(599a) Enhancing Student Engagement through Open-Ended Projects in a Design of Experiments Elective.

Proficiency in DOE (Design of experiments) is a commonly sought after skill for process engineering and scientist roles in advanced manufacturing industries such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, energy and renewables. Process engineers are constantly tasked with running experiments to ensure that processes remain on target, new processes deliver high quality of new products and hardware upgrades or modifications do not have any adverse impacts on product quality. While learning the theory of statistical hypothesis inference is critical, practical experience greatly aids student retention of the course materials. In this presentation, we will demonstrate examples of student driven hands-on projects that employ DOE techniques and findings from the course feedback survey.