An automatic control module for first-year students

Undergraduate engineering education must be reshaped in order to meet the challenges of the 21^st century. These changes must begin with the first year of study. A modern first-year undergraduate engineering curriculum, must consist of courses that are truly characteristic of engineering, provide a positive educational experience, involve physical experiments and incorporate relevant computer software packages. We propose the development of a course with modular structure, consisting of specially chosen modules. Automatic control is a perfect choice for such a module and can play a key role in curriculum innovation. An automatic control module was developed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This paper describes its structure, content, instructional material and experimental facilities. It was offered for the first time in 1996, to students in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and was a great success