TY - JOUR
T1 - Workshops for building the mechatronics and robotics engineering education community
AU - Gennert, Michael A.
AU - Lotfi, Nima
AU - Mynderse, James A.
AU - Jethwani, Monique
AU - Kapila, Vikram
N1 - Funding Information:
The support of the National Science Foundation through award #1842642 and the ongoing engagement and support of Quanser, Inc. is gratefully acknowledged. The authors extend their appreciation to the FoMRE Advisory Board for their generous commitment of time, excellent advice, and continued engagement.
Funding Information:
Monique Jethwani joined the full-time faculty at the Columbia School of Social Work in 2012. She previously served as a postdoctoral research scientist at CSSW’s Center for Research on Fathers, Children, and Family Well Being and is now the Assistant Dean of Faculty Development and Academic Affairs. Dr. Jethwani has decades of experience in developmental research, program development and evaluation. For the past ten years, she has evaluated several projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. These projects aim to engage middle school, high school and college students, and their teachers, in robotics and cyber security activities. Findings have identified strategies to better engage female and minority students in STEM related activities and careers. Dr. Jethwani holds a BA from Barnard College, an EdM from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a PhD from the New York University School of Culture, Education Human Development.
Funding Information:
Academic interest in Mechatronics and Robotics has grown considerably from individual courses, minors, and concentrations in CS, ECE, and ME departments to well-developed curricula that define distinct academic programs. An excellent recent survey of the state of robotics education is available in [2]. Although these programs share some common features, they have generally risen independently in the absence of a cohesive community of Mechatronics and Robotics educators. To initiate a conversation with other educators on mechatronics education, one of the authors (VK) organized a Mechatronics Education Innovation Workshop in November 2016 at New York University with financial support from the National Science Foundation and industrial partners [3]. Based on NYU’s experience in building a Mechatronics and Robotics program, this workshop initiated a dialog on mechatronics education with other educators in the field. The workshop was attended by more than 70 academic and industrial professionals from around the world. The main conversation topics included: required skillsets for MRE graduates, the role of industry in shaping MRE education, the key components of MRE programs, and how to best balance theory and practice. The fruitful discussions and interactions during the workshop sparked the idea to create an online community where MRE educators can exchange ideas, share curricula and best practices, and continue the conversation.
Funding Information:
Michael A. Gennert is Professor of Robotics Engineering, CS, and ECE at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he leads the WPI Humanoid Robotics Laboratory and was Founding Director of the Robotics Engineering Program. He has worked at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, the University of California Riverside, PAR Technology Corporation, and General Electric. He received the S.B. in CS, S.B. in EE, and S.M. in EECS in 1980 and the Sc.D. in EECS in 1987 from MIT. Dr. Gennert’s research interests include robotics, computer vision, and image processing, with ongoing projects in humanoid robotics, robot navigation and guidance, biomedical image processing, and stereo and motion vision. He led WPI teams in the DARPA Robotics Challenge and NASA Space Robotics Challenge and is author or co-author of over 100 papers. His research has been supported by DARPA, NASA, NIH, NSF, and industry. He is a member of Sigma Xi, and a senior member of IEEE and ACM.
Funding Information:
Vikram Kapila is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering (NYU Tandon), where he directs a Mechatronics, Controls, and Robotics Laboratory, a Research Experience for Teachers Site in Mechatronics and Entrepreneurship, a DR K-12 research project, and an ITEST research project, all funded by NSF. He has held visiting positions with the Air Force Research Laboratories
Funding Information:
To meet these goals, we organized a series of four workshops on the future of MRE education with support from the National Science Foundation and Quanser, Inc. The workshops aimed to achieve the following outcomes: • Standardize components such as frameworks, curricula, course outlines, experiments, assignments • Share broad successes of MRE community with college and university faculty to support goal of adoption • Involve a broad range of colleges and universities • Partner with professional societies to help create and support champions • Prepare faculty to teach mechatronics and robotics through hands-on activities • Foster a diverse, inclusive community of students and educators To maximize the number of potential attendees, to reach diverse audiences, and to reduce costs, the workshops were conducted in conjunction with existing conferences when possible. The first of these workshops was held at the Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC), in Atlanta, GA, Sep. 30-Oct. 3, 2018 [6]. DSCC, organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which typically draws Mechanical Engineering researchers, especially those interested in Control Systems, including Mechatronics. Results of this first workshop are described in [7]. Lessons learned from the evaluation of this first workshop were used to inform revisions in the content and format of subsequent workshops. The second workshop was held at the Robotics Summit and Expo, June 5-6th, 2019 in Boston, MA [8]. With a focus on commercial design and development, tShe Robotics Summit drew primarily industrial professionals with some academic participants. The third workshop was held at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference and Exposition, in Tampa, FL, June 15-19, 2019 [9]. The ASEE Annual Conference brings together professionals in all disciplines of engineering education to enhance curricula and pedagogy. The fourth and final workshop was held at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, September 28-29, 2019. This workshop differed from the first three in that it was a stand-alone event, in contrast to the conference affiliations of the other workshops, allowing more time to consider the topics in greater depth.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education 2020.
PY - 2020/6/22
Y1 - 2020/6/22
N2 - Intelligent Autonomous Systems, including Intelligent Manufacturing & Automation and Industry 4.0, have immense potential to improve human health, safety, and welfare. Engineering these systems requires an interdisciplinary knowledge of mechanical, electrical, computer, software, and systems engineering throughout the design and development process. Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (MRE) is emerging as a discipline that can provide the broad inter-disciplinary technical and professional skill sets that are critical to fulfill the research and development needs for these advanced systems. Despite experiencing tremendous, dynamic growth, MRE lacks a settled-on and agreed-upon body-of-knowledge, leading to unmet needs for standardized curricula, courses, laboratory platforms, and accreditation criteria, resulting in missed career opportunities for individuals and missed economic opportunities for industry. There have been many educational efforts around MRE, including courses, minors, and degree programs, but they have not been well integrated or widely adopted, especially in USA. To enable MRE to coalesce as a distinct and identifiable engineering field, the authors conducted four workshops on the Future of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (FoMRE) education at the bachelor's degree level. The overall goal of the workshops was to improve the quality of undergraduate MRE education and to ease the adoption of teaching materials to prepare graduates with a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical hands-on skills. To realize this goal, the specific objectives were to generate enthusiasm and a sense of community among current and future MRE educators, promote diversity and inclusivity within the MRE community, identify thought leaders, and seek feedback from the community to serve as a foundation for future activities. The workshops were intended to benefit a wide range of participants including educators currently teaching or developing programs in MRE, PhD students seeking academic careers in MRE, and industry professionals desiring to shape the future workforce. Workshop activities included short presentations on sample MRE programs, breakout sessions on specific topics, and open discussion sessions. As a result of these workshops, the MRE educational community has been enlarged and engaged, with members actively contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This paper presents the workshops' formats, outcomes, results of participant surveys, and their analyses. A major outcome was identifying concept, skill, and experience inventories organized around the dimensions of foundational/practical/applications and student preparation/MRE knowledgebase. Particular attention is given to the extent to which the workshops realized the project goals, including attendee demographics, changes in participant attitudes, and development of the MRE community. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned and a call for future activities to shape the field.
AB - Intelligent Autonomous Systems, including Intelligent Manufacturing & Automation and Industry 4.0, have immense potential to improve human health, safety, and welfare. Engineering these systems requires an interdisciplinary knowledge of mechanical, electrical, computer, software, and systems engineering throughout the design and development process. Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (MRE) is emerging as a discipline that can provide the broad inter-disciplinary technical and professional skill sets that are critical to fulfill the research and development needs for these advanced systems. Despite experiencing tremendous, dynamic growth, MRE lacks a settled-on and agreed-upon body-of-knowledge, leading to unmet needs for standardized curricula, courses, laboratory platforms, and accreditation criteria, resulting in missed career opportunities for individuals and missed economic opportunities for industry. There have been many educational efforts around MRE, including courses, minors, and degree programs, but they have not been well integrated or widely adopted, especially in USA. To enable MRE to coalesce as a distinct and identifiable engineering field, the authors conducted four workshops on the Future of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (FoMRE) education at the bachelor's degree level. The overall goal of the workshops was to improve the quality of undergraduate MRE education and to ease the adoption of teaching materials to prepare graduates with a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical hands-on skills. To realize this goal, the specific objectives were to generate enthusiasm and a sense of community among current and future MRE educators, promote diversity and inclusivity within the MRE community, identify thought leaders, and seek feedback from the community to serve as a foundation for future activities. The workshops were intended to benefit a wide range of participants including educators currently teaching or developing programs in MRE, PhD students seeking academic careers in MRE, and industry professionals desiring to shape the future workforce. Workshop activities included short presentations on sample MRE programs, breakout sessions on specific topics, and open discussion sessions. As a result of these workshops, the MRE educational community has been enlarged and engaged, with members actively contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This paper presents the workshops' formats, outcomes, results of participant surveys, and their analyses. A major outcome was identifying concept, skill, and experience inventories organized around the dimensions of foundational/practical/applications and student preparation/MRE knowledgebase. Particular attention is given to the extent to which the workshops realized the project goals, including attendee demographics, changes in participant attitudes, and development of the MRE community. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned and a call for future activities to shape the field.
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85095766856
SN - 2153-5965
VL - 2020-June
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
M1 - 1754
T2 - 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, ASEE 2020
Y2 - 22 June 2020 through 26 June 2020
ER -