ABSTRACT

Engineering education is an art of knowledge accumulation, discovery and skill building, to ultimately guide learners in turning ideas into reality. Because engagement is crucial for the process of learning, computers utilizing the expressive forms of human interactive experience can have great impacts on effective dissemination of information. In the Interactive Learning Module (ILM) project, they are developing modular multimedia materials which present the principles and practice of design and manufacturing. Using interactive design tools, multimedia case studies, challenging simulation games, and interactive tutorials, the user explores the activities of product development emphasizing the integration of design, manufacturing, and marketing concepts.

INTRODUCTION

Manufacturing is increasingly important to the balanced education of engineers in all disciplines. While specific operations and processes can often be taught in the classroom, it is difficult to convey a broader understanding of the interrelationship among design, manufacturing, and marketing, and the coordinated effort required to meet the demands of a global marketplace with high product variety and rapid response requirements. Engineering education is an art of knowledge accumulation, discovery and skill building, to ultimately guide learners in turning ideas into reality. Because engagement is crucial for the process of learning, computers utilizing the expressive forms of human interactive experience can have great impacts on effective dissemination of information. Humans have an exceptional interactive analog communication capability while computers have accuracy, consistency, fast digital data processing, and enormous number crunching pavers. Current multimedia technology allows computers to incorporate human's world of sensory experience by simulating, manipulating, and presenting it accurately and on demand. Multimedia has the ability of integrating text, graphics, still images, animation, motion video, special effects, and sound in diverse frameworks. With its nonlinear interactive instructional technology, multimedia education dynamically offers learners a sense of true interaction and self motivation. Unlike the traditional computer assisted instruction approach, use of interactive multimedia courseware modules for engineering education, which contains effective instructional strategies for skill development, aids in the building of discovery-based approach. This process gives learners more responsibilities or their own learning and emphasize on real-world applications to help them establish a solid foundations of skills. Furthermore, multimedia puts educators in the role of navigators and facilitators to help transform learners from passive recipients of information to active participants by providing the capabilities of individualized instructions and therefore excites the process of learning [1, 2]. Now our research is concentrating on a new develop technology known as Cybertronics interactive simulation game.

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OBJECTIVE

About the assignment

· To expose students on how to conduct research and produce the paper work

· To make students get use with the practical way to present their work.

· To encourage students teamwork morale in completing this assignment.

About this research

· Creation of the infrastructure necessary to deliver manufacturing related course material on-site at industry facilities through self-study interactive courses.

· Enhancement of new and existing manufacturing curricula through the addition of self-paced nontraditional interactive educational software.

· Demonstration of the effectiveness of learning theory centered multimedia-based instruction across the entire manufacturing education curriculum.

· Support faculty in the creation and use of educational technologies for manufacturing education.

· To develop modular interactive learning materials for manufacturing education, and demonstrate their effectiveness in both university curricula and industrial training programs.

· To convey to engineers and managers the experience and principles of strategy and decision making focusing on the interrelationships among design, manufacturing, and marketing.

· To provide engineers and managers with a better understanding of the interrelationship between design and manufacturing and the constraints and demands of global markets.

METHODOLOGY

According to In the Interactive Learning Modules project, we are developing interactive simulation games using multimedia software in the areas of design and manufacturing, the use of multimedia tools to create an environment which simulates an integrated view of a product development process.

The primary layer of the display hierarchy is a set of modules which represent the basic functional units of the project. The four types of modules currently included: (a) simulation, (b) handbooks, (c) case studies, and (d) utilities

a) Simulated role environments where the user may be dynamically interacting, choosing parameters, making decisions, or defining configurations of objects and sequences of events on the screen.

b) Handbook environments where the user is searching for background information and principles in order to support the simulated role.

c) Case study environments in which the user is watching and listening to presentations of real case studies related to the problem being solved. Our current Case studies include animation, video, audio, and 3D (QuickTime VR) presentations of materials.

d) The utility modules incorporate global models and behaviors, and support standard displays. [1, 4].

These display modules and activities interact with the content modules which represent the subject matter of simulations, tutorials, and case studies. Product parts such as electronic components or factory machines can be accessed as design topics, graphic displays, or video displays.

A multimedia environment provides a setting for creation of simulation experiences structured as challenging interactive games. Multimedia software development often entails two conflicting goals.

First the content of the application material must be developed in a structured and reliable software environment. In the case of a simulation or game, the content portion encompasses the data, logic, and computation of the underlying materials. Second the display of the media itself and the associated interactivity requires manipulation of display elements and support for interaction.

The control flow and interaction within such a program is constrained to establish structured procedures or object-oriented protocols in order to sustain reliable development, maintainability, and reusability of code. On the other hand, the interactive navigation required for a flexible user environment often encourages control flow which creates entertaining but unverifiable paths, leading to reliability and deadlock problems in the resulting software. Advantages using the Cybertronic Games Interactive Design tools:

Modules for functional and physical design of electronic circuit boards, and for layout and planning of electronics manufacturing activities are being developed.

Multimedia case studies: Case studies of product development, management, and manufacturing are being developed to explain and analyze the principles which affect manufacturing decisions. An electronics manufacturing line is designed to bring the factory to the user, and incorporates principles of design, fabrication, assembly, solder, and test.

Interactive simulation modules: Integrated simulation takes special advantage of the multimedia environment and involves the user in the decision making and design processes associated with the manufacturing and marketing processes. Video of a real factory is combined with simulation and animation to study the choice of manufacturing systems and the scheduling of activities.

Interactive tutorial units: Handbooks and libraries are accessed to provide necessary background to understand the technical and managerial issues associated with specific manufacturing domains.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Recent studies have shown that humans retain only 20 percent of what they hear, 40 percent of what they hear and observe, and 75 percent of what they hear, observe and practice. The ability to visualize and interact is significant and essential skills for successful engineers. With the advent of multimedia technology, existing powerful digital computers now incorporate audio, animation, still images, and motion video to its vast array of capabilities. By incorporating the full range of the human sensory experience, multimedia educational applications now can allow students to learn in an intuitive way, and help change how they learn and what they learn [1, 5].

Manufacturing is a dynamic and interdisciplinary environment, and the types of analysis, modeling, and decision-making required to integrate design and manufacturing in real-world applications are beyond the scope of most lecture and textbook materials. Modular multimedia materials enable us to capture many of these issues, and create earning environments which help in understanding the complexities facing enterprises competing in an increasingly global marketplace. The focus of the development is on electronics design and manufacturing. In the Cybertronics interactive simulation game, they create a fictional enterprise, the Cybertronics Corporation, in which the user assumes the role of product designer, manufacturing engineer, marketing expert, and product manager. In working through the decisions required in product development, the user addresses the tradeoff among product performance, cost, quality, and time-to-market. The Cybertronics simulation game has been developed in a modular architecture using Multimedia Director as the development environment. The focus of Cybertronics is on electronics manufacturing and the processes involved in the design and manufacturing of circuit-board assemblies for commercial and military electronics products.

The electronic “factory floor” can extend the hands-on experience of students to include factory settings at remote sites through the Internet. The Video resource will be complementary to the course material and hands-on experience.

Some of the features that the video option can provide are the following:

1) Videos that illustrate the functioning of machines; these videos can be part of interactive software described in the “Factor Floor” resource. Sometimes machine dealers can provide such tutorial videos;

2) Videos of plant tours; this can be useful in providing a real world context for the machines or processes that are being studied;

3) Videos of seminars offered by industry experts; these videos can be of seminars offered by visiting experts or

4) Educational videos related to the course subject; there is a rich source of videos available through educational associations such as SME, ASEE, and IEEE that can be used to complement classroom and laboratory experiences. Lately, there are also commercial educational software in basic software programming such as Lotus TM spreadsheet software, DBASETM database software, word processors, and others

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this study takes advantage of the latest in both computer and information technology to enhance the delivery of education through an interactive, computer-aided, teaching and learning tool. It is envisaged that this system will be used to introduce an early understanding of manufacturing issues, a framework for the courseware is developed. Effective use of the new teaching and learning tools require innovation from faculty to explain issues in various media forms, as well as to provide hands-on experiences. Multimedia courseware provides enhanced opponents for engineering students to connect what they leas in the classroom with real world application. Multimedia in Manufacturing Education (MME) has undertaken a number of collaborative projects with industry, a professional society, and a university demonstrating this potential. Cybertronics has been designed, tested and evaluated to incorporate different levels of ability in each of the marketing, electronics design, and manufacturing knowledge areas to allow people to experience the whole development process while specializing in a particular skill. In addition, we are anticipating that the Cybertronics game will be distributed over the World Wide Web, played by students and professionals in refresher courses from a distance during a real-time, virtual classroom space. Students will access Cybertronics and all other ILM material via Netscape and a network connection. Configuring all media and logic within a structured framework also will allow us to update the game more frequently without disturbing the software design architecture, as well as allowing a professor to add material specifically for a class s/he will be teaching. Cybertronics then becomes a part of a flexible software structure that can be modified by instructors and students adding to the knowledge database. A student playing the Cybertronics game to access the Electronics curriculum on Filters, the Electrical Engineering Handbook, and the Marketing Management of Design multimedia piece without ever discontinuing the Cybertronics game. The student's results will be saved to the database dynamically while they access other EM and network resources in order to play the game more effectively