June 7, 1996: Volume 37, Number 5

Students Taking Virtual Term Abroad

This fall, Jill Hahl and Brian Smallwood, both Class of 1997 mechanical engineering majors, and Ron Bucinell, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will be working with two mechanical engineering students and a professor from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, on their senior capstone design projects.

The interesting thing is, the Union students aren't leaving Union, and the METU students aren't leaving METU. Welcome to the "trial run" of Union's Virtual Term Abroad -- a real-time, computer-based design experience allowing Union students to work interactively on a comprehensive design project with students at another university in another country.

The concept for a Virtual Term Abroad has been discussed at Union over the past few months, and recently under the direction of Richard Kenyon, Dean of Engineering, the concept has begun to evolve, and the Virtual Term Abroad will likely become a component in the new engineering curriculum to be instituted in the fall. A major goal of the curriculum is to provide all engineering students with a term abroad, term-in-industry, cooperative work assignment, or this virtual international design experience, dubbed the Virtual Term Abroad.

For the Union team of Hahl, Smallwood and Professor Bucinell, the work has already started, even though the actual design project won't be released until the fall. They've begun working through the details and challenges of setting up a design studio, capable of allowing the teams to communicate effectively throughout their project. "This is much more than just E-mail," Professor Bucinell explains.

Kenyon said he has been working on finding corporate and foundation support to help with the construction of the design studio for this and future Virtual Terms Abroad programs.

The Virtual Term Aboard will be conducted in English, the language of instruction at METU. But both teams will have to deal with cultural bias and time difference, Bucinell said.

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