Using Arduino to Introduce the Concepts of Mechatronics to College Fresh-Persons

Mechatronics, as a complex discipline which covers the fields of mechanics, electronics, information, computer science and control, is sometimes very hard to be understood and accepted by fresh-persons, who have little knowledge or experiences on engineering. They may not choose mechatronics as their major just because they felt frustrated with so many new terminologies and worry the potential difficulties to acquire expertise on these fields. In order to attract more students to study mechatronics, we designed a program based on Arduino. Through this program we taught students basic concepts and ideas about mechatronics, demonstrated how easy it is to build a mechatronic product and the fun when they were doing so. The two-week program is composed by a series of lectures about Arduino, hands on training on how to use it, and finalized by a smart car project. This program has been lasted for two years and the enrollment ratio has improved greatly.