Work in progress - the outgrowth of mechatronics curriculum development efforts: an undergraduate concentration in mechatronics

Today, it is very important for engineering programs to have their traditional program streams vested with clearly identifiable themes for each concentration area within a program, and for each theme to have a clear connection with all of the associated course requirements of an area. Over the past seven years, three new courses in Mechatronics have been developed at the University of Detroit Mercy for both ME and EE students, through a collaborative effort between faculty from the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Departments. These are "Introduction to Mechatronics", "Modeling and Simulation of Mechatronics Systems", and "Sensors and Actuators". Using these developments as a springboard, an effort is currently underway to investigate the formulation of a new undergraduate concentration area in Mechatronics as part of the Bachelor\´s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. This paper outlines the effort, including the difficulties associated with having to work within the constraints of an existing curricular framework in a small college