POE stands for Principles of Engineering, and is a second year engineering course at the Olin College of Engineering. It builds upon core mechanical, electrical, and software engineering concepts developed in the first year of study, and integrates the three disciplines through a series of projects.
The first project students work on is an Arduino powered bike light. This is most students’ first exposure to the Arduino platform, and emphasizes electrical and firmware engineering. Students develop a system that responds to pushbutton input to switch between a number of light modes.
The second project is a 3D scanner. Escalating quickly from the first project, students mount an infrared distance sensor to a pan-tilt mechanism of their own design, and program an Arduino to sweep the sensor across two dimensions. Students then generate a visualization of the scanned data.
The third and final structured project is a line following robot. Using two infrared sensors to detect the presence of a line made on the ground with electrical tape, students build a robot that can follow a line in a closed loop.
Finally, the last 8 weeks of the course are left for final projects. Students work in teams of four to five on a project of their own design, developing a system with significant mechanical, electrical, and firmware components.
