Abstract:

The Smart Grid for electric energy requires to understand several advanced engineering concepts based on experimental situations that are studied in undergraduate courses but, normally, those courses are not connected between them with a common experimental challenge during the entire undergraduate program. Hence, the students do not have a complete experimental approach for learning real systems like the smart grid system. If theoretical concepts in engineering are presented without experimental knowledge, the engineering students are missing an important factor in the learning process. Moreover, there are engineering topics that are not connected at the same grade, so the student is not able to link previous engineering knowledge. This paper shows a smart grid laboratory as the universal connector for learning different engineering topics at different levels. The results show how the smart grid can involve engineering students in experimental situations in order to link engineering courses during the undergraduate career. The electrical and mechanical career at Tecnologico de Monterrey campus ciudad de Mexico was analyzed and evaluated when the smart grid was the experimental real system that connects engineering courses. The results provide an excellent inside about the big spectrum of possibilities for including the smart grid as the main experimental learning system in the electrical and mechanical undergraduate program.

Keywords:

Smart Grid, engineering curricula, experimental knowledge.