Course Syllabus

Introduction to Mechatronics

Intro to Mechatronics (Robotics)

Instructor(s):

1 Year Course M-F

Period 2 RRoom 806

Instructor:

Phone:(714) 996-4970 ext. 10806

Email:

Office Hours:T-W-TH before School or by appointment

Textbook

None

Course Overview

Mechatronics is the branch of engineering that is concerned with technological systems that incorporate mechanical, electrical, and software components.

Introduction to Mechatronics is a two semester course designed to ensure that high school students learn about the technology that affects their lives, to help them decide what, if any, branch of technology or engineering might offer them a satisfying career, and to prepare them for more advanced technology and engineering courses.

In addition to acquiring mathematical, science, and communication skills, students are introduced to the use of the engineering process to solve technological problems and to the use of selected software and hardware tools. In a hands-on environment students solve assigned by creating solutions that require mechanical, electrical, and/or software elements. Students must demonstrate that their solutions are adequate through demonstrations and oral and written reports.

This integrated linkage of technical and academic skills prepares high school students for enrollment in advanced academic, vocational, and technical courses at all educational levels.

Goals:

  1. To introduce students to engineering and technology, particularly in the fields of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, with a view to helping them decide what, if any, engineering field would provide them with a desirable career.
  2. To give students an introductory level of knowledge in the following processes and tools with a view to providing them a solid foundation for future high school, college, and career technical education.
  3. The engineering process
  4. The role of an engineer as an innovator
  5. The creation of new documents and the annotation of existing documents
  6. Programming and IDE’s
  7. Simple electrical circuits, simple photonics, and the related role of the atom
  8. The use of spreadsheets to analyze data
  9. The use of CAD tools in the design process
  10. The use of CAM tools in the manufacturing process
  11. Simple active web page operation and the relationship to the cloud and to servers
  12. Basic operation of the world wide web and Ethernet networks

Course Pre-Requisites

Required:None

Recommended:Algebra 1 and/or Comp Tech and Pre-Engineering Tech

Course Resources

Online curriculum available through school Network

There is no textbook. All materials are provided through the school network or the Internet.

Software used includes but is not limited to:

  1. Solidworks
  2. Microsoft Excel
  3. Visual Studio
  4. Atmel IDE
  5. BeyondCompare3
  6. OMAX software Suite
  7. Interactive C/Robot C

Grading

Your grade in this class will be based on take home and in class assignments, technician’s journal, labs, chapter examunit project scores, and a final project (deta hands on skills final and an online comprehensive finalails will be given in later documents and online)..

Assignments15%100% - 90%A

Labs15%89.9%- 75% B

Unit examsprojects20%74.9%- 60%C

Hands-on Final Project20%59.9%- 40%D

Tech Journal10%39.9%- 0%F

Your final grade will be determined by the total number of points received compared to the total number of points available. If you receive an 89.9 you will get a B+, NOT an A-!! Please check your grade repeatedly during the semester!!!!

NO HOMEWORK MAY BE TURNED IN LATE unless prior arrangements have been made with the instructor, or you have an EXCUSED absence. LATE IS IF YOU TURN IN THE ASSIGNMENT AFTER THE POSTED DUE TIME IN NETSPACE. It is the student’s responsibility to find out what the homework assignment was during the class that was missed. The student is still responsible for turning in that assignment!!!!Homework is due as assigned. The Placentia Yorba Linda USD homework policy will be followed.

Course Objectives by Chapter (For a Detailed list of the following objectives please go my web page ______)

UNIT 1 Engineering Process Theory.

UNIT 2 Engineering Process Practice

UNIT 3 The role of an engineer as an innovator – innovation versus copying

UNIT 4 The role of an engineer as an innovator – revolution versus evolution

UNIT 5 Documentation research versus scientific/engineering research.

UNIT 6 The creation of new documents and the annotation of existing documents

UNIT 7 Programming and IDEs.

UNIT 8 Simple electrical circuits, simple photonics, and the related role of the atom

UNIT 9 The use of spreadsheets to analyze data

UNIT 10 The use of CAD tools in the design process

UNIT 11 The use of CAM tools in the manufacturing process.

UNIT 12 Simple active web page operation and the relationship to the cloud and to servers.

UNIT 13 Basic operation of the World Wide Web and Ethernet networks.

UNIT 14 Basic hand tools: proper usage

Course Objectives by Chapter

8. COURSE CONTENT – LABORATORY SCIENCE

[If "d-Laboratory Science" chosen]

Please choose a subject area for this course:

___ Biology
___ Chemistry
___ Physics
___ Integrated Science
_X_ Interdisciplinary Science

COURSE CONTENT

A. Course Purpose

What is the purpose of this course? Please provide a brief description of the goals and expected outcomes. Note: more specificity than a simple recitation of the State Standards is needed.

Mechatronics is the branch of engineering that is concerned with technological systems that incorporate mechanical, electrical, and software components.

Introduction to Mechatronics is a two semester course designed to ensure that high school students learn about the technology that affects their lives, to help them decide what, if any, branch of technology or engineering might offer them a satisfying career, and to prepare them for more advanced technology and engineering courses.

In addition to acquiring mathematical, science, and communication skills, students are introduced to the use of the engineering process to solve technological problems and to the use of selected software and hardware tools. In a hands-on environment students solve assigned by creating solutions that require mechanical, electrical, and/or software elements. Students must demonstrate that their solutions are adequate through demonstrations and oral and written reports.

This integrated linkage of technical and academic skills prepares high school students for enrollment in advanced academic, vocational, and technical courses at all educational levels.

Goals:

To introduce students to engineering and technology, particularly in the fields of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, with a view to helping them decide what, if any, engineering field would provide them with a desirable career.

To give students an introductory level of knowledge in the following processes and tools with a view to providing them a solid foundation for future high school, college, and career technical education.

The engineering process

The role of an engineer as an innovator

The creation of new documents and the annotation of existing documents

Programming and IDE’s

Simple electrical circuits, simple photonics, and the related role of the atom

The use of spreadsheets to analyze data

The use of CAD tools in the design process

The use of CAM tools in the manufacturing process

Simple active web page operation and the relationship to the cloud and to servers

Basic operation of the world wide web and Ethernet networks

Outcomes:

By the end of this course, each student will be able to:

Determine the appropriate process to follow in solving a specific problem.

Understand the tradeoffs between copying, integration, and innovation.

Understand the role of documentation in the engineering process and be able to describe the general nature of the documentation needed in the solving of a specific problem.

Understand the purpose of integrated development environments (IDEs) and be able to use selected common IDEs at an introductory level.

Demonstrate an introductory knowledge of simple electrical circuits, sensors, and actuators, including photo-electric devices.

Understand the purpose of computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software and be able to use one CAD and one CAM system at an introductory level.

Understand that spreadsheets are one tool for the analysis of data and demonstrate such usage for one straightforward engineering problem.

Understand the general structure and operation of active web pages including the role of conventional and cloud servers, and create one simple web application.

Understand the general structure and operation of the world wide web and wired Ethernet networks, including basic address resolution and routing, and analyze one simple address resolution and one simple routing problem.

(Rev 0.1 – 9/1/2015 6:12:00 AM5/30/2014 7:39:00 PM – year-1-UC.doc)1/34 Section A – Course Purpose

Course Syllabus

Introduction to Mechatronics

B. Course Outline

Detailed description of topics covered. Show examples of how the text is incorporated into the topics covered.

UNIT 1 (B. Course Outline) – Engineering Process Theory

General Purpose:

Ensure that work is performed in an organized manner without avoidable waste of time, money, and other resources

Specific Purpose:

To ensure that there is both a short term and a long term plan for the pending work

To ensure that the plans are consistent with the problem being addressed

To ensure that the problem being addressed is properly understood and defined

Methodology:

Consider an engineering problem to require a layered, hierarchical process to guide its solution. The top layer comprises a series of steps. Subsequent layers comprise sub-steps and sub-sub- steps, etc.

Define a series of steps, sub-steps, sub-sub-steps, and so on that will guide the work in progress to ensure a high quality result at a reasonable cost.

These steps, sub-steps, sub-sub-steps, etc may be revised and repeated as work progresses, if necessary, to ensure the best possible outcome.

Document the planned process, updating when necessary, and ensure that all team members understand and are “on-board” with the plan. Note that the documentation may be done in a very informal manner, so long as it is effective.

UNIT 2 (B. Course Outline) – Engineering Process Practice

The Initial Five Steps:

Step 0: recognize that there is a problem that is in need of a solution.

Step 1: define the problem.

Step 2: determine possible solutions to the problem.

Step 3: select a specific solution.

Step 4: implement, test, and deploy the selected solution

The problem specific iterative sub-steps:

Determination is a straightforward case or a complex case.

Derivation in the straightforward case.

Derivation in the complex case when either the root problem or best approach is unclear.

The need for a creative approach to problem solving:

Understanding when to use a standard approach and when a problem specific approach must be developed.

Documentation and communication strategies:

Email

Electronic Documents

Spreadsheets

Collaboration Tools

UNIT 3 (B. Course Outline) – The role of an engineer as an innovator – innovation versus copying

Innovation:

A new or improved design based on experience with a similar prior design.

A new or improved design, based on standard engineering techniques, that is similar or identical to another design, but without knowledge of the other design.

Copying:

Based on an existing design.

May require new elements.

Inspiration:

An entirely or mostly new design that is novel.

Often prompted by an existing but flawed or weak design.

Sometimes prompted by a behavior or phenomenon in an unrelated field

Reverse Engineering:

The deliberate detailed analysis of all or part of an existing design to reduce costs.

The deliberate detailed analysis of all or part of an existing design to recover lost documentation, skills, or methods.

Integration:

The design process in which existing components or components designed by another team are joined together to form a new higher level design

UNIT 4 (B. Course Outline) – The role of an engineer as an innovator – revolution versus evolution

Revolution:

Permits rapid change in some characteristic of a designed product.

Typically causes user or system interface incompatibility.

Evolution:

Implies a gradual rate of change from one design cycle to the next.

Tends to minimize the risk inherent in design change.

Tends to minimize the risk inherent in changes in manufacturing or testing techniques

UNIT 5 (B. Course Outline) – Documentation research versus scientific/engineering research

Documentation research:

The process of finding and examining documents that contain useful and relevant information.

Documents may be in any form: electronic, paper, film, etc, and may be of any authorship.

Is not “real” research in the engineering and scientific sense because the information is already known and available.available?

Care is needed in the validation of documents.

Scientific/engineering research:

Consists of designing, performing, and evaluating experiments that are designed to expose some particular information.

Often requires the construction of test devices comprising software, hardware, and/or electronics.

Engineering research is typically intended to explore the feasibility, reliability, or performance of a design or concept.

Scientific research is typically intended to reveal new knowledge about some physical or intellectual system.

UNIT 6 (B. Course Outline) – The creation of new documents and the annotation of existing documents

The role of slideshow generation software:

An effective tool for communicating concepts and data.

Provides a rich set of visualization tools and methods.

Often requires considerable time to prepare.

Provide a way of permanently capturing information, storing it, and sharing it with others

The role of electronic whiteboards

Electronic whiteboards tend to be of low resolution and have slow response, but resolution and response time will improve.

Able to capture and playback visualizations and to support the editing, re-capture and further playback.

Difficult and time consuming to interactively generate high quality visualizations.

Valuable for the capture of ideas, concepts, and constraints in an extemporaneous discussion.

Also valuable in the presentation of a previously prepared presentation when real time annotation of that presentation is beneficial.

The role of document authoring software.

Software that helps people to write and update documents is invaluable for creating and editing documentation.

Often includes tools for creating charts and drawings

Engineering documentation tends to fall into one of two major categories: process documentation; and design documentation.

Process documentation:

As its name implies, the documentation that defines the engineering process being used for a particular project.

Typically has a complex structure that may not mirror the structure of the actual engineering work.

Because process documentation is intended to guide the method of working rather describe details of the work done, process documentation is typically not very voluminous.

Design documentation:

Typically a large collection of documents that not only precisely specify how to create some particular item, but also records discussion, debate, analysis, research, and experiments.

May be in the form engineering models and schematics that were created with CAD systems.

Some part of it must be in the form of narrative, perhaps together with charts, drawings, and pictures that were not CAD created.

Best created using a documentation authoring tool that includes the ability to import charts, drawings, and pictures and embed them into the narrative.

The role of spreadsheet generation software:

Extremely effective tool for tracking information and for organizing data in an ordered way.

Facilitates maintaining records and documentation in a standard electronic format.

Can be used for simple scheduling (more capable tools do exist, however).

Effective for maintain BOM information during the design phase.

Effective for cost/volume determinations.

Helps with “buy versus build” decisions.

Useful in comparing component parameters.

Aids in geometry and form factor calculations.

Facilitates energy and force calculations.

The role of image cropping, resizing, and annotating software:

Image cropping

Image cropping means reducing the size of an image by removing pixels from the top, bottom, and/or one or both sides.

Value of these images can often be enhanced by cropping the image to emphasize the relevant content and eliminate much of the irrelevant content.

May significantly reduce the size of the image in computer memory, which may make the image easier to store and transmit.

Image resizing:

Resizing changes the size of an image without changing its aspect ratio.

Can be used to make images easier to read or annotate.

Image annotation:

Annotation is the adding text, drawings, or images to a document.

Usually overlays part of the original document.

Intended to clarify details in the document and/or add symbols.

The role of email in information and document exchange

Providing that files do not exceed locally imposed size limits, email is an effective method of distributing documentation for comment, review, and revision.

Email is a good tool for discussion and consultation about documents as a whole and fragments of documents that are in the process of being written or changed.

The use of email lists can ensure that information reaches everyone with a genuine “need to know”.

Because it can be difficult to control the distribution of email, it is easy for closely held information to accidently be released into the public domain.

The process of new documentation generation, including content collection:

Use of a sample, template, or existing similar document as a starting point:

Can be a quick way to get started.

Runs the risk of accidentally imposing an inappropriate structure.

Start from scratch:

Can be very difficult and time consuming to establish an appropriate document format.

May be necessary to pick a somewhat arbitrary document style, philosophy, and structure early on and then restructure the documentation as the nature of the design becomes apparent.

Important to gather sufficient information to understand the true nature of the task before too much documentation is generated.

The process of documentation editing, including change tracking:

The process of editing a document must allow multiple people to edit it without limiting the editing to a single individual.

The process must make it simple and straightforward to determine who made any particular change, and when that change was made.

Because of the difficulty of merging changes made to a single document file by multiple people, it may be desirable to structure a single document as several files.