Using PC´s and Micro-Controllers in Mechatronics Education

With the increasing use of digital control of mechanical systems, it´s necessary for mechanical engineering students to have a basic knowledge of microcontrollers and microprocessors and their associated interfaces with mechanical world. As a result, in many universities have been introduced microcontrollers courses. The didactical equipments used for this aim can be expensive. On the other hand there are cases in which the existent equipments can be improved by the utilization of the microcontrollers and the PC. Taking into account the above statements, this paper presents some low cost solutions in the field of microcontroller´s applications in mechatronics. We presented also a pedagogical concept and its partial implementation during the last semester in the context of the mechatronic education. What is new with respect to previous ways of teaching mechatronics is that it focuses not on technical skills, but on the process of building on skills acquired in other, specialized courses and developing a multidisciplinary product with constrained resources and time.