A wireless, 3D printed loudspeaker made by a student team at the BSc course “Mechatronics Engineering Design”. Bang & Olufsen supplied the hardware for the
prototypes.
This hands-on case of different means of producing orange juice
accelerates the students’ understanding and analytical approach to
subjects like life cycle thinking, product development, and sustainable
innovation.
Professor Tim McAloone’s use of cases and hands-on examples was
highlighted as one of his key characteristics as a teacher by a number
of students who nominated him for the award Lecturer of the Year
2017.
Mechatronics: from a conceptual course to hands-on
prototyping
A number of courses at DTU Mechanical Engineering have undergone
a transformation from lecturing to activating the students with hands
on projects, among them the BSc course “Mechatronics Engineering
Design”. Associate Professor Ali Gürcan Özkil is course responsible and
he describes this transformation: “The course was created because we
needed the skills within the field of mechatronics in the curriculum,
and we had to have a course that incorporates skills from a broad
spectrum like electronics, software engineering, mechanics, design, and
entrepreneurship. In the beginning, it was very conceptual and similar
to other courses with classroom teaching and slides, but it soon evolved
into being extremely hands-on and focused on prototypes.”
The main focus of the course is still the same theory, but with
assignments and the so called sprints which are short time projects
for teams. The course is organized with four sprints during the whole
course, so the structure is 4-5 weeks, and then one project, 4-5 weeks,
then another project. The first project is more thematic and the last is
combining the different subjects. All teams end up with a functioning
prototype.
Ali Gürcan Özkil definitely sees great advantages in learning with
hands-on design projects and prototyping for future engineers: “It’s
what we are looking for in the modern world: If you talk to people who
hire students when they graduate, when you read academic papers,
when you hear politicians talk, the theme is all about this. People who
can actually do things; engineers who can engineer.”
“We can see that prototyping is extremely
important if you want to make a start-up,
or if you want to work for a large company
developing new products.”
According to the course leader, the ability to conceive and create
prototypes is of great importance to engineers, and especially to design
engineers or engineers who are going to contribute to industry. “We
can see that prototyping is extremely important if you want to make
a start-up, or if you want to work for a large company developing
new products. Prototypes are where ideas make or break. If you can’t
prototype a nice design from the screen or from some calculations, it
doesn’t become anything. We are still living in the physical world, and
that’s why prototyping is so important in all engineering education, and
especially in design engineering and mechanical engineering.”
Basically the students learn to cross the gap from calculating
something and drawing it on a screen, to creating a proof of concept
that actually works according to the laws of physics and the
limitations of manufacturing. Mechatronics is also a subject that
forces each student into developing knowledge about a wide variety
of disciplines from electronics, sensors, software, mechanics, design,
and manufacturing. The students in the course come from different
study lines, most of them are from Design and Innovation, but there
are normally also students from Mechanical Engineering, Software
Technology and even external students.
Engineers with Swiss-army knife profiles
The students are developing cross disciplinary skills when working
with prototypes, and this has an important perspective for industry and
society. This became very apparent to Ali Gürcan Özkil at the seminar
“Mechatronics in engineering education”, which was held this summer:
“We hosted a seminar in mechatronics in June, and the feedback we
received from the industrial participants was that what we need are
engineers who can pick up the problems and come with solutions right
after their graduation. This is especially important in Denmark where
the economy is driven by small to medium sized companies that don’t
have the strength and the power of very large companies. For small
24 Do it and learn - Educating engineers at DTU Mechanical Engineering