A Service-Learning Model

A learning model that is increasingly becoming popular among educators, is service-learning based engineering education model. This model has a tremendous potential when applied to engineering curriculum in developing nations such as our country. Our nation has its own social and economic issues. A small percentage of people are both socially aware and financially capable so that they help communities in their humble ways.

How can we, engineering students, help solve such problems? How can we help underprivileged communities?

The answer comes from the fact that the communities are facing problems, some of which can be solved by applying smart engineering solutions designed by students as they learn with the guidance from people from academia and industry. 

To elaborate on this, let's discuss three critical elements of this model:

1. Community problems: These are public/private institutions that help communities with their services. Some examples are: public libraries, night schools, science museums, construction workers' associations etc. They face a number of problems and they have many agenda items to improve the quality of life of their members. We, as students, can identify problems that can be converted to small engineering problems and with the help of faculty, industry people, can  work on solving them. Some examples of such problems could be: designing a software database for library books to be accessed via the Internet (CS, IS), designing a solar power and storage system to be applied for night schools (EEE, EnI), building science/biology demonstration models for school children (ME/BIO),  building battery-operated chairs for handicapped (ME,ECE,EnI).

2. Engineering solutions: While solving such problems, we learn actual implementation of the theoretical ideas learned from the courses. Not only the technical knowledge, but we learn a great deal about team building, finances, public relations, and most importantly professional approach to solving problems. Applying such practical solutions to real problems makes this model an extremely powerful tool. We can take those projects as LOP,COP to get suitable credits for our work. When we deliver the product to communities, we actually contribute serving the communities!

3. Industry reviewers: Our industry is more than willing to donate money for social welfare. They need a proper established channel. Funding such projects can be an excellent way not only to empower the communities by the delivery of products, but to help engineering students learn practical tools along the way. Industry can send the reviewers to critique the design and monitor the progress. This relationship is extremely helpful in terms of getting funded projects, practice school stations and finally placements!

This model is developed by educators in Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA and is currently running successfully since last 10+ years (https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICS). It has numerous imitations all over the world. If the BITS administration decided to apply this model, they will not only increase the level of engineering education, but help serving communities across the nation.

As students at BITS, we can go and talk to communities and take up small projects, work on it and make a difference as well. This will be our share of service to our nation while adding value to our own engineering education and opening doors of countless opportunities through industry contacts.  

The Electric Vehicle Revolution

Technology is changing. Horses transformed into gasoline cars. After a century domination gasoline vehicles are now changing into hybrid vehicles and within few years a new era of pure electric vehicles will become mainstream. Hybrid vehicles consist of an additional prime mover along with the engine. It can be an electric motor or a fuel cell or even a CNG gas tank. Pure electric vehicles on the other hand completely replace the engines with an electric motor.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Electric vehicles are not new. More than a decade back General Motors (GM) came up with a vehicle with an electric motor in it instead of an engine. They called it EV1. The technology was new, the market and people were not ready for it. GM saw the future. The EV1 was made available through limited lease-only agreements. This was more for the “early adopter” to “try out” this new technology. People liked it. Obviously they would.. zero emissions, good torque and a super silent car.. why wouldn’t anyone like it!

But then, what happened. You can see the picture below. GM said,  “Naah! This is a totally unprofitable niche of the auto segment. Not worth investing in it” And they literally crushed ALL the EV1s produced. To your surprise they even took away cars from the customers that wanted to keep them desperately (at any cost). All cars were crushed, stock piled and the program was closed!

EV1 Details

The revenge of the Electric Car

So what happened back then? The market was not ready? The technology was not ready? The infrastructure was not ready? Or was it just the mentality of the automakers that were used to producing gasoline cars for nearly 100 years? There were many such reasons for the death of the electric car. But now emission restrictions are becoming more stringent. 2025 US emission restrictions would definitely force the auto OEMs to produce at least hybrids if not electrics. Electricity is getting cheaper. Electronics is encroaching in the auto industry in every segment, battery technology has improved from lead acid to lithium ion, motor controls have be thoroughly developed in last decade. All these small factors are gearing up and coming together for an electric revolution. Each auto OEM, if you look closely, has at least one hybrid variant (Toyota Prius, Ford Focus etc). A couple of them have pure electric variants (Nissan Leaf) and there are also pure electric companies getting built from ground up (Tesla Motors, Mahindra Reva etc) producing only pure electric cars.

So.. the future is electric. And you guys should gear towards it if you are inclined towards automotive.

What you need to be up to date!

Automobiles now, along with Mechanical engineering, are heavily dependent on Electronics and Electrical engineers. Good EE and ME background, solid conceptual understanding definitely helps. But to be specific for this domain you should be aware of basic powertrain components along with obviously the chassis (vehicle engineering) and the body (design and styling) of the car. Powertrain components here are the electric motor, the inverter and the battery pack. Decent understanding of modeling these components (systems and dynamics), controlling these components (control systems) coding firmware (Embeded software development) for operating these systems and diagnostic/ safety related point of view will be super helpful.