INTEGRATING REAL INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCES INTO THE CURRICULUM THROUGH ROBOTICS APPLICATIONS

Integrating real industrial applications and bringing actual engineering problems into the curriculum is always a win-win activity. The educational benefits of such activity are countless. In addition to industry, professional engineering organizations can be a great resource to support actual engineering projects and mentor engineering students. Partnering with industry, professional engineering organization, and any similar entity, allows the students a unique opportunity to gain exposure and practice real engineering before graduation. The challenge with this concept is to find and run the appropriate project or activity that will simultaneously meet the expectations of all parties and fulfill the educational objectives, while conforming to the time limitations of the course. This paper presents and evaluates such experience through two examples of projects utilizing robotics to achieve engineering educational goals through the design and build of functional industry-grade systems. The first project was performed by an interdisciplinary engineering team of students to solve an actual industrial problem. The project was sponsored by an industrial customer and produced a functional prototype that achieved the required goals and was ready to be duplicated at the customer's site. The second project was also performed by a team of engineering students to design and build an industrial scale functional robotic manipulator in partnership with a professional engineering organization. The external organization sponsored the project and provided some professional engineers as mentors. The outcome of the project was a mobile 5-axis robotic manipulator that is used for many engineering demo and recruiting events. These projects are examples of ways in which real engineering exercises can be integrated into the curriculum to enhance the educational process and improve collaboration between academia and other engineering entities.