Automatic control: a theme for first-year engineering study

Automatic control provides the perfect vehicle for introducing engineering concepts and engineering design to first-year students. It is multidisciplinary, universal, lends itself to exciting classroom demonstrations and can be presented in an introductory manner. In 1995, we developed such a course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as part of a broader activity in curriculum reform. This five-week Module was offered in 1996 for the first time and every year since then. It has been taken by more than 250 students from Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. We present a vision for first-year engineering study. We briefly discuss the content and structure of this course, share our experiences from teaching it over the last four years, provide reactions from students and discuss some new developments made possible by the Internet