Enhancing interdisciplinary hands-on education

Project introduction and background information

The project "proposal Enhancing interdisciplinary hands-on education in the field of Magnetic Levitation mobility and Signals Analysis and Control“ aims at enhancing hands-on education in the DBL Signals & Systems project-oriented course, but also in other EE DBL courses (i.e., Wireless charging) and in ME courses such as Signals 4CA00 which will become a new course Signals & Systems in 2018; USE project Robots (0LAUK0); and, DBL project Robotarm, 4GB020. 

To do so, it becomes essential to first develop an educational approach to solve physics problems with a broader perspective. AP students follow a linear approach to analyze physical models in the form of differential equations, to further analyze them with the Laplace transformation. However, students from other engineering domains apply a perhaps more trial-and-error-based approach allowing them to think out-of-the-box. The need to have students from different domains to collaborate in applying knowledge and skills in hands-on assignments and share solving problems approaches becomes of paramount importance to educate the Physicists and Engineers for the Future. By doing so, we believe students will learn different signal analysis and control models that may also be applied in the field of magnetic gravitation. In order to achieve these goals, building the infrastructure for these DBL courses in the Innovation Space is essential. 

Objective and expected outcomes

This kind of natural way of exchanging collaborative knowledge will be only fostered if students work together in an environment which promotes interdisciplinary learning. The opportunities that Innovation Space brings about are essential to upgrade the DBL Signals & Systems course. Finally, learning in a different way requires a different method to assess interdisciplinary knowledge and skills as well.

• To develop an educational approach to solve problems suitable for interdisciplinary hands-on assignments;
• To initiate the collaboration among three departments involved in this proposal (AP, EE & ME) by working towards a hands-on (didactical) interdisciplinary approach for DBL projects.
• To create a link with the TU/e Innovation Space, as the project will be carried out (at least 3 groups of the DBL Signals & Systems project) in the Innovation Space location in Matrix.
• To create the infrastructure in the Innovation Space so that AP, EE and ME can be challenged to carry out activities in the premises of the Innovation Space.

The fact that this project is carried out in a collaborative manner will foster sustainability and transferability. In addition, as this project targets the premises of Innovation Space to carry out the courses, potential collaborations will be pursued and, therefore, sustainability will be enhanced.

This project is still ongoing, but the following outcomes are expected:

• Educational approach (to solve problems suitable for interdisciplinary hands-on assignments) has been developed in several courses.
• Assessment method to assess knowledge and skills in interdisciplinary hands-on assignments has been developed and tested in several courses.
• Collaboration has been started among departments in the field of hands-on and interdisciplinary education. AP, EE & ME share knowledge and experiences and educational approach is used in other courses, by dissemination activities (see dissemination plan, section VI in this proposal);
• The DBL Signals & Systems project has been implemented in the Innovation Space.
• The infrastructure of the Innovation Space has been created that facilitates the implementation of the DBL Signals and Systems (best three groups) and the potential implementation of other EE and ME courses in the Innovation Space.