2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper presents a collaborative project between Construction Management (CM) and Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) courses. Six CM teams design and build dog houses with energy-efficient engineered wall panels, lighting, and thermal management to serve as a charging station for a Boston Dynamics SPOT robot. The CM teams present the requirements of the electrical system to a class of students in the ECET’s Microcontroller Applications course as if they were electrical contractors. ECET teams then design custom solutions for the electrical requirements of the doghouse (including sensors, lights, and a fan controller) to pitch to the CM teams. CM students vote on the best electronics design to be implemented. At the end of the collaboration, only one of the doghouse designs and one electronics design will be chosen for the SPOT robot. The other 5 dog houses (without electronics) will be donated to provide warm homes for dogs at a local animal rescue. This project results in multiple graded assignments in each course, as well as the physical products.