Development of 2.737 Mechatronics at MIT

We describe the development of the curriculum and associated laboratory facilities and exercises for the undergraduate course 2.737 Mechatronics in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The course is centered on laboratory experiences which teach integration across the mechanical, electrical, and control engineering disciplines. Within this broad focus, the labs emphasize the application of feedback design in a variety of contexts as a means to motivate the broader mechatronic design issues. The labs utilize PC-based hardware and software for rapid control prototyping on a target digital signal processing (DSP) board. This DSP board is programmed through a commercially available block-diagram-based graphical environment, in order to eliminate the need for low-level programming and thereby allow students to concentrate on the higher-level challenges posed in each lab exercise. A student's lab performance is evaluated primarily through a one-on-one interview with a member of the teaching staff in conjunction with a conventional written lab report.