“Moving Towards a More Systems Approach in a Robotics BasedIntroductory Engineering Course at Mount Holyoke College”

摘要

Introducing engineering principles and practices to students in an all-female liberal artsrninstitution is a challenging task. This paper documents the challenges and progress madernin developing and teaching a robotics based introductory engineering course at MountrnHolyoke College. The course was offered for the first time in Spring '04 and, afterrnmodifications, was offered again in Fall '04. Though the hands-on design experience ofrnbuilding an autonomous robot proved successful in the first version of the course, wernfound that the time and frustration involved in programming autonomous robotsrnprevented students from being exposed to a wider array of engineering problems andrnskills. Through the development of wireless communication and tele-operationrnlaboratory modules, we hope to shift the focus away from the programming complexitiesrninvolved in an autonomous robot competition and towards the robotic system itself,rnallowing students to more fundamentally explore both component and system issues. Atrnthe component level, students in the second course are more substantively exposed tornelectronics and modeling while the coupling of the new laboratory modules with novelrnteaching pedagogies provides an opportunity to explicitly address systems issues such asrncomponent integration, communication, and sensor networks. As motivating femalernengineers is our guiding priority, it is the goal of this course to combine the strengths of arnhands-on design course with a rigorous introduction to necessary tools, intuitions, andrncritical thinking that will help enable the student to grapple with many differentrnengineering problems both in academia and the real world.