Through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program, at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, Alice Smith of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering received funding for two teachers for the summers of 2002 and 2003. Mark Jones, a science teacher at Drake Middle School (6th and 7th grades), and Cynda Fickert, a math teacher at Auburn Junior High School (8th grade), joined the research team on the project “Relating Field Data to Accelerated Life Testing (EEC-0002669)”. Both schools are part of the Auburn City Schools. This school system serves a diverse student body which includes approximately 30% low income students. This project was conducted jointly with the interdisciplinary NSF sponsored University / Industry Center for Advanced Vehicle Electronics (CAVE) and DaimlerChrysler Electronics in Huntsville, Alabama. The project aimed to correlate wear and degradation of solder connections on under the hood electronic components with that expected through accelerated testing using temperature cycling. The test subject was the transmission controller on Jeep light trucks.

Jones, with his background in the natural sciences, worked primarily on the examination of the  solder joint material through mechanical testing and scanning electron microscope photos. Fickert concentrated on the data analysis and statistical modeling for the correlation between mileage of the field units and solder joint degradation as measured through joint shear strength.