New Approach to Teach Product Design that Breaks the Disciplinary Boundaries

This paper presents an initiative and a strategy to teach product design to students in different engineering technology fields through cross departmental collaboration and cooperation between faculty members in the Mechanical Engineering Technology and the Computer Engineering Technology Departments. The work is funded by the National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education Division (Award No. DUE-1003712) recently awarded to New York City College of Technology. Traditional approach to teach product design in a college setting was mostly confined by disciplinary boundaries. There were very little or no collaborations among various engineering departments. Advances in computer technology and semiconductor electronics have created a new product design field called mechatronics. Mechatronics treats product design as system design that requires the tight integration of mechanical components, electrical/electronic systems, industrial design ideas, computer-control systems, embedded systems, and intelligent software into the product design and development processes. Most of the products now being developed are mechatronics in nature. To help students to understand the multidisciplinary nature of the product design, various hands-on product design projects have been developed by the faculty members in the two engineering departments. Students from four different fields of the two departments (mechanical engineering technology, industrial design technology, electromechanical engineering technology and computer engineering technology) have been involved in these projects. Students are divided into design teams. Each design team consists of students from different fields. Joint class sessions are being held and taught by faculties from the two departments at different stages of the design project. Students started to gain important experience in team work, time management, and collaboration and cooperation through various design activities. This concurrent engineering and mechatronic design approach, which emphasizes team collaboration, has become the new industry standard in product design and development. Students were given specific mechatronic/robotic design projects that required them to use actual mechanical, electrical/electronic hardware and software that are being currently used by the industry. This enable the instructor to simulate actual product design activities occurred in the industry. Not only were students exposed to the latest mechatronic technology, they also learn the concurrent engineering design approach in the process. Students were provided with a framework of fundamental design knowledge with hands-on cross-disciplinary activities that allow them to develop an interdisciplinary understanding and integrated approach to product design. Through these hands-on activities, students will also learn the concept of product lifecycle management and sharpen their teamwork skills. 1. Mechatronics: The New Trend in Product Design Mechatronics is defined as a design field with multidisciplinary engineering approach. It is the synergistic combination of mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, P ge 22098.2 computer engineering, and systems design engineering in order to design and manufacture useful products. To put into perspective, mechatronics treats product design as a system design that requires the tight integration of mechanical components, electrical/electronic systems, industrial design ideas, computer-control systems, embedded systems, and intelligent software into the product design and development processes. It also requires engineers, technicians, and designers from various disciplines to possess broader knowledge beyond their specialized fields and to work together concurrently 1-2 . This concurrent engineering and mechatronic design approach, which emphasizes team collaboration, has become the new industry standard in product design and development. Mechatronic technology has been identified as one of the top 10 highly influential emerging technologies of the 21 st century by MIT’s Technology Review and by the International Center for Leadership in Education 3-4 . 2. Mechatronics Technology Center: Platform for Inter-Departmental Collaboration The Mechatronics Technology Center (MTC) provides a unique platform for faculty and students to engage in hands-on work. Faculty members and students from different programs (mechanical engineering technology, electro-mechanical engineering technology, computer engineering technology, and industrial design technology) meet in the center to discuss and share their ideas, to test design concepts, to experiment with and to hold workshops and seminars. The MTC consists of a new robotic laboratory and several existing laboratories. The existing laboratories are: CAD, Materials Testing, Manufacturing, Control Systems, Instrumentation, and Computer Controlled Systems Laboratories. These state of the art software and hardware give designers the necessary freedom to choose and test their design ideas. They enable designers to try different options and to offer different design alternatives. New machines such as a CNC milling center, injection molding, water jet, and 3D printers have been utilized by faculty and students to make parts for their design projects. The robotic laboratory features robotic systems from National Instruments, Lego Mindstorm, and Arduino. These systems have the following unique features: Open Architecture. Unlike many other educational robot kits, which provide a fixed configuration and are used mainly for programming, this robot system provides mainly the enabling components used in the industry (robot controller, electrical/electronic devices, motors, sensors, diagnostic software etc). This provides opportunity to create projects to simulate actual industry activities in design, construct, test, evaluate, and program mechatronic products. It emphasizes creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and hands-on teamwork. The Robotic Technology used in the Industry. The National Instrument’s state of the art CompactRIO (cRIO) programmable automation controller is used as the robot controller by many companies 5 . The cRIO features embedded real-time processor for reliable stand-alone or distributed operation and is embedded with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip to provide the flexibility, performance, and reliability for custom hardware integration. This will enable us to create projects that touch all aspects of mechatronic design and P ge 22098.3 applications. The Lego’s Mindstorm NXT Brick and Arduino Micro Controller as the robot controller provide affordable alternatives for students’ low cost design projects. They will also be used to teach robot programming and control. These three robotic systems are being used to address different needs of the program. The details of the state-of-art software and hardware are shown in the following Table 1: Table 1: Software and Hardware