Design and Implementation of Mechatronics Home Lab for Undergraduate Mechatronics Teaching

Abstract

The field of mechatronics is a multidisciplinary field of engineering, where the combination of physical components and theory from several engineering fields is applied to build complex machines. Mechatronics education is an active learning process through practical laboratory exercises and problem-based learning. This paper presents the design and implementation of a mechatronics home lab to support undergraduate mechatronics teaching. The purpose is to support theoretical teaching in mechatronics with a low-cost, 3D-printable platform where the students can experiment and practice instrumentation and control theory with a practical problem-based approach. Five projects were introduced for experiment implementation of the developed home lab. Throughout these experiments, it is intended to facilitate the understanding of theories and concepts in mechatronics, and enhance the ability to design and implementation of experiments, the collection and analysis of data, and the conducting of simulation in MATLAB.