Entrepreneurially Minded Learning in a Semester-Long Senior/Graduate Mechatronic Design Project

This paper describes ongoing progress in facilitating entrepreneurially minded learning through modifications to an existing senior/graduate level mechatronic design course. The semester-long design experience incorporates a prompted real-world problem intended to motivate the design and construction of a fully autonomous robotic vehicle. Introductory lectures and structured laboratory exercises are provided during the first half of the semester, while the remaining half-semester is allocated to team-based robot design and fabrication. Existing problem-based learning activities have been altered to increase student awareness of economic factors, encourage communication of project issues in economic terms, and promote customer engagement. To this end, project assignments were recast as business problems, with an increased emphasis on prototype and operating costs. Additionally, a customer (represented by the instructor) was created to engage with students. Project success has been indirectly assessed by surveying students as to how their actions align with characteristic entrepreneurial behaviors identified by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN).