The Program

I am in Germany with Auburn University as a faculty member in an engineering study abroad program. There are 26 students from several departments within the College of Engineering and they range from rising sophomores to rising seniors.  I, Dr. Valenzuela and Dr. Carpenter came midway through the program to replace faculty who had been here for 3 weeks.  The program is project based so every group of 4-6 students have been assigned an engineering project to work on with a company in or near Schweinfurt.  I am mentoring two teams.  The first team is paired with a company that builds automobile parts. The team’s project is to take apart several actuators, identify the parts, and create a method for the company to query the parts in order to build an actuator according to a customer’s specifications.  They have chosen to build a relational access database to store the parts, specifications and the relationships among the parts of the actuator.  The second team is paired with a company that builds shock absorbers.  They are trying to decide whether to pursue a new air damping technology or stay with the standard product they have been building for years.  These students are building a decision making tool based on attributes of the two different technologies.

Each team uses a six sigma tool called DMAIC–design, measure, analyze, improve, control–to manage their projects.  After each phase is complete, they create a slide about the phase, write a narrative about the phase and make a  presentation to the entire student group, program faculty, program administrators, and company representatives.  The final incorporates all phases into a single presentation.

It is a pleasure to work with these engineering students.  They are all bright and hard working.  Some are very good problem solvers and are eager to try and learn new things; some are unsure of themselves and don’t seem to know how to go about solving a problem; and some simply do what their team mates tell them to do.  Each team has its own personality as do each of the students.  I’m really enjoying the role of a mentoring faculty member in a study abroad program