A Mechatronics Course at Roger Williams University

This paper describes the Mechatronics course developed at Roger Williams University and offered in the Fall 2010 semester to juniors and seniors in the Mechanical Engineering Specialization. The course is a novel combination of lecture and laboratory experiences conducted in an electronics teaching laboratory. Topics of the course include sensors, real-time software, electronics, actuators and mechanics. Students devote most course time to a semester-long design project, the development of an autonomous device to collect and sort black and white balls on a playfield. Students are issued a RoboStamp kit that includes an iStamp onboard computer with eight digital, eight analog, three hobby servo motor and two H-bridge motor channels. Although the kit comes with a few pre-made sensors, students construct the majority of their sensors from electronic sub-components. Throughout the semester, students must achieve carefully designed milestones, each representing a necessary but insufficient capability for completing the design project. For example, one milestone requires that the device correctly identify four of five balls gathered under its own power. Because the bulk of the work is performed in four-student groups, individual mastery of the content is measured through a series of “individual lab practicum”. These are single-period laboratory projects students must complete without assistance from group members. This paper will describe the results of the Fall 2010 class and discuss the effectiveness of the individual lab practicum, the use of milestones and considerations for selecting milestones. The presentation will include video of the student devices performing the task and highlight the variety of electromechanical components utilized.