Installation of Mechatronics Education Using the MindStorms for Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, O.N.C.T

In Dept. of Mechanical Engineering of Oita National College of Technology, mechatronics education initially starts for the first grade students as a part of the mechanical experimental program. A MindStorms is adopted as an education tool of our mechatronics course. Using this, the students can experimentally learn the common factors of mechatronics, such as mechanism, sensor, controller, and actuator. This course consists of six weeks, three hours a week. The forty-one students took this course in 2006, they were divided into four groups, and therefore about ten students participated in this course at the same time. After learning how to assemble a mechanism, use sensors, and make a program, they finally challenged an obstacle avoidance problem of autonomous robot. Most of the students were strongly interested in the mechatronics after the course finished.