Introducing Freshmen Engineering Students to Civil Engineering at the University of Florida

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings. An Introduction to Engineering (EGN 1002) is a one credit course offered to all engineering freshmen by the college of engineering at the University of Florida. This course introduces students to the eleven departments that offer undergraduate degrees. The class breaks students into groups of 20 and rotates the groups weekly through each department. During the department visit, the students participate in two-or three hour hands-on experimental laboratory classes. The truss bridge laboratory is a part of this one credit hour course offered to the freshmen engineering students by the Civil and Coastal Engineering department. The purpose of the laboratory is to familiarize students with the concept, theory and practical side of the civil engineering and is focused on aiding students in the process of making an informed decision for their futures. This paper is focused on procedure of the laboratory as well as how the resulted data can be utilized in real-life projects. After each team of 4-5 students build their truss, the truss is loaded until it fails. Record of the failure load, score, and final score were kept and the winner team got a prize of Gator pens. The type and the shape of the trusses, location of the failures are kept in a data base for analysis. The results showed that Warren truss types are stronger and most cost effective. Students enjoyed interacting with their team members in building their bridges and learned about civil engineering. Many international engineering curriculums do not have such a course to provide students at freshmen level gaining early knowledge for deciding what branches of engineering to take for their future career. The EGN 1002 provides engineering freshmen with knowledge of various engineering disciplines in advanced to help them decide their future study. This course also provide multidisciplinary knowledge at early stage of engineering education that should have an international engineering educational values.