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Emerging From Engineering Education

– Building a Remotely Operated Submarine

Hong Zhang, Bernard Pietrucha, John Chen

Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, 08028, USA

Abstract

In spring 2004, the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Rowan University offered a new course called “Emerging Topic – Designing and Building a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)”. It is a project-based course where students are required to design, build and operate a submersible with provided materials. This course integrated many engineering aspects into one project and also exposed mechanical engineering students to Mechatronics. The course was welcomed by students and the response from them was quite positive.

1. Introduction

Established in 1994, the College of Engineering at Rowan University is known for its hallmark of hands-on education from its first day. The unique Engineering Clinic series leads the way of hands-on minds-on education, while many traditionally theoretical courses also introduced various projects to bring more hands-on flavor. Following this tradition, many new courses were also proposed and introduced with heavy emphasis on projects and hands- on experience. In the spring 2004, the department of Mechanical Engineering of Rowan University developed a new breed of senior course, which is currently named “Emerging Topic – Designing and Building a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)”. It is a project-based course where students are required to design, build and operate a submersible with provided materials. At the end of the semester, the finished ROVs competed in a series of underwater events in the Rowan swimming pool and also performed a field exploration in a local pond.

In recent years, robots and various kinds of ROVs are becoming increasingly popular in scientific research, education and public entertainment. To many people, they have become almost the hallmark of modern engineering and technology, especially the “real” tangible part of the field. Among the various ROVs, we chose the underwater ROV to be the subject of our new hands-on project based course since its skill level is proper for undergraduate education and its operation is manageable within the scope of a regular course.

The course proved to be successful. It not only provided a memorable experience for the students during their final semester, but also helped the seniors to refresh and apply the knowledge they learned during the past years. This course also exposed Mechanical

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ©2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Zhang, H., & Chen, J., & Pietrucha, B. (2005, June), Emerging From Engineering Education – Building A Remotely Operated Submarine Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15582