Undergraduate students in engineering are constantly searching for answers to the question 'what does an engineer do in the real world? ' Often it is only in their senior year that they get a glimpse of the answer through a senior design experience.

Dr. Takoi Hamrita has developed a new approach to give engineering students real-world experience in using microcontrollers to monitor and control industrial processes. Her course centers on important engineering problems and enhances co-operative learning. Students learn to break down the most relevant aspects of an engineering problem into smaller tasks and develop skills to solve each task.

This innovative approach is based on teaching the microcontroller as a powerful design tool, and emphasizing its use in solving practical and important engineering monitoring and control problems. The idea centers around learning to follow a step-by-step approach for solving problems using the microcontroller. Students cover the inner workings of the microcontroller only as needed to solve the problem.

The approach of building microcontroller courses around real-world applications provides the opportunity for tackling problems which would not be normally encountered in traditional microcontroller courses. The advantages for students include:

• motivating the students for later classes;

• broadening their perspectives;

• and enhancing their job opportunities.

For more information about this innovative approach for teaching microcontroller courses, contact Dr. Takoi Hamrita. The following citation for an article by Dr. Hamrita is also provided.

Hamrita, T. K., and R. W. McClendon, A New Approach for Teaching Microcontroller Courses, Int. J. Engng Ed., 13, (1997) pp. 269-274.

 

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