Robotics in Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Virginia Military Institute

Abstract

Increasingly universities are adopting a robotics-centric approach to teach their freshmen Introduction to Electrical Engineering: 23% of this year's top-rated engineering schools with an introductory course incorporate a significant amount of robotics into their curricula. Besides teaching concepts from analog, digital, control, and programming courses, students find robots inherently appealing - an important attribute in this national climate of decreasing engineering enrollment. Published data indicate universities tend to either have students build prepackaged robot kits, which stress programming skills, or less commonly have students design their own from discrete components, which stresses interdisciplinary (e.g. mechanical) design and team collaboration. In this paper we describe an intermediate approach we have taken at the Virginia Military Institute. Our students begin with a pre-built mobile base, and then using discrete parts they breadboard a controller, the sensor arrays, and control electronics. In this manner we concentrate on core electrical engineering topics: basic analog and digital circuitry, computer architecture, and machine-level programming, while providing some controlled opportunities for students to make design choices and experiment with the open-architecture system.