Microcontroller/Mechatronics Education of Non-Electrical Engineering Students

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Engineering - Mechanical (56)The project is adapting educational materials, concepts, and methodologies from successful mechatronics/microcontroller courses developed at Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) and Ohio State University (OSU). The components of these courses regarding manufacturing applications of mechatronics systems, and controls and Actuators are being adapted to the specifics of South Carolina industry. The adapted course components will be incorporated into the engineering curriculum in the form of updated and enhanced laboratory equipment/procedures, advanced programming and simulation software, and state-of-the-art instruction delivery/training methods. Mechatronics/Microcontroller teaching laboratory is being equipped with new 16-bit microcontroller hardware, state-of-the-art microcontroller programming and simulation software, Digital Signal Processor (DSP) development kit, mobile robots hardware, and PC-based data acquisition and process control functioning units. All these result in offer state-of-the-art educational and instructional environment to the USC students.Self-teaching instructional modules are being developed around the programming and simulation software. These modules, consistent with web-based delivery, are going to greatly enhance teaching and education productivity in the area of Mechatronics/Microcontrollers. These activities complement the current USC effort to introduce information technology across the campus. The University of South Carolina has formed a campus-wide task force on "informatics" under the leadership of the College of Library and Information Science. The self-teaching modules to be developed through this project support the campus-wide initiative and have the potential for being extended to other campuses. The project targets a special audience consisting of a large proportion of women (22%) and minorities (30%).