Mechatronics: an interdisciplinary course for engineering students

Abstract

Mechatronics, an interdisciplinary course for engineering students, has been developed to provide synthesis experiences and motivation for student participants. In recent years, mechatronics education has gained a tremendous national and international attentions. This has been attributed to the need for an engineer who can work across the boundaries of constituent disciplines to identify and apply the right combination of technologies (concurrent engineering) which will provide cost effective and reliable devices. The paper presents a three-credit senior-level course, which is currently a technical elective course for aerospace, electrical, and mechanical engineering students at Tuskegee University, and in the future it will be offered as a requirement for mechanical engineering students. The paper addresses the course development, implementation, current syllabus, laboratory exercises, and assessment. The laboratory exercises have been developed to reinforce the lecture material and to emphasize hands-on experiences, open-ended interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary design problems, and team work.