Abstract:

At the Polytechnic School of Linares the area of Electronic Technology teaches various subjects in different degrees for which students do not show special interest and therefore the perception is from the beginning quite negative. The subjects are not perceived by the students as an important part of their training due to various factors: the reduced number of subjects on electronics within the degree, the volume of the subject (content) in relation to the number of credits assigned, or other preconceived ideas related to the degree of difficulty. During the last several years, we have been working to change this perception and have used the Project Based Learning (PBL) method. Its positive results have been shown in previous articles. PBL is a didactic method, supported by teaching strategies called ‘learning by discovery and construction’. It goes from a strategy where the teacher is the protagonist to another where the student it’s the owner of the process and where the teacher is a counselor: he exposes problems, suggests sources of information and collaborates with the student's needs.
With the experience gained during the last years working with laboratory prototypes built from scratch, we have decided to go one step further, with the final objective of maintaining the motivation of the students and to try to get them to investigate basic areas of the profession. Another challenge is to increase the number of teachers involved in these teaching methods. It has been decided to work with a commercial product that provides a base to combine most of the skills that must be acquired in various subjects. A 1/10 scale 4WD radio control vehicle has been chosen. Its main characteristics are that it has a modifiable mechanical structure, a wide variety of electronics and enough space to house the designs that are made on breadboard or commercial circuits.

The selected subjects belong to the area of Electronic Technology within the degrees of Telematics Engineering, Engineering in Telecommunication Technologies, Electrical Engineering and the Master's Degree in Mechatronics Engineering that is taught at the Polytechnic School of Jaén. There are compulsory and elective subjects. The electronic variety that the RC vehicle has allows the development of multiple skills in each subject, as well as applying mechanical concepts to other degrees from different branches of engineering, whose teachers are interested in the results. Concepts of power and energy management (battery charger, drives, DC-DC, DC-AC and AC-DC converters), control part (signal transmitter and receiver), monitoring of parameters through sensors or mechanical parts of design of chassis and bodywork to house the new electronics or power supply by photovoltaic energy, can be applied in a dynamic way.

Thanks to the fact that the proposed subjects have a low number of enrolled students (between 5 and 50), implementation is easier and the results can be adapted to other subjects and raise interest in other teaching teams. This article shows the results obtained in four subjects, one compulsory an another optional for the degrees in Telecommunications, another optional for the degree in Electrical Engineering and one compulsory for the Master's of Mechatronic Engineering.

It has demanded more effort from the teaching staff but the level of student satisfaction and academic results have improved, encouraging teamwork and the ability to adapt to the proposed designs.

Keywords:

Project Based Learning, Practical designs, Engineering.