This paper examines the potential use of fire extinguishing balls as part of a proposed system, where drone and remote-sensing technologies are utilized cooperatively as a supplement to traditional firefighting methods. The proposed system consists of (1) scouting unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to detect spot fires and monitor the risk of wildfire approaching a building, fence, and/or firefighting crew via remote sensing, (2) communication UAS to establish and extend the communication channel between scouting UAS and fire-fighting UAS, and (3) a fire-fighting UAS autonomously traveling to the waypoints to drop fire extinguishing balls (environmental friendly, heat activated suppressants). This concept is under development through a transdisciplinary multi-institutional project. The scope of this paper encloses general illustration of this design, and the experiments conducted so far to evaluate fire extinguishing balls. The results of the experiments show that smaller size fire extinguishing balls available in the global marketplace attached to drones might not be effective in aiding in building fires (unless there are open windows in the buildings already). On the contrary, results show that even the smaller size fire extinguishing balls might be effective in extinguishing short grass fires (around 0.5 kg size ball extinguished a circle of 1-meter of short grass). This finding guided the authors towards wildfire fighting rather than building fires. The paper also demonstrates building of heavy payload drones (around 15 kg payload), and the progress of development of an apparatus carrying fire-extinguishing balls attachable to drones.

This is a research study to explore trends, gaps, and issues in the literature of the usability of Learning Management Systems (LMS). The authors utilized the State-of-the-Art Matrix analysis, which is a research method that has been used extensively in the last decade. It is a systematic evaluation of existing research by using several statistical methods. Pareto analysis and Histograms are part of this analysis. The analysis revealed several gaps: (1) engineering students have not been the main focus of research in any studies, (2) there is no research that compares usability of LMS between different academic disciplines, (3) there is no modeling effort for understanding if engineering students and instructors need different LMS design than other disciplines, (4) primary framework development for evaluating LMS has declined, (5) discount usability methods (heuristics) have been mostly preferred for the evaluation of LMS ignoring effectiveness and efficiency performance measures related to LMS usage, (6) there are very limited studies incorporating usability design with instructional and accessibility design, (7) there are very limited studies investigating LMS usability with regards to occupational training, (8) there are many researchers who mentioned the significance of research on usability of mobile e-learning platforms. The results of this study established a basis for future work and the authors will study LMS usability for engineering students and instructors by future empirical studies.

Teaching design and communication skills to engineering students is always a challenging and evolving process. Many design courses compromise a project in order to provide students a hands-on experience to address different aspects of design. Project selection is very important to motivate and encourage creativity in the students. It also alters the teaching efficiency significantly.Principles of Design course has been taught as a part of Engineering Science curriculum at a private Liberal Arts University since 2010. It gives engineering science students the opportunity to work on several of the steps in the engineering design process: formulation of a problem, creative approaches to solving the problem, analysis, materials selection, and economics. This course is also a Writing Unit course, where formal writing is a substantial mode of learning. Authors of this paper were co-instructors of the course and assigned different projects to the students during the first four offerings, every year improving the projects according to the observations and student feedback to better address the course's learning objectives. In spring 2013, the assigned project was the design and implementation of a Rube Goldberg machine. Based on student outcomes and course evaluations, it was decided to repeat the same concept with some technical modifications to make the Rube Goldberg machine more advanced and challenging for junior level engineering students. This paper presents the assigned Rube Goldberg projects, writing unit requirement of the course, teaching method, and an analysis of the effectiveness of the different project assignments over different offerings. Course outcomes and assessment results of the different projects are also discussed.

Prior to starting his PhD in 2004, he worked as a Design and Production Engineer for Aselsan Inc. over four years. His research interests are high pressure material science and engineering design, especially as it relate to educational environments.

is founding CEO at Engineer Inc., a Florida-based STEM education social enterprise start-up. Traum invented @HOLM TM lab kits to enable students in on-line courses to build and run engineering experiments remotely at home. Before founding Engineer Inc., Dr. Traum was a well-known higher education administrator, fund raiser, educator, and researcher with co-authorship of 12 peer-reviewed research journal articles, 18 refereed research conference articles, and 20 refereed pedagogical conference articles. As a PI or Co-PI, Traum has attracted over $841 K in funding for research, education, and entrepreneurial ventures from multiple sources including NSF, NASA, ASHRAE, AIAA, Sigma Xi, the Texas State Energy Conservation Office, and several industry sponsors including Toshiba and Oshkosh.