Engaging Underrepresented Community College Students in Interdisciplinary Learning and Research

As the challenges facing the world become more multifaceted, the solutions are often rooted in multiple disciplines. It gives educators a tough challenge: how to bring interdisciplinary learning and research to undergraduate students, especially underrepresented students. Funded by 2011 NASA CIPAIR (Curriculum Improvements and Partnership Award for the Integration of Research) award, four underrepresented minority (i.e., 3 Hispanic and 1 female) students from Canada College participate in a ten-week research of designing an electronic monitoring system for biomedical application. First, the students conduct literature research on the requirements that are unique for biomedical monitoring, such as ultra-low power consumption, small form factor and high reliability. Second, the students engage in designing a datalogger to monitor the mechanical pressure that is exerted by a pair of rare-earth magnets. The pair of magnets is used to cure pectus excavatum (hallowed chest). The ex-vivo magnet pulls the sternum that is strapped by an in-vivo magnet outwards to realign with the ribcage. The students design the schematic and create the manufacturing-ready layout using Cadence Allegro. Lastly, the students optimize the design by choosing the appropriate memory size based on the data samplesize, the sample-rate and the battery capacity, and creative layout style to minimize the overall form factor of the data-logger package. Thus, these four students are exposed to interdisciplinary learning and research by applying electrical engineering into biomedical applications. In addition to learning the electronics design and clinical research, the students create tutorials to help other students to design electronics for biomedical applications. The NASA CIPAIR has promoted interdisciplinary learning and research to underrepresented community college students.