Development of Smart Technologies With an Entrepreneurship Focus as a Novel Engineering Teaching Model

Teaching engineering, and chemical engineering in particular, heavily relies on laboratory work and it is not uncommon that students may have limited access to and use of big and robust equipment needed to experience and confirm the theoretical contents exposed in classrooms. Today, the advances in artificial intelligence, and the new student perceptions about business and entrepreneurship require students to translate their engineering ideas and to connect them to current requirements of technologies along with other subjects such as programming, control, and business. Academic institutions may not have access to large equipment due to their high costs. This situation limits the experience of students implementing in practice what they learn in classrooms. The availability of low-cost sensors and the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) allows the readily fabrication of testing equipment The objective of this research work was to evaluate the potential of a learning strategy model based on the design, fabrication and use of smart technologies by chemical engineering students, and to orient their learning as an early stage on entrepreneurship. Students designed, constructed, and instrumented three different apparatus: a reactor, a set of pipes, and a set of 4 packed bed columns. After 12 months, students expressed a better understanding of the theoretical principles and developed their entrepreneurship skills by learning how to instrument and control some experimental variables, as well as exploring the marketing potential of the apparatus as entrepreneurs. A cost analysis showed that the investment in this equipment could be between 10 % and 25 % of the cost that is currently on the market.