Contribution: Case study of a rural-focused educational program with two components: 1) introducing high school students and teachers to smart and connected technologies (SCTs) that can be used to solve local problems and 2) engaging the local community in supporting local technology-driven entrepreneurship. Background: Rural communities typically…

Contribution: This study provides evidence for the benefit of short online courses for the transdisciplinary competence development of graduate students. It shows the significant challenges students face while learning, and provides instructional recommendations to improve students' learning quality and professionalism. Background: Developing…

Contribution: Prior studies have shown that project-based learning (PBL) is an effective approach on engineering education. This study further identifies the impact of a design thinking (DT) integrated PBL approach on the college students' learning motivation and creativity. Background: A well-developed robot and its project often require…

Hands-on experimentation has widely demonstrated its efficacy in engineering training, especially in control formation, since experimentation using computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tools is essential for future engineers. In this context, this article describes a case study for Control Engineering formation, based on a new lab practice…

This paper describes the design of an industrial informatics course, following the project-based learning methodology, and reports the experience of four academic years (from 2012-13 to 2015-16). Industrial Informatics is a compulsory course taught in the third year of the B.Sc. degree in industrial electronics and automation engineering at the…

This paper presents a robot prototype for an undergraduate laboratory program designed to fulfill the criteria laid out by ABET. The main objective of the program is for students to learn some basic concepts of embedded systems and robotics, and apply them in practice. For that purpose, various practical laboratory exercises were prepared to teach…

The authors designed and ran a crash course on emotional robotics involving students from both the Information Engineering School and the Design School of Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. The course consisted of two intensive days of short introductory lessons and lab activity, done in interdisciplinary groups and supported by a well-equipped…

The interdisciplinary nature of robotics allows mobile robots to be used successfully in a broad range of courses at the postgraduate level and in Ph.D. research. Practical industrial-like mobile robotic demonstrations encourage students and increase their motivation by providing them with learning benefits not achieved with traditional…

This paper describes a multidisciplinary teaching program, designed to provide students with the broad knowledge and skills required to practice product development in robotics and mechatronics. The curriculum was designed to prepare students for the senior capstone design project, in which they design and build a working mechatronic/robotic…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate-level robotics course offers students the chance to integrate their engineering knowledge learned throughout their college years by building a robotic system. Robotics is thus a core course in system and control-related engineering education. This paper summarizes the experience of developing robotics courses…

After 10 years of organizing the Cybertech robotics competition, this paper presents this unique and innovative educational experience of teaching engineering at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. Cybertech is not only a well-known robotic contest in Spain due to the "Robotaurus" bullfighting, but is also a whole academic…