Abstract
Robotics-based capstone design projects provide unique educational opportunities for engineering students and help prepare them as future professional engineers. Robotics projects allow students to experience all steps of the engineering design cycle and to extend their knowledge in a wide range of subjects across multiple disciplines that include electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering. Designing and building robots for capstone design projects support a number of student learning outcomes. These include (i) the ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs; (ii) the ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives; (iii) the ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences; and (iv) the ability to create and use software both as an analysis and design tool and as part of systems containing hardware and software. Over the last 15 years, several engineering student teams from our robotics lab built mobile robots and competed in the annual robotics event organized by Region 5 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity (https://www.ieee.org). IEEE is organized into ten regions worldwide. Region 5 is comprised of states within the southwestern region of the United States that include Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois (southern), Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska (western), New Mexico (southern), Oklahoma, South Dakota (western), Texas, and Wyoming (eastern) (http://ieeer5.org)) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, one of the world’s largest technical professional organizations. Every year, the competition theme is different and the event hosts more than 30 student teams from different universities from Region 5. Robots designed for the competition are expected to autonomously complete a specified number of tasks on a playing field. This chapter presents an overview of our robotics lab educational program and chronicles the experience of a team of engineering students who built a mobile robot as part of their capstone design project for the 2018 robotics competition. The educational values gained from working on a robotics-themed capstone project and the lessons learned from the participation in the robotics competition are discussed.
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- 1.
ABET accredits postsecondary education programs in computing, engineering, and engineering technology in 32 countries. The accreditation of these programs occurs mainly in the United States (https://www.abet.org).
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Based on the ABET revised student learning outcomes that become effective in the 2019–2020 cycle.
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Roberts, S., Acosta, J., Garza, S., Ben Ghalia, M., Foltz, H. (2019). Designing a Competition Robot as a Capstone Project for Electrical and Computer Engineering Students. In: Daniela, L. (eds) Smart Learning with Educational Robotics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19913-5_13
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