Holistic Learning by the Integration of a Test Rig into Engineering Teaching

Most of our students in our study program, Sustainable Supply of Energy and Resources, can be very passionate about it. To achieve the goals towards sustainability, some highly complex technological developments have to be achieved. However, one of our struggles is to transfer the students’ passion into highly important basic educational areas, such as programming, electronics, modeling, or control theory, that are needed to improve sustainability.

To address this issue, we decided to develop a mini pumped storage power plant and connect it to problem-solving–based teaching principles. Using the test rig, a list of topics can directly be addressed and integrated into state-of-the-art, hands-on engineering education from first-year to master’s programs. The theoretical background connected to student-developed models and system parts give direct feedback of the learned and applied knowledge to their problem-solving approach using MATLAB^®.

This approach helps us create a holistic educational concept where students not only obtain knowledge, but are able to connect disciplines, solve problems, and eventually be better professional engineers that engineer for a more sustainable future.

In this talk, you will learn, on the one hand, of the setup of the test rig and integration into MATLAB via Robot Operating System. On the other hand, you will learn about the integration and potential in teaching, how the students can interact with the test rig, and how they can apply the knowledge within the different courses. This brings us towards the creation of a holistic learning culture. Last but not least, we will talk about our lessons learned.

We, the Institute for Advanced Mining Technologies, work on research, teaching, and transfer for safe, efficient, and responsible raw material extraction through the automation and digitalization of mining machines and processes.