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It can be very difficult for junior faculty members to find the time required to develop new courses and to establish a research program while continuing to dedicate the time necessary for students in their regular teaching load. One way to maximize the benefit of time spent is to teach small independent study courses with research projects that help prepare students for graduate school and evaluate course material to be used later in new course offerings. This paper describes some research work that was conducted by undergraduate mechanical engineering students at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez during the past three years. The general research topics were heat transfer in open-cell aluminum foam and microprocessor control. The students' attitude, professionalism, independence, work habits, and intelligence ranged from average to outstanding. The upper-echelon students produced high enough quality work for presentation in engineering conferences and, with some extra input from the faculty, in engineering journals. The students were listed as co-authors in all publications. Three of the best students gave presentations of the results in four engineering forums. A few of the undergraduate students were even motivated to attend graduate school.
Kiefer et al. (Thu,) studied this question.