Attracting College and High School Students to Study Engineering Technology through Hands-on Mechatronics Product Design Projects

This poster presents the work on using hands-on mechatronics design activities to attract college, as well as high school students, to study engineering technology. This work is supported by a grant from National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technology Education (ATE) division. The Mechatronics Technology Center (MTC) established by the grant enables faculty members from different engineering technology fields to collaborate to introduce mechatronics technology to college students through multidisciplinary hands-on design projects, enable students from mechanical engineering technology, computer engineering technology, electrical engineering technology, industrial design technology, computer system technology to work together to engage in various hands-on undergraduate research projects, enable the college to reach out to high school students from more than 30 local high schools who have interest in engineering through hands-on robotic design projects. These hands-on activities exposed the latest mechatronics technology to the students and at the same time encourage the students to study engineering technology. Engineering technology encompasses many engineering technology fields: mechanical engineering technology, electrical engineering technology, and computer engineering technology, etc. Our integrated hands-on approach in introducing the multidisciplinary design projects to students, make them to realize the intrinsic relations among the four STEM fields and their interdependency.