A Cooperative and Competitive Workshop in Mechatronics Engineering

This paper presents a new mechatronics laboratory for students in the 5th semester of the mechatronics degree course at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. It is the aim of this teaching event to sharpen the appreciation of synergy effects in the development of mechatronic systems among the students. Despite of the great freedom in the development process, a concept has been evolved, which causes low running costs due to the combination of a model kit with rapid prototyping methods. A first pilot study of the laboratory starting in the winter term 2014 has shown that the students approach the task despite of the high level of difficulty with fun and dedication, especially because of the wide solution space which was unknown for them from previous lectures.