Experiences With International Project Teams Working With Robot Design

This paper summarizes the activities, contents and overall outcomes of our experiences with international project teams working with different engineering projects, in particular the Interdisciplinary Project on fourth semester (TVP4E). The TVP4E course combines the theory and practical design of small autonomous robots. The theoretical part includes mathematical modeling, system dynamics, control theory, digital and analogue electronics, and microprocessors. The practical project is to design an autonomous robot performing two tasks: compulsory task decided by the teachers and the free task decided by students. The success of this particular fourth semester project inspired us to start other international project semesters. Globalization makes it necessary to cooperate on an international platform. A great contributor to globalization is the student mobility program within the EU, like the Socrates-Erasmus program. At the Copenhagen University College of Engineering we have more then 50 active Socrates-Erasmus agreements. Beside that we have bilateral agreements with many non-European countries. Usually the exchange students come to us after 2–3 years of studying in their home countries. Their prerequisites are in most cases the basics of mathematics and physics, but there is very big variety in their practical skills, like electronics and programming. Some of them do not have much experience in working with projects. The challenge of supervising the international teams is to motivate the students with different prerequisites to study the theory and work together with other students from very different cultures with a practical engineering project. In conclusion we describe the benefits from this program to all of us: students, teachers and the universities.