2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper presents a multi-course project designed to integrate the concepts from Mechatronics, System Dynamics, and Controls and Vibrations Experiments courses into a single, continuous project. Different portions of the project are covered in each course, illustrating for students the connection between the courses beyond curriculum pre-requisites. A temperature control system was chosen as the platform for this project. The goal is to help students make connections between course content and deepen their understanding of the subjects. In the Mechatronics course, students focus on the hardware components of the temperature control system, learning to use an Arduino microcontroller and dimmer control to adjust the speed of a fan or brightness of an incandescent light bulb. Tangentially, System Dynamics I introduces students to physical system modeling and simulation of the response of the temperature control system. The students are asked to derive the transfer function of the temperature control system and then simulate the step response using simulation software. Subsequently, System Dynamics II presents feedback control of closed-loop systems, where students are asked to design a controller for the system they modeled in System Dynamics I. Finally, in the Controls and Vibrations Experimentation course, students will build a physical prototype, implement the controller, and evaluate its performance. The project was first introduced in the System Dynamics I and II courses during the Fall 2024 semester and will be incorporated into the Mechatronics and Controls and Vibrations Experiments courses in the Spring 2025 semester. Surveys will be conducted at the end of each course to assess whether students’ understanding of the content has improved.