Incorporating a Research Project in an Undergraduate Level Engineering Course

Abstract

This paper presents an example of incorporating a research project in the undergraduate system dynamics course. The research topic is in the area of drop impact reliability for the handheld electronic products. Portable electronic devices are prone to accidental drops during their service life. Board level solder joint reliability during drop impact is a great concern to electronic product manufacturers. The drop test has become a key qualification test for portable electronic products in recent years. However, actual drop test is very expensive and time-consuming. It requires much manpower in measurement and failure analysis. An alternative approach is to develop analytical dynamic models and to perform numerical simulations. The drop impact test can be simplified as a single degree of freedom dynamic system. The project of modeling and simulation for the drop impact test is assigned in the class. In the paper, the description, implementation and assessment of the teaching are presented. The results of implementation of the projects were very promising.