Systematic Educational Program for Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering in OUS Using Robot Competition

In designing and manufacturing such robotic and mechatronic systems, the engineers need a wide range of knowledge that includes electronics, mechanical engineering and information engineering. The purpose of this education is for students to give active learning for robotics and mechatronic techniques such as embedded controllers, motor driver circuits, sensors and to create structural drawings. To realize this goal, “an interest in creation” of student is regarded as an important educational method. In this paper, a systematic educational method for robotics and mechatronics education using “their interest” was introduced. The method is to hold robot competitions every year between 1st and 3rd year students as a regular part of the curriculum. To confirm the educational effect of this curriculum, the result of the Rescue Robot Contest that students participated were introduced. In addition, the educational curriculum was award as a good engineering education from Japanese Society for Engineering Education. As a result, it can be confirmed that the robot competition is a useful method to make students study more actively robotics and mechatronics technology by themselves.