Mobile Robotics

The book is a collection of ten scholarly articles and reports of experiences and perceptions concerning pedagogical practices with mobile robotics.“This work is funded by CIEd – Research Centre on Education, project UID/CED/01661/2019, Institute of Education, University of Minho, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT.

Embedding Online Based Learning Strategies Into the Engineering Technology Curriculum

Various blended learning strategies have been implemented at engineering technology programs to facilitate different learning styles and different time constraints given to faculty. Some of these efforts are related to the effective use of online tools such as online course management systems, ePortfolios, narrated presentations, web-based polling systems, tutorials and educational materials posted before the class and asynchronous learning methods. As technology changes, some of the online learning methods are getting more advanced which is enabling more innovative approaches and data compression. Various distance learning programs started with having access to videos of recorded lectures (on VHS tapes, or CDs) and further they went to use of new media which followed the use of online based strategies such as online management systems, use of social media, podcasts, and other means of communication to deliver the instruction. It became easier to share videos to a wider audiences and enable easier access to state of the art in development in new engineering areas. Accessing pre-recorded educational modules is now easier with new wireless gadgets, with widespread networking capabilities on campuses and outside the campus. In this way, students have opportunities to spend more time in interacting with faculty in class, not only in their assigned office hours. These teaching and learning methods are emphasizing a not so new educational principle, the Socratic method. This concept is especially important for universities with diverse student population which include working adult student population, students who are with the military, students who have families and all other which are non-traditional students who do not live on campus. In this paper, embedding online based learning strategies into the classroom efforts in Engineering Technology department at one midsize institution is discussed

Senior Elective Communications Systems Courses as Pathways to Capstone Projects in Electrical Engineering Technology Program

In any engineering program the capstone project is the most comprehensive work completed by the students, and is regarded as the pinnacle of their engineering studies, with all their course work culminating with this major design, implementation and reporting product. Coming up with the actual topic of the project is sometimes the most difficult part of the project, especially in programs where the project topics are not solely proposed by the faculty, and they are for the student and advisor to develop together. This is especially the case of engineering technology programs, where a large percentage of students have work background (either from military training or industry, as interns or full-time employees) to which they can relate their senior projects, and the programs allow and encourage them to apply their coursework studies to application areas where they have strong hands-on skills. While core courses of any curriculum provide the foundation of the engineering education, the elective courses give the students the chance to refine their education path and focus on the area of their interest. Senior elective courses are defining the areas of specialization within a major, and they may also serve as grounds for the students to explore potential options for the capstone project, and to have the opportunity to get a good starting point for it, ahead of the capstone semester. In this paper, the senior level courses specific to communication systems area of concentration within an electrical engineering technology program are discussed, their course content and the term projects included, and how they offer venues to capstone project choices. The paper presents specific examples of how these course projects gave students successful pathways for capstone projects. The course content that can be covered by the curriculum of an undergraduate technology program is somehow limited, especially for a broad field such as communication systems, and beyond the fundamental theories, the courses can go in more details only on very few narrow areas. Therefore, with a term project in an elective course, students have the opportunity of a semester of deeper study of a topic of their choice, and the learnings and new skills developed can be later applied for the completion of a capstone project. The paper also discusses students’ opinions on the option of developing initial results or skills as part of a course project and continuing such project into a senior project, as well as how their topic selection is related to their background, previous experience and future goals

Integrating Statistical Methods in Engineering Technology Courses

Statistical methods and procedures are very important in engineering applications. In most of the engineering fields electronic devices are used as sensing and controlling components. Lack of proper calibration of these devices and of performance analysis using different statistical methods may lead to erroneous measurements and results. In medical or manufacturing areas such errors in the experimental results could be catastrophic. Applying different statistical tests and procedures enhance the quality of engineering work. Traditionally, most engineering curricula have at least one required course in applied statistics in engineering, but that is not generally the case in engineering technology programs. Most of the engineering technology BS graduates work as field engineers and collect the data from different physical processes and do data analysis to validate the systems performances. Exposure to statistical methods use and data analysis will provide technology graduates with valuable skills in the current high-tech job market. This paper focuses on how statistical analysis and methods using hand calculations and software tools can be integrated in undergraduate engineering technology courses, enhancing the hands-on approach of real engineering projects with software assisted data analysis. Learning the skills of collecting experimental data from real processes and performing statistical analysis on it is the effective approach of solving engineering problems, and it provides higher learning outputs than simulation-based approach. Specifically, integration of statistical analysis was introduced in an industrial instrumentation class, in which the lab component included the use of various sensors and other measurement instruments. By the end of the class, students demonstrated newly acquired statistical skills by performing sensor calibration and they also applied simple linear regression analysis model on the experimental dat