Teaching Power Electronics as a Multidisciplinary Subject with Small and Inexpensive Robotic Arm

Abstract

Experience shows that teaching Power Electronics subjects is not easy, even to undergraduate students. This phenomenon might stem from the fact that Power Electronics is an engineering discipline that closely related to other disciplines. Some experts stipulate that Power Electronics is a multidisciplinary subject while for some other it is an interdisciplinary subject. In students point of view, it does not matter what side Power Electronics reside, they always see it as a difficult subject. Most of the time engineering technology (TVET) student might consider this subject more as a burden. This does not come as a surprise; sampled Indonesian students score lower in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), a periodic student testing conducted by OECD (Economic Co-operation and Development). The score outline the lack of HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) from many Indonesian students. The inadequacy in that skills hampers the future development of many students, especially in a subject such as Power Electronics that require some degree of mathematical prowess and deeper thinking. It gets worse with the influence of technology on student attention span, and they cannot focus on a more extended period as their predecessor was. This kind of deficiency threat the very survival of the nation as we enter The Industrial Revolution 4.0 where many current human jobs will be replaced by network connected automation. We need to address this problem adequately. The massive national interest in robotics may be one of the answers to this problem. However, due to the expensiveness of this solution, it needs to be adapted to the available budget. The literature study that used as a foundation of ongoing effort to incorporate a simple robotic experiment in Power Electronics teaching is presented. The study then followed by a discussion about the current state of the effort.