Students from Seaholm High School gained real-world experience during three recent visits to Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Department laboratories in Oakland University’s Engineering Center. Doug Baltz, AP Physics Teacher and OU Adjunct Lecturer in Teacher Development and Educational Studies, teamed up with Amy Butler of OU INC to set up the collaboration.
“This partnership provides a unique opportunity for high school students to have direct interaction with both college students and faculty, and build relationships,” Butler said. “It also engages them in asking questions and designing research to answer those questions, and how to generate and interpret the data. The experience can be a life-changing opportunity for many of the participants.”
The high school students are enrolled in a course called STEMx Research and Design — which was created two years ago to expose students to science, technology, engineering and math — spend their semester developing STEM related projects “while embedding authentic data internships with professionals from the surrounding area” using the web, and lectures on and off-campus,” Baltz said.
Dr. Bob Van Til, ISE Professor and Chair, invited the students to visit the department and experience the research he and his colleagues are conducting during their three visits to Oakland’s campus.
“We enjoyed hosting the Seaholm students and their teacher, Doug Baltz, for the STEMx course again this year,” Van Til said. “Our ISE students and professors had a great time working with them on three projects involving lean and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). I look forward to working with Doug and his Seaholm colleagues in the coming year to expand on our joint STEM efforts.”
During their first visit to the ISE Department, the students ran a lean simulation of a factory that builds ATV’s.
Using data collected from their first visit, the students built and ran a digital simulation of the ATV factory in their second visit using the Siemens PLM software tool Plant Simulate.
During their third visit, students learned about ergonomics from ISE Professor Dr. Megan Conrad and completed a project using the Siemens PLM software tool, ‘Jack.’
“The students have had such a positive experience with Dr. Van Til at the Engineering Center,” Baltz said. “Participating in software simulations that involve industrial and systems engineering applications was a very beneficial data experience. Students also looked at the program Jack to collect data concerning ergonomics. We look forward to having a long-term partnership with the School of Engineering and Computer Science.”
For more information about the Industrial Systems and Engineering Dept., visit oakland.edu/secs/ise.
Source: Oakland University