Course Schedule for Dr. Wolff's Sections
Assignments and readings are due on the day they are listed. For example, Petrosky, "Design as Revision" should be read for Tuesday, September 11.
Monday, December 17
Crane Final Report due by 4:00pm to Dr. Wolff in Rowan Hall Atrium--final report will not be accepted without 
PEER RATING OF TEAM MEMBERS.doc
Thursday, December 13
Both sections meet in EDUCATION Hall classroom
Work on final report, evals; 
sample-let-cov-ack-final-report-1.pdf; final_report_rubric_f07.pdf; final_report_rubric_reader3_f07.pdf
Tuesday, December 11
Both sections meet in EDUCATION Hall classroom
Debrief lift, 
final_report_f07.pdf; final-report-style-guide.pdf; Real word examples (just for your viewing, do not follow these for the final report): IEEE 2007 Manual Layout Guide (.pdf, see pages 46-53); IEEE 2-Column Article Layout (.pdf); hand back white paper, resume, and individual 10%; PEER RATING OF TEAM MEMBERS.doc
Thursday, December 6
Both sections meet in Rowan Hall classroom so you have the opportunity to continue working on your trusses; do not meet in Ed Hall
Resume final draft due;
Tuesday, December 4
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
Resume rough draft due; resume-peer-response.pdf; resume-peer-response.rtf
Thursday, November 29
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
Progress report due: assignment3-writing-guide-f07.pdf, 3 printed copies, one put in openarea folder "crane-progress-report-fd," file named "sc-f07-team-s#-t#-pr-fd.doc"; discuss resume assignment; types-of-resumes.pdf; intangible-skills-list.pdf, layout; action verbs explained; action verbs list
Tuesday, November 27
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
Work on Progress Report; discuss Resume assignment (resume-fall07-wolff.pdf)
Thursday, November 22
Class Canceled--Thanksgiving
Tuesday, November 20
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
Go over Management sections; progress-report-rubric-r1-and-r2.doc, progress-report-rubric-r3.doc
Thursday, November 15
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
White Papers Due in openarea by classtime (remember to complete the research-process-form.doc)
Discuss Progress Report tasks and work on Gannt Charts (gantt-chart-handout2.doc, 
gantt-chart-data.xls)
Homework. For Tuesday, November 20. Please read all New York Times articles relating to the 1981 Kansas City Hyatt Hotel Skywalk Disaster: kansas-city-walkways-7-18-81-pg1.pdf, kansas-city-walkways-7-18-81-pg16.pdf, kansas-city-walkways-7-19-81-pg1.pdf,kansas-city-walkways-7-19-81-pg24.pdf, kansas-city-walkways-7-28-81-D19.pdf. Do not try to print these out--they are PDFs full pages of the New York Times; rather, zoom in to be able to see the text clearly. Find all the articles on these pages that relate to the Hotel disaster. I have Include page 1 of the articles and the respective continuing pages for the more illuminating articles. The last link is to a Section D story that is important.
On your wiki, please compose a team-wrriten statement in which you discuss the following: exactly what part of the engineering process your team believes is ultimately responsible for the tragedy and what in the article leads you to believe that. Also compose a comprehensive statement in which you discuss how your team will ensure that similar types of decisions are not made by your group as you design and build your truss.
Place a draft of the Management section (and associated Excel or Project files for the Gantt chart) in the open area folder called "crane-management-draft" by classtime. This section is described on page 2 of the Progress Report Assignment (progress_reportf07.pdf).
Tuesday, November 13
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
White Paper Abstracts, Progress Report
Thursday, November 8
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall Library Lab on 2nd Floor
Peer responses due in openarea by classtime. Discuss paraphrase/summary (summary-paraphrase-fall-07.doc) and abstracts.
Tuesday, November 6
White Paper rough draft due in openarea folder "white-paper-rd" by classtime. Name file: "sc-f07-authorslastname-wp-rd.doc".
Homework. For Thursday, November 8: Complete peer response of white paper (white-paper-rd-peer-response.pdf). Comment on the author whose rough draft of the Definition of the Problem you commented on in class on Tuesday. If you were absent on Tuesday, please email Dr. Wolff once you have added your file to the openarea folder and I will make arrangements. Follow instructions on the peer response sheet for renaming the file and where to submit it. Submit your commented draft by classtime on Thursday, November 8.
Thursday, November 1
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall 2TBD
draft of Definition of the Problem due on openarea by classtime (double space, 1 - 1 1/2 pages); peer response and Word commenting (white-paper-dp-peer-and-word-commenting.doc; white-paper-dp-peer-and-word-commenting.pdf); white paper rubric (white-paper-rublic-wolff.pdf); citations
Tuesday, October 30
meeting back in Rowan Hall, hand back Bottle Rocket reports, discuss white paper
Thursday, October 25
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall 2TBD
Team charter (team-charter-fall-07.pdf), crane wiki guidelines, continue research
Homework. For Tuesday 10/30: By classtime, have team wiki completely set up, and bring printed, complete and signed Team Charter to class.
Tuesday, October 23
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall 2110; research for white paper, part II; CARS Checklist; topic proposal due on Blackboard and 1 copy in class
Thursday, October 18
12:15 section meet in Education Hall 2113; 3:15 section meet in Education Hall 2110; research for white paper, part I; research process form (research-process-form.doc)
Though not required, you may want to read and think about the engineering problems discussed in these articles to help you come up some ideas:
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Michael Pollan (1998), "Playing God in the Garden"(pollan-nytimes-garden.pdf)--discusses the ethical implications of gene modifications in crops
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Alan Weisman (1994), "Journey through a Doomed Land: Exploring Chernobyl's Still-Deadly Ruins"(weisman-harpers-chernobyl.pdf)--discusses the lingering effects of nuclear disasters
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Alexander Stille (1998), "The Ganges' Next Life" (stille-ganges-1998.pdf)--discusses attempts to combat excessive polution along the sacred Ganges' River
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Steve Ettlinger (2007), "Polysorbate 60" (ettinger-poly60.pdf)--discusses the processes of refining the food ingredient Polysorbate 60
Tuesday, October 16
discuss topics
Thursday, October 11
Discuss white paper assignment (white_paper_f07.pdf) and Norman.
Homework: For Tuesday, October 16: Please read Petrosky (1998) "Paper Clips and Design" (petrosky-paperclips-1998.pdf) and "Aluminum Cans and Failure" (petrosky-cans-1998.pdf). These essays offer detailed description, with patent drawings, of the evolution of two kinds of everyday things that Norman describes in "The Psychopathology of Everyday Things": paper clips and aluminum beverage cans. Please post a response to the following prompt on the Blackboard discussion forum entitled "Clips and Cans":
How can we see Petrosky's essays as descriptions of problems and solutions? What are the specific problems? What are the solutions? Were they effective? After addressing these questions, turn your attention to the goal of the white paper assignment, which is also to address and problem with a potential solution(s). Come up with one engineering problem you have identified with things in your local environment and suggest some possible solutions for it. In class we discussed three things, and now we are starting to narrow down to something you might write your paper on. The goal here is to stay small, not to explore huge subjects like all of global warming or weapon systems or body armor. By looking for things in our local environment -- our homes, dorm rooms, bags, classrooms, pathways that we take to class, class buildings, etc. -- we can create papers that are specific in nature but also address an important engineering issue. Think creatively and expansively about these small things.
Please post your response by 12:00 noon on Monday, October 15. This will give the entire class time to read the posts prior to class meeting. I encourage you to respond to your classmates' posts, so we can start discussion outside of class.
Please draft your response using Microsoft Word (or other word processor), check it for spelling, and then paste it the response field. Your response should be at least 1/2 page, single space, using Times New Roman font size 12, on a page with 1" margins.
Class on Thursday, October 18 will be held in another room. The 12:15 class will meet in Education Hall 2113. The 3:15 class will meet in Education Hall 2110. These are both on the second floor. Arrive early in case you get lost. They are both computer labs.
Tuesday, October 9
Technical Report on Bottle Rocket due; turn in 3 hard copies and place 1 copy in the Wolff folder in the openarea
Homework: For Thursday, October 11: Please download, print, read, and bring to class a copy of the White Paper assignment, as well as 3 questions you have about the assignment.
Please read, Norman, D. (1990) "The Psychopathology of Everyday Things" (norman-1990.pdf). Norman opens the article with the following: "'You would need an engineering degree from MIT to work this,' someone one told me, shaking his head in frustration over his brand new digital watch. Well, I have an engineering degree from MIT. (Kenneth Olsen has two of them, and he can't figure out a microwave over.) Give me a few hours and I can figure out the watch. But wht should it take hours?" (1).
Please bring to class a list of 3 "things" that have proved similarly frustrating to you, what makes them so frustrating, and how you might go about improving them.
Thursday, September 27
Discussion of Technical Descriptions (tech-desc-samples-f07.pdf). Discussion of Parametric Design Process, Introduction, and Def of Design Problem.
Homework: For Tuesday, October 2. Please read Finkelstein's 1-page discussion of Executive Summaries (finkelstein-exec-sum.pdf), and then complete a draft of the following sections:
When completing those sections, be sure to include everything that is outlined in the Assignment 1: Design Report on Rocket Project handout (Rocket Report.pdf).
When composing your document, please follow all the layout requirements that are described in the Guide for Writing Assignment 1 (assignment1-writing-guide-f07.pdf). That is:
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use proper memo format and paragraph format
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use headers and subheaders
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use correct fonts and bold where necessary
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write complete sentences, not bulleted lists
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use 1" margins all around
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single space
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include figure and table titles
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include figure captions
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place figures and tables in the text, not at the end
Bring 2 printed copies to class. We will be going over these in detail. You can (and should) compose almost all of this text prior to getting your final results. If there are parts of the parametruic design process that you still need to do, simply leave room for that description, and add it after lab on Monday.
Tuesday, September 25
Discussion technical descriptions of bottle rockets. Bring team bottle rocket to class.
Homework: Rought draft of Technical Description. Bring 3 printed copies.
Thursday, September 20
Use of graphics to inform the design process (Hutto and Tufte and lab sketches). Project document format (assignment1-writing-guide-f07.pdf).
Homework: Bring your team bottle rocket to class on Tuesday, September 25!!
Download, print, read, and bring to class the Assignment 1 Writing Guide (assignment1-writing-guide-f07.pdf). Now that we have read and talked about the role of writing and graphics in the individual engineering design process, we are going to focus on how forms of communication (writing, presentations, conversations, and so forth) impact decision making. Specifically, we are going to look at the January 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger disaster. Before your lab on Monday, September 24, please download, print, and read the following in this order: Griffin, "Groupthink of Irving Janice" (griffin-groupthink-challenger.pdf), Winsor, "The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions about the Challenger" (winsor-jbtc-challenger.pdf), and Tufte, "The Decision to Launch the Space Shuttle Challenger" (tufte-challenger-1997.pdf).
When in Lab on Tuesday, I would like you to pay special attention to the processes in which decisions are made. Who is making them? Why are they being made? Are people in your group merely following along a chosen path? Are they asking "the right questions" about why your rocket might not have performed? Do you see faculty making decsions for groups? What impact does that have? Is there someone in your group is perhaps playing the role of a "manager" and others as "engineers"? Is everyone given similar weight? Are graphics being used in ways that runcounter to the needs of the project?
After lab, and before class on Tuesday, September 25, I would like you to reflect on what you observed, making specific reference to what happened in the lab as well as the ideas represented in the readings. Please draft your response using Microsoft Word (or other word processor) and check it for spelling. Your response should be at least 1/2 page, single space, using Times New Roman font size 12, on a page with 1" margins. When complete, email your response to Dr. Wolff. No-one on your team will see your response.
The goal of this response is two-fold: to see how you are able to understand communication-as-it-exists-in-practice, and to give me an understanding of your group's dynamics. Merely stating that things are great and all is well when they are not can be problematic later on. So, if there are issues--even minor--discuss them and that will allow for ways to begin a dialogue with team members. No team member will be penalized in any way for what is written about them. Remember, that in the crane project each of you assess each other's performances, so its best to get in the practice of thinking critically about our own and our team members actions.
Tuesday, September 18
Discuss Bottle Rocket Assignment; go over constraints, parameters, parametric design; work on notebook if time
Homework: Please reading thoroughly the Notebook Guidelines and complete all notebook sections that were part of the template, including: goals, calendar, September 11, 2007 work, among othes. Add in a detailed manner work that was completed during the lab. If you have yet to complete (or post to the notebook) the first Food for Thought questions, please do so. This work will be checked before the start of class.
Please read (former SophClinic professor) Hutto (2007), "Graphics and Invention in Engineering Writing" (hutto-tc-graphics-2007.pdf) and selections from Tufte (tufte-graphical-2001.pdf and tufte-chartjunk-2006038.pdf--these are both short and full of graphics) and post to your team wiki 3 data graphics that resulted from tests completed during the lab. These can be graphs, sketches, tables, etc. We will discuss the graphics and the texts in class.
In the last page of the second Tufte reading, Tufte reproduces a word graph. On his web site, some users have redesigned his redesign. You can see those at:
Thursday, September 13
Class canceled. Look in your Rowan email for the Bottle Rocket assignment.
Tuesday, September 11
Discuss articles and your responses to Petrosky's "Design as Revision" and Winsor's "What Counts as Writing? An Argument from Engineers' Practice"
Discuss first lab experience and bottle rocket project
Homework (Updated, 9/15/07): Please read, print, and annotate the Bottle Rocket Assignment (rocket_report_f07.pdf) before your Lab time on Monday, September, 17. Bring to class on Tuesday, September 18, 5 questions that your team has about the assignment. We will get to the below readings later in the next week, so if you have done them, you will have less to do when we get to them.
Now that we have read and talked about the role of writing in the individual engineering design process, we are going to focus on how forms of communication (writing, presentations, conversations, and so forth) impact decision making. Specifically, we are going to look at the January 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger disaster. For Tuesday, September 18, please download, print, and read the following in this order: Griffin, "Groupthink of Irving Janice" (griffin-groupthink-challenger.pdf), Winsor, "The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions about the Challenger" (winsor-jbtc-challenger.pdf), and Tufte, "The Decision to Launch the Space Shuttle Challenger" (tufte-challenger-1997.pdf).
A response prompt will appear here soon.
Thursday, September 6
Introductions
Discuss Axelrod & Cooper "Strategies for Reading Critically" and Petrosky, "Being Human"
Related NY Times articles on skywalk collapse: kansas-city-toll-7-19-81-pg1.pdf, kansas-city-hotel-7-19-81.pdf, kansas-city-rods-7-28-81.pdf
Related Tacoma Narrows Bridge footage (on YouTube): color, no audio or black and white newsreel with audio
Homework: Please download, print, and read Petrosky's "Design as Revision" (petroski-revision-1992.pdf) and Winsor's "What Counts as Writing? An Argument from Engineers' Practice" (winsor-jac-engineering-writing-2.pdf). Annotate texts as described by Axelrod & Cooper, and post a response to the following prompt on the Blackboard discussion forum entitled "Engineering and Writing":
In "What counts as writing? An argument from engineer’s practice," Dorothy Winsor observes:
As Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford point out, "We name in order to know, but that naming inevitably limits our knowing. . . . Definitions of writing, of course, reflect a set of ideological assumptions that we ignore only at our peril" (15). The ideological assumptions we ignore here have to do with how knowledge is created and how much control individuals have over their own knowing. Ideology leads both us and engineers to deny that writing has occurred in much engineering practice.
If this is the case--that our own beliefs about engineering inhibit our ability to see that writing is a significant portion of the work of engineering--why is it so? And how is Petrosky attempting to break down that distinction between engineering and writing? Is there a way to think about writing as informing the processes of engineering and engineering informing the process of writing? Address all three questions in your response, and be sure to refer directly to the texts.
Please post your response by 12:00 noon on Monday, September 10. This will give the entire class time to read the posts prior to class meeting. I encourage you to respond to your classmates' posts, so we can start discussion outside of class.
Please draft your response using Microsoft Word (or other word processor), check it for spelling, and then paste it the response field. Your response should be at least 1/2 page, single space, using Times New Roman font size 12, on a page with 1" margins.
Tuesday, September 4
Brief introductions
Brief review of syllabus
Introduction to course wiki and Blackboard site
Homework: Download, print, and read Axelrod & Cooper "Strategies for Reading Critically" (axelrod-cooper-strategies.pdf)and Petrosky, "Being Human" (petroski-human-1992.pdf) Use the annotation techniques described by Axelrod & Cooper to annotate Petrosky. Annotations will be checked in class.
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