What should a person that wants to pursue robotics study at uni in your opinion?

would love to also hear your story, assuming you also went with the mindset of wanting to do robotics, what did you major in?

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My college had a robotics club set up that regularity volunteered at events, so it was easy to continue. I majored in mechanical engineering, and of course there were computer, electrical, comp sci. But we had students from other majors such as ag engineering, civil engineering, nursing, pharmaceutical, biology, etc.

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If you want to study robotics at a university some schools have mechatronics as a major or as a concentration usually under mechanical engineering.

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To quote grandmaster Yoda, “Learn control, you must!”

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Mechatronics is a good one in engineering, if youre looking for more of an educator role some schools are now offering degrees in engineering education such as NCSU’s Technology Engineering and Design Education (no bias, go pack!)

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As a broad field…

Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Mechatronics.
Electrical Engineering with a focus on mechanical.
Healthy dose of Computer Science with both, or as the primary with a healthy dose of mechanical and electrical.

Basically, find the mechatronics courses for your preferred major.

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Two additional majors in this area that you might run across are:
Software Engineering : Applying Engineering principals to software design
Computer Engineering: Like EE but with an emphasis on digital systems.

+1 on mech e with a speciality vs straight mechatronics. Mechatronics is is still young and not as well accepted.

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YMMV.

Some companies really want mechatronics people. Mine, for example. (Though this Mech E happens to also be the main Electrical… long story.)

You need to define what robotics is to you, before anyone can answer that question. There’s a massive amount of variance across the spectrum. Industry as a whole probably considers robotics to be much more software and controls based, but you might view it as much more hardware based.

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Maybe mechatronics is young compared to a grey haired old geezer like me.

IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics started publishing 27 years ago. Quite a few universities offer degree programs in the field, and a couple of generations of talent have built careers.

Good engineers in motion control need a breadth of skills — draw a free-body diagram, analyze a circuit, write kinematic and dynamical equations, run numerical analysis software, CAD, code, prepare and present technical conclusions, …

And control, control, you MUST learn control!

Truth is, whichever engineering qualification you get to start your career, you’ll continue learning for several decades afterwards. It never stops.

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Honestly the degree you get is only relevant for your first 1-2 jobs. After that, experience goes far.

I currently do a mix of electrical and software engineering with a CS major degree

I got offers for a Mechanical Engineering and and Agricultural Engineering job before this position as well

Don’t stop learning, even if it’s not your field

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Absolutely this :point_up:

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FRC correlates more my current job than any class I took in high school or college. But when I went to college they’d just got rid of the card readers for programming.

Since I didn’t see it specifically mentioned, I’d also check out biomedical engineering. It’s not exactly the robots FRC is used to working with, but its still a field which isn’t far off from the others listed.

And I’d agree that there’s a lot of overlap in many of the suggestions. Things like internships, research, project courses available, etc will make a big impact versus the specifics of the title of the program - especially since those titles aren’t 100% consistent across schools.

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Probably computer engineering (because you can take robotics classes for that), computer science (wide application options), or mechanical engineering if you want to do more hardware stuff.

What all do you like about robotics?

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OP, Cory is really spot on here. What does “robotics” mean to you and the areas that you think you want to dig into. It can range from materials/physics type areas dealing with MEMs (Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems), to very mechanical based systems for extremely large (mining) or extremely small systems (surgery). It could be extremely SW based (vision processing or sensor fusion for autonomy). It could be setting up automation in a factory, or setting up stockers/gatherers in a warehouse.
What do you like? What do you see yourself wanting to do?
The only “general” advice I can give you is that it will likely be good to have some level of cross-functional education as others have pointed out, if you go ME, take some controls and electronics and SW coursework to augment. If you go CS or EE, figure out some mechanical or electrical classes/labs you can take to get a better background there.

As Background, FIRST chose “Robotics” as the tool for a lot of good reasons. It hands on, cross functional, and still “new” enough to be exciting and engaging.

The core structure of making a electromechanical device that competes to solve a problem with little to a whole lot of SW/sensors/controls allows for it to be incredibly applicable to so much of the product creation and manufacturing world. The broader problem solving and teamwork skills are even more encompassing.

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A lot of really good advice above, and I didn’t end up with an engineering degree (so take my advice with a grain of salt). I will echo cross functional (or multidisciplinary) education as a key in WHATEVER field you pursue.

Electrical engineers that have a real solid understanding of mechanical engineering seem to have a real valuable skill set, by the same token programming (or more broadly com sci) folks that know control systems really well, etc.

Basically multidisciplinary engineering is likely to get you a long way if you have the bandwidth and patience to pull it off. The 4+1 programs (bachelor’s and a master’s) in related engineering fields are maybe a good path if you are headed into school ahead in credits.

Just my 2¢

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Addding to Skyehawk’s comment, mechanical engineering with a large side order of electrical has been a winner in my career… Not that it came with anything official, but speaker building led to amplifier building, active crossovers, power electronics, and a thesis on electromagnetic levitation. Not the kind you whippersnappers are thinking of :wink: Mine had an RF generator the size of a 4 hole outhouse involved in it and would run a Copper chunk up to orange hot in maybe 15 seconds while it was floating in the air.
Yuck, that ended up being a terrible scan… Yes, precision wet paper towels to drop it on.
image

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