Proposing and Testing an Open - Source and Low - Cost Drone Under the Engineering Design Process for Higher Education: The Mechatronics Course Use Case

The Engineering Design Process (EDP) is contemporary teaching method, applicable within STEM framework, and consists of a series of steps that students – as future engineers – follow, in order to design a prototype artifact and find a solution to a complex engineering problem. These steps usually include problem – solving processes, such as defining the problem, background research, specifying requirements, brainstorming, evaluating, choosing the best solution, developing a prototype, testing the prototype and finally communicating the research results. During the process, students engage themselves with all Computational Thinking (CT) dimensions. In this research, we apply EDP, within the STEM and CT Epistemology framework, in order to design and develop an open – hardware, open – source, low – cost, easy and safe to use, drown, for educational activities, in Higher education. The purpose of this work is to highly engage University students, in developing solutions for complex Mechatronic course - related problems, and evaluate how they achieved their learning objectives. We also design a use case scenario, in which students form proper engineering teams to work with the design of the UAV, to program its behavior and to understand avionics. The simple design, safe use, economic cost, and open philosophy of this drone make it suitable not only for university courses, but also for educational robotics applications, and in STEM education in general, regardless of the educational level.