Purdue Mission to Mars: Recruiting High School Students to a Polytechnic College

This paper presents the development and implementat io of an integrative half-day recruiting event targeting high school students that combines elemen ts of four degree programs: Organizational Leadership, Electrical Engineering Technology, Mech anical Engineering Technology, and Computer Graphics Technology. During the workshop, studen ts gage in active learning: Purdue New Albany is transformed into an aerospace design think tank and high school students are transformed into Polytechnic interns. The interns are then presente d with a challenge: A new form of bacteria has poss ibly been identified on Mars and soil samples must be co ll cted for analysis. However, the next shuttle lau nch is in 3 hours and the robotic equipment has to be r eady! Student teams work with faculty mentors to design, test, and retest robots that can navigate t he surface of Mars and collect a soil sample for an alysis. Through this integrative experience, students work in teams to learn and apply new skills in leadershi p, engineering technology, and computer graphics. The impact of the recruitment event is assessed via pr e and post surveys of students’ attitudes towards the degree options based on Likert style assessments. Introduction As one of the Purdue Moves initiatives, the Purdue College of Technology is t ransforming into Purdue Polytechnic: academic programs that incorporate inn ovative learning environments utilizing theory-base d applied learning, integration of humanities with te chnical studies, a learn-by-doing atmosphere, and n ew options for majors and for earning a degree. Such a transformation is designed to produce graduates w ith deep technical knowledge, applied skills, and probl em solving and critical thinking abilities who are also trained in communication and leadership. Purdue Pol ytechnic New Albany, one of the eight statewide locations of Purdue Polytechnic, served as a pilot location for Purdue Polytechnic, and has been instrumental in conceiving, testing, and refining t he new and innovative learning pedagogies that are to b utilized within the college. As part of this trans formation, the New Albany location also explored ne w methods for attracting new students to the academic programs, resulting in Purdue Mission to Mars (PMTM), a learn-by-doing approach to high school recruiti ng. Many other colleges and universities have implement ed recruiting via classroom visits to K-12 schools, professional development programs for teachers, eng in ering contests for students, and on-campus visit s. Such programs can be designed to increase engineeri ng enrollment, diversify engineering, educate futur e generations, teach the teachers, or to improve the quality of the undergraduate engineering experience [1]. Such programs are increasingly important to recruit ment efforts, as many as 50% of students have made the decision on a college major by their junior yea r of high school [2]. Examples of outreach program s include the K-12 Engineering Education Programs (KE EP) Seminar Series for high school juniors and seniors, which invited high school students to obse rve research presentations by scientists and engine ers to better understand the possibilities for career p aths in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)[3]. Alternative approaches can be seen in such programs as ‘LearnING-An applied engineering program’, which seeks to raise interest in engineering education through problem based learning [3], and robotics summer camps designed to attract high school girls into computing fields[5] . Such project based approaches can be semester-long or as short as a 1-2 minute learning experience [6] , and have been shown to successfully attract student s to STEM fields, with particular success in recrui ting female and minority populations [7]-[8]. Additiona lly, some evidence exists that visits to highereducation instructions are effective in guiding stu dents towards STEM educational choices [9]. PMTM builds on this previous body of work by creati ng an out-of-school experience that is not only project based, but specifically designed to inspire and attract the student participants. This novel a pproach to recruitment combines elements of four degree pro grams: Organizational Leadership, Electrical Engineering Technology, Mechanical Engineering Tech nology, and Computer Graphics Technology. During the workshop, students engaged in active lea rning designed to inspire their imaginations: Purdu e New Albany was transformed into an aerospace design th nk tank and high school students were transformed into Polytechnic interns. Upon arrival at Purdue, the Polytechnic interns participated in a “New Employee Orientation” that utilizes team build ing, leadership, and innovation activities, resulti ng in the formation of design teams. The interns were th en presented with a challenge: A new form of bacter ia has possibly been identified on Mars and soil sampl es must be collected for analysis, however, the nex t shuttle launch is in 3 hours and the robotic equipm ent has to be ready! For three hours, the intern t eams worked with faculty mentors to design, test, and re test robots that can navigate the surface of Mars a nd collect a soil sample for analysis. Once the soil ample was collected, the students worked with Computer Graphics Technology faculty to create a vi deo log of the build event and media for a news and media campaign. Through this integrative experience, students worke d in teams to learn and apply new skills in leaders hip, engineering technology, and computer graphics. Pur due Mission to Mars launched for the first time on November 13, 2015. The impact of the recruitment event was ass essed via pre and post surveys of students’ and parents’ attitudes towards the degree options based on Likert style assessments. PMTM Program Development and Rationale PMTM was created to offer students a dynamic and ha s-on engineering design experience that inspires them to choose STEM majors. Therefore, great effort was put into the creation of an authentic mission experience that included appropriate technical cont ent that informed participants of the program offer ings at Purdue Polytechnic. As such, the critical compo nents of the event requiring development prior to t he event included a) an event script and supporting me dia, b) a physical 3-D Martian surface, c) a roboti c rover based on LEGO Mind Storm robots, d) custom se nsors and hardware to extend the capabilities of the rover, and e) instructional documents for stude nt preparation of their “news releases”. a) Script and Multimedia To engage students in PMTM, they were asked to role play as if they were design engineers in an aerospace think tank. To make the experience as au thentic as possible, a fictional mars rover campaig n was created and the engineering facilities were arr anged to appear as a NASA-like environment. Three classrooms were converted into engineering design l abs, and a conference room was converted into Mission Control. A multimedia theme was also creat ed for all documents and presentations, giving the event a cohesive atmosphere. Figure 1 shows the ove rall program schedule that was followed. Figure 1. Mission to Mars Event Schedule b) Martian Surface A physical Martian surface was fabricated for the r obotic rovers to navigate, modeled off of NASA satellite imagery of Mars (Figure 2). The structu re was fabricated using 4’ x 8’ x 2” pink foam insu lation panels, assembled to create an eight by twelve foot sculpted landscape. Individual terrain features m ade from additional layers of sculpted foam up to ten i nches tall and five feet in diameter were added so simulate the crater rim features on the left side o f Elysium Mons and Orcus Patera, stray boulders, an d eroded dust plains. Twelve inch tall stiffening bo rders made from thin plywood were added for robot containment and to link the panels during final ass embly. Finally, two coats of latex paint were app lied. Foam sawdust and food coloring were added to enhanc e texturing, shading and small-scale shaping of detail features and special sections. To facilitate the “soil test” blue aquarium gravel was placed on the surface. Figure 2. Elysium Mons & Orcus Patera, Landscape of Interest, Constructed Landscape To locate the bacteria of interest, the teams were offered four navigational options: touch sensors to monitor and follow geographic contours, rotation co unts to measure geographic distances, ultrasonic object detection to monitor position, or a luminesc ent “bio-trail”. The features of Mars were tailore d to enhance these options through strategic contouring, limited use of obstacles, and inclusion of an embedded electroluminescent light cord to simulate the “bio-trail”.