PROJECT BASED LEARNING APPLIED TO MANUFACTURING PROCESSES COURSE UNIT

The Master in Industrial Engineering, from the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, integrates in its course structure the unit of Manufacturing Processes, which is taught in the 1st semester of the 1st year. The course contents are organized in four groups of classic manufacturing processes and the computer numerical control applied to machining processes. The classes of the course are divided in two-hour modules of theoretical-practical classes. In these classes the teacher presents the theoretical concepts of different manufacturing processes and related it with practical applications in industry, sometimes these classes are complemented with study visits to industrial companies. A third of semester is dedicated to CNC programming and manufacturing mechanical parts in industrial machines that exist in the laboratories of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança.

The course unit of Manufacturing Processes is attended by students who come from the degree in mechanical engineering and electrotechnical engineering. As the level of knowledge in manufacturing processes is very different among students from distinct engineering branches, it becomes very difficult to keep the interest of all students for the themes presented in the class. For this reason, in academic year of 2015/2016 was proposed a different approach to teach the course unit. Instead of traditional classes was suggested the designed and manufacture a didactic CNC milling machine. The work must be done by all students based on the project based learning methodology.

The first part of the project was to design the machine components and, is this stage, the students which belongs to mechanical branch designed the mechanical components while the electrotechnical designed the electric and electronic components. At the end of this phase, the students presented the work that they had done and explain the manufacturing processes to obtain the designed components. The second part of the work was the manufacture of the milling machine. For this purpose, the students of mechanical branch manufacture the components and assembly them, meanwhile, the students of electrotechnica branch assembly the electrical motors to control the axis movements which are controlled by software installed on a computer and by a firmware installed on the Arduino board. The final stage was the machining test, the students implemented a basic CNC programme to machine a simple plastic piece.

The students worked on this project with great enthusiasm and motivation, for this reason the author of this pedagogic experience recommend it for this kind of curricular unit.