De Vries, C., & WU, Y., & Ford, M. R., & Onipede, O. (2015, June), Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.25006

\bibitem{asee_peer_25006}
  De Vries, C., \& WU, Y., \& Ford, M. R., \& Onipede, O. (2015, June), \emph{Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.25006

Charlotte De Vries, Yi WU, Melanie R. Ford, and Oladipo Onipede Jr..  "Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/25006 Internet.  11 Jan, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_25006}
  Charlotte De Vries, Yi WU, Melanie R. Ford, and Oladipo Onipede Jr..
  "Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/25006 Internet.  11 Jan, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_25006
author = "Charlotte De Vries, Yi WU, Melanie R. Ford, and Oladipo Onipede Jr."
title = "Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/25006}
number = {10.18260/p.25006}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -         Using Mindstorms in a Control Systems Lab to impact next generation                                    engineersTeaching students about control systems is challenging, specifically due to the increasedmathematics necessary to fully understand the topic. The LEGO Mindstorms kits, due to theirlow-cost, simplicity, and great flexibility, have been widely used in K-12 and colleges for hands-on teaching of robotics and controls. [University X] is an affiliate partner with [X League] andoffers a variety of resources for those teams. Thanks to the [X grant], we are able to incorporateLEGO Mindstorms NXT to develop control lab activities that can be used for K-12 outreach andundergraduate education to foster an interest in Mechanical Engineering, as well as college levellab activities for the purpose of educating students in controls and systems.The hand-on experience developed includes an outreach workshop for K-12 programs: animmersive 3 hour control systems workshop for use in the Minority College Experience/Womenin Science and Engineering (MCE/WISE) program was conducted in July, 2014 with over 40students. The MCE/WISE programs are free programs, offered by University X, designed forminority or female students from the [local] area in the summer before their senior year in highschool. These programs offer students the opportunity to explore their options in highereducation and examine possible career paths. In this workshop, those high school students notonly have the chance to build an automated wheeled car and a grasping robotic arm, but alsoobserve that changing controller parameters in Matlab/Simulink results in changing performanceof their robots. The outreach activity instruction was developed by two junior ME studentssupported by [University X] Undergraduate research fund, under the supervision of one faculty.This outreach lab can be incorporated into any immersive engineering outreach activity formiddle school or older students.Additionally, three lab activities for junior mechanical engineering students were created. TheDepartment of Mechanical Engineering of [University X] offers a course, System Dynamics,which covers theory of modeling, analysis, and control of dynamic systems. Simulation tools(MATLAB/Simulink) were used extensively throughout the course. An end of semester position-tracking project, using a Quanser DC controller unit, was the only hands-on experience provided.Due to the limited availability of these units, students’ experience was limited to fifteen minutesof experiment verification of their PI controllers. The newly designed Lego labs are offeredstarting from Fall 2014, and are expected to impact more than 100 students annually. The labsinclude a time response of first order system and transfer function identification and verification,a time response of second order system, a PID controller design for a tracking problem, andnonlinearity in system modeling. Those lab activities in System Dynamics course will evolveinto a one-credit lab course, Dynamics and Control, to be incorporated in the curriculum of theMechanical Engineering, in the efforts of creating a specialized dynamics and control track forstudents. This effort is aimed to attract mechanical engineering students to pursue future careersin the field of dynamics and controls.                                                                                         Page  1  of  1    
AU  - Charlotte De Vries
AU  - Yi WU
AU  - Melanie R. Ford
AU  - Oladipo Onipede Jr.
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Using LEGO MINDSTORMS in a Control Systems Lab to Impact Next-generation Engineers (Work in Progress)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/25006
DO  - 10.18260/p.25006
ER  -