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Session 3548

Featuring Robotics in a Senior Design Capstone Course

Harry W. Fox Cleveland State University

Abstract For the past few years the Department of Engineering Technology have offered a senior design capstone course that helps Electronic Engineering Technology students develop interdisciplinary skills and knowledge to work on designs and products requiring the integration of mechanical, electrical, and microprocessor-control systems. Mechatronics is a term frequently used for this integration. The course features an autonomous mobile robot that the students must design, fabricate, test, and document. The course incorporates recent TAC/ABET (Technology Accreditation Commission of Accrediting Board of Engineering and Technology) guidelines concerning open-ended design problems. In this course and under these guidelines the students develop creativity, refine and use accepted design methods, formulate problem statements and specifications, consider alternative solutions and determine feasibility issues, and create detailed system descriptions. Students work individually or in teams of two or three on their projects. Lecturing is kept to a minimum and the class takes on a more or less studio-learning atmosphere, with the instructor acting as an advisor and making rounds to each project to check on progress in meeting developmental milestones and to offer guidance. Students are required to meet five check-point deadlines and the finished robot is to exhibit three behavioral objectives. This robotics project has become very popular with the students and has even attracted some students who are Computer Information Science majors to select the course as a technical elective. This senior design course featuring autonomous mobile robots, now in its fifth year, continues to be rated highly by students as an opportunity in which they experienced both teamwork and personal achievement in the hands-on application of the knowledge gained during the course of their bachelor’s degree program.

Introduction The Engineering Technology Department at Cleveland State University offers two degree programs: a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET). These are 2 + 2 programs in which students must first complete the Associate of Applied Science Degree in Electronic or Mechanical Engineering Technology from a regionally accredited community college, technical institute, or university branch before transferring to CSU to complete the upper-division courses in years three and four of a bachelor’s degree program. Graduates from ET Department programs, as well as those from other CSU programs, generally find employment in the local community.

All fourth-year students in their final term at CSU are required to take a senior capstone design course in order to be graduated. Two senior design courses are generally offered in each

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering

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Fox, H. (2004, June), Featuring Robotics In A Senior Design Capstone Course Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13961