2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Students in a traditional undergraduate mechanical engineering program typically take a controls course during their junior or senior year. Often, these courses are highly theoretical and may or may not have a corresponding lab component. Students often struggle to connect the fundamentals of feedback control systems with practical hardware and software implementation. To address this crucial learning gap and to foster more engaging learning experiences, a new technical elective was developed at the Milwaukee School of Engineering titled “Simulation and Control of Space Mechanisms.” The new course is a follow-on course to a traditional undergraduate mechanical engineering controls course that incorporates research with experiential learning. The ten-week course provides students an opportunity to use modern computer tools to aid in the simulation and control of space mechanisms. In particular, the course focuses on the mathematical modeling, simulation, and control of an innovative four-bar planar pick and place mechanism capable of dynamically changing its topology within its workspace. This immersive educational experience allows students to connect fundamental mathematical modeling of a physical system to the real-time control of physical hardware. This paper documents the structure of this new course, its learning objectives, and outlines the unique project and laboratory experiences that students engaged in to enrich their educational journey.