BEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Industrial Experience

Students will work in teams to create a battery-powered robot buggy. The robot will autonomously navigate around a track using one or more sensor types. The project culminates with a competition to find the fastest buggy.

A working robot buggy requires many technical skills to combine: a battery power source, gearbox selection, control circuits for motor drives, drive shaft encoders as well as an array of sensors and the software to control the robot.

The project also enables the development of team working and project management skills, which are central to modern engineering.

Project teams will be formed a mix of degree programmes and abilities

The Embedded Systems Project will begin in the first semester with lectures, laboratories and workshops which deal with topics such as:

• Motors and sensors
• Introduction to Software Design
• PWM and the STM32 microcontroller
• Control systems
• Engineering Drawing

Additional Lectures will be organised on a year-by-year basis to reflect changes to the project.

The course unit aims to provide a practical introduction to microcontrollers and embedded systems.

On successful completion of the course, a student will be able to:

ILO 1: Develop personal, professional and team-working skills with special regards to the values of engineering principles in ethical practice, such as honesty, integrity, fairness, accuracy, rigour and leadership.

ILO 2: Understand the steps involved in the design, specification, implementation and testing of an embedded system across the product lifecycle, including considerations of sustainability, for example, in the efficient and effective use of resources, environmental impact, and design from manufacture to disposal.

ILO 3: Develop tests, analyse data and apply outcomes to the understanding and continuing improvement of a system. This includes quantifying and explaining error during experiments, or identification and diagnosis of faults (debugging) in hardware and software.

ILO 4: Develop engineering product development skills following best practice project and quality management practices, such as use of planning tools, documentation, version control, and production of files for manufacture following relevant standards and design rules.

ILO 5: Create elegant, maintainable and efficient program code.

ILO 6: Develop report writing and oral presentation skills.

Didactic lectures

Problem based learning

Laboratory based learning

Written feedback within two weeks of submission (Design Reports, Proposal Report, Final Report).

Technical demonstrations (verbal feedback, immediate)

Results released within two weeks of assessment (Blackboard Quizzes)