2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 322: Integrating Internet of Things into Mechatronics to Prepare Mechanical Engineering Students for Industry 4.0

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

The Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can enable products to become smarter through sensing their environment, analyzing lots of data (big data), and connecting to the Internet to allow for the exchange of data. As smart products become ubiquitous, they provide enormous opportunities for scientists and engineers to invent new products and build interconnected systems of vast scale. As a result, the STEM workforce demands are shifting rapidly. Mechanical engineers will play a significant role in innovating and designing smart products and manufacturing systems of the Industry 4.0 revolution. However, the current mechanical engineering curriculum has not kept pace. In this paper, we present an overview of a new curriculum along with the design of an inexpensive smart flowerpot device that was used as an instructional tool throughout the curriculum. We provide details about how two curriculum modules were implemented in the first offering of the course. Preliminary assessment results from the first offering of the course are discussed.

Authors

Dr. Hakan Gurocak Washington State University, Vancouver [biography]

Prof. Gurocak is the founding director of the Professional and Corporate Education program at Washington State University Vancouver. His research interests include haptics, robotics and automation.
Dr. Xinghui Zhao Washington State University, Vancouver [biography]

Dr. Xinghui Zhao is the Director of the School of Engineering and Computer Science, and Associate Professor of Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver. She received her Ph.D. from Department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan in 2012. She previously received an M.Sc. from the same university, and a B.Sc. from Department of Computer Science, Nanjing University. Dr. Zhao’s research interests lie in the general areas of parallel and distributed systems, big data computing, cloud computing, and machine learning. Dr. Zhao is a member of IEEE, ACM, ASEE, and IEEE Women in Engineering, and has been actively contributing to the professional community. She served as the general chair for the 15th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC2022) and the 9th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Big Data Computing, Applications and Technologies (BDCAT2022). She also served as the local arrangement chair for IEEE CLUSTER 2021. She was the guest editor for Special Issue on Integration of Cloud, IoT and Big Data Analytics, Software: Practice and Experience (Wiley Press). In addition, she has served on the technical program committee for a number of conferences, and as reviewer for various journals.
Dr. Kristin Lesseig

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