards. Student participants were excited about the event and several have expressed an interest in further participation in upcoming years. There were no high school teams competing this year in the challenge. We hope to continue the competition in 2007, with an increased focus on promotion and publicity for the IE Challenge in hopes of increasing the number of teams entered.