Service-Learning Model: An Example

This article is a follow-up of the previous "A Service Learning Model" post. The model suggests interdisciplinary engineering students working on real-life projects that benefit the communities.

Earlier we talked about how this model is useful in three ways:
1. BITSians learn to work on real-life projects that have customer requirements, deadlines and the most essential aspect of engineering: design, build and test.
2. The needy communities benefit from the delivered products, so BITSians help the society around them.
3. BITSians make industry connections so that they share a great relationship at the time of internships, placements.

As an added advantage, such project provides a great platform to strengthen students' skills and resumes. This model, truly has an enormous potential to become one-of-its-kind in India to be implemented exclusively by BITS, just like our renowned Practice School program.

Now, let's consider an example of such a project:
   
Primary/High school children learn basics of physics, biology and solar system roughly in their 1st to 7th standard. It'll be an interesting exercise to create models to teach them basic concepts through interactive mechanical models with which they can play around. To take an example, one project can be to demonstrate operations of a biological cell with the help of a workshop-fabricated model with microcontroller-based sound system, LCD displays and rotation mechanism. This model can be an excellent exhibit in a local science museum. This will benefit the children around BITS campus.
  
 Let's break it down to see what the project components are. Firstly, this project has a great interdisciplinary aspect to it. BITSians from various engineering and science major can contribute. The mechanical subteam can handle: the choice of material, fabrication of the model, fitting various parts to it and mechanical movement capabilities. The electrical subteam can take up microcontroller programming, motor and LCD interfacing and power management. The biology subteam can help with the biological processes within a cell and help draw a skeleton of the model and its intended functionalities. Folks interested in project management can work on the plan, timeline, keeping everyone on track and community/industry communication. They can also apply for industry grants and gather support from local administration.

----There are tons of exciting tasks with each project and each task cultivates a skill that is very useful in post-graduation (industry) life.

More on this model with some more examples in future posts.... Stay tuned!


 

Interdisciplinary Skills - A Taste of Robotics and Bio-mechanics

So, as mentioned  in the previous article (dated Feb 17, 2013), let’s go over some of the varieties of Mechanical Engineering. I mentioned a few branches which you can explore (like MEMS, Energy Harvesting, Computational Mechanics etc).  All the fields I mentioned are very interdisciplinary. This means that you will see a confluence of many other disciplines along with mechanical engineering.

As an example, consider Mechatronics and Robotics. The applications of this branch spans from, say, spot welding robots in the auto industry, through the Da Vinci robot performing automated surgeries, through the Curiosity Mars rover that is exploring mars all by itself.

Here are some interesting links of such applications:

• Spot Welding in Auto Industry
• DaVinci Robot doing surgery  
• How a doctor Operates the Da Vinci
• Curiosity Mars Rover  (I actually experienced the landing of the rover live at NASA labs in California. It was amazing! )

         

To design these systems you need decent knowledge various aspects of mechanical engineering like solid modeling, stress analysis, right tolerance and dimensional analysis,  actual manufacturing of the robot, material science to select right materials that would sustain external pressures, temperatures etc etc.. list is endless. But this is not sufficient. You need heavy electronics to make the robot do what you designed it for. Any mechatronic system will have sensors to sense the environment and actuators to do the action..which are nothing but electrical signals read by some electronic PCBs. In addition to electronics, you need computer science. You will need to add intelligence to the robot to do the task which it is designed for and for that you need good grasp on programming languages (embedded C, C++, python etc) that will talk to the electronic micro controllers inside the bot.

Ok Okay… well..you as a single entity need not be an expert in all these.. I mean..if you are.. Great! ..but if not.. That’s fine too.. usually there are teams of people doing such specialized tasks. But you as a Mechanical engineer..should be at least aware of all these (so that people don’t fool you around! :)).

Same is the case with other fields like say Bio Mechanics or medical instrumentation. What do you think is the basis of all the surgical tools? .. Mechanical Engineering! A good mechanical engineer will be able to design, model and manufacture various surgical tools for different surgeries. Some innovators invent tools which can be used in multiple ways. If you look at Intuitive Surgicals’ website you will realize how many Mechanical Engineers they want. Here are some of the professors at UM which are in Mechanical department and involved in Biomechanics and Bio systems engineering. ..and there are many such universities too.. I will leave that to you to do a research if you are really interested in this area.

So..my point is..being a mechanical engineer.. you need not constrain yourself to manufacturing or securing a job on an assembly line doing some QA crap! (that sucks L).. or switch to MBA! You can explore many things without shifting fields.. keep one thing in mind.. Mechanical engineering, now, is not just constrained to itself. Wherever you go, you will have to interact with people from electronics, people from computer science and people specializing in the application specific areas (like doctors if you are into medical instrumentation or physicists if you are in a team designing Mars rovers at NASA!)

So..make sure you develop that skill set too!

(In few articles I will try to go over some electronics/ electrical engineering and some tools that will help you in building an all-round personality around your respective discipline! Some of my other friends specialized in these disciples will also share  there experience with you guys!)

C u soon!

--Tejas