This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION 1 A Multidisciplinary PBL Approach for Teaching Industrial Informatics and Robotics in Engineering Isidro Calvo, Member, IEEE, Itziar Cabanes, Member, IEEE, Jerónimo Quesada, Senior Member, IEEE, and Oscar Barambones, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—This paper describes the design of an industrial informatics course, following the project-based learning method- ology, and reports the experience of four academic years (from 2012–13 to 2015–16). Industrial Informatics is a compulsory course taught in the third year of the B.Sc. degree in indus- trial electronics and automation engineering at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. The course had students develop an embedded controller for a 2DoF SCARA robot that drew a specific trajectory. The robot was built with the LEGO Mindstorms kit and the controller was implemented with NXC, a C-like programming language for the NXT brick. In this activ- ity, students became aware of their learning needs and had to work proactively, both autonomously and in teams. The course design achieved several objectives: 1) students learned the course material; 2) soft skills demanded by employers were reinforced; and 3) the material was structured into project tasks for students to perform. The article analyses two indicators: 1) qualification marks and 2) student satisfaction. Index Terms—Computing skills, embedded systems, engineer- ing curriculum, industrial engineering, project-based learning, robotics, student assessment. I. I NTRODUCTION T HIS work describes the application of Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology in Industrial Informatics (Ind. Inf.), a compulsory third-year / first-semester course in the B.Sc. degree in industrial electronics and automation engineering (B.Sc. IEAE), taught at the University College of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz (UPV/EHU), Spain. When properly implemented, active learning (such as PBL) has been shown to motivate students, encourage deep learning and help students to retain knowledge [1]–[3]. Active learning also helps engineering students to acquire a set of skills that, in Manuscript received July 6, 2016; revised March 3, 2017; accepted June 10, 2017. This work was supported in part by the Basque Country University (UPV/EHU) under the ERAGIN Program (aimed at promoting PBL methodologies at the UPV/EHU), in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness’ MINECO and FEDER under Project DPI-2012-32882, in part by UPV/EHU under Grant UFI11/28, and in part by Basque Government under Grant GIU13/41. (Corresponding author: Isidro Calvo.) I. Calvo, I. Cabanes, and O. Barambones are with the Department of Systems Engineering and Automatic Control, University of the Basque Country, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (e-mail: isidro.calvo@ehu.eus; itziar.cabanes@ehu.eus; oscar.barambones@ehu.eus). J. Quesada is with the Department of Electronic Technology, University of the Basque Country, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (e-mail: jeronimo.quesada@ehu.eus). Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2017.2721907 the opinion of employers, need improving, such as group cooperation, working in multidisciplinary teams, or meeting strict requirements and deadlines [3]–[6]. In particular, the PBL methodology engages students more in their education (for example, by having them consider their learning needs and proactively and autonomously apply some techniques to them). The UPV/EHU incorporated active methodologies in curricula in its 2007-2012 strategic plan (in an internal pro- gram called ERAGIN), and reinforced that emphasis in its current 2012-2017 plan. Several application examples, some supported by computer applications, have been described in the literature [7]–[9]. Simply adopting inductive methodologies will not automat- ically lead to better learning and more satisfied students [2]. PBL needs scaffolding, especially when students have lim- ited experience with PBL or lack of practical experience. A well-structured PBL approach should involve the stages: (1) Preparation; (2) Set-up; (3) Start-up; (4) Execution; (5) Conclusion [10]. Other methodologies drawn from the design of engineering products, like the so-call CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate), may help to structure a PBL-based course and prepare engineering students for their future professional life [11]. In this scenario, the use of soft- ware tools that help students in the development of their projects seems promising [12], [13]. Several undergraduate and Master’s courses have been designed according to PBL principles in a range of engineering areas, such as computer architecture [7], robotics [14], [15], embedded systems [16] or power electronics [17], [18]. In one interesting example Hassan et al. [19] used PBL method- ology to design a course on industrial informatics in the Automation and Electronic Engineering degree program at Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Spain. Their approach is multidisciplinary, but they focus mainly on electronics and instrumentation; in the work reported here the focus is on programming, embedded systems and introductory robotics. (Although a third-year/second-semester electronics instrumen- tation B.Sc. IEAE course was also designed according to PBL methodology). This paper presents a multidisciplinary PBL activity in programming embedded systems in an industrial informat- ics course. The activity had students program the controller of a 2DoF SCARA robot. Although embedded systems are used in many diverse industrial domains, this topic was chosen for several reasons: (1) students generally have positive atti- tudes towards robotics [20]; (2) there are close links between 0018-9359 c  2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.