In Fall 2020, the Department of Industrial and Engineering Technology welcomed a Mechatronics – or Mechanical Electronics – curriculum into the ET degree program. Since then, the program has graduated more than six students within the concentration.
Dr. Mohammad Saadeh, department head, explained the undergraduate capstone process is required for all students within the industrial and engineering technology department. Seniors nearing graduation must complete ET 493: Senior Design I and ET 494: Senior Design II in two consecutive semesters.
Saadeh, who holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, said the implementation of the mechatronics curriculum was a response to the developing needs of the professional market in this region.
“This actually reflects our commitment in the department to our objective, which is to support the economic development of the region by providing a premier, industry-relevant, education in Louisiana, rich in real-world-ready experiences, research and a mixture of theoretical and hands-on coursework,” he said.
The original model of the senior design course allowed students to choose their topics. Now, faculty members within the department choose the topics based on research needs, ideas pitched from outside companies and other elements that best suit the academic and professional progression of the students. Students from various curricula form each project team.
He further explained, “This capstone needs to be something that will simulate what they will find in employment. They are never asked by the employer to pitch the next project, right? They are usually asked to join a team and work with a team of people who they might not have the right dynamics with. They might not be friends with each other, but they are coworkers. They have to have work principles; they have to come together to help the purpose of why they are in that company. Everyone has to do his or her part in an atmosphere of respect and trust and collaboration.”
Mechatronics ET majors Yumi Domangue and Joshua Lasseigne are collaborating with mechanical ET major Eric Cross for their senior design project. Lasseigne, a senior, described his role in the project.
“Specifically, I am creating a solar charger. I wanted to do the programming, but Yumi’s better at that. Right now I’m doing hardware tasks. I’m doing calibration, getting used to schematics and creating designs for the solar charger,” Lasseigne said.
Lasseigne said the interdisciplinary aspects of mechatronics engineering are what drew him to enroll in this curriculum. He said his senior project will ultimately help him to pursue a career in his ideal field––an electrical or industrial setting.
He shared, “It’s awesome and I love it. I like electronics, I like programming and really that’s all this program is about is those two things. I like automation. That’s where the industry nowadays is tending to move towards. Everything’s automated, and I want to be a part of that as far as being able to help automate things in the future.”
Domangue, a senior, is pursuing an art degree in new media and animation along with her ET degree. She said she feels mechatronics and art complement each other in that they both relate to design and solving creative problems.
“The senior design project is giving me experience with the entirety of a design process as well as interdisciplinary collaboration. I get to work with a team to design and troubleshoot our product, analyze the data we collect and present our findings to the scientific community,” Domangue shared.
According to Saadeh, graduates from the IET department––no matter their chosen degree path––have been able to find employment fairly quickly with the help of their experience working on a real-world project through the senior design course.
Garrett Parks, a Fall 2022 graduate from the mechatronics ET program, said he and his team combined their versatile range of knowledge to create an autonomous pick-and-place gantry robot to sort colored blocks by specific values.
Parks now works as an application engineer for Intralox, a company that provides conveyor belting equipment and other related services. He said his design project relates directly to his line of work and helped him develop skills such as mechanical engineering, electronics, computer science and control systems.
He shared, “Mechatronics graduates can work in diverse fields such as automotive, aerospace, robotics, automation, healthcare, consumer electronics and much more. Ultimately a mechatronics degree depends on your interests and career goals, but it can be a promising path for those who enjoy working with both hardware and software to develop cutting-edge solutions.”
