Faculty Workshop on Teaching of First Courses on Power Electronics and Electric Drives.

University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

This grant will support a Faculty Workshop on "Teaching of First Courses on Power Electronics and Electric Drives" in March 2001. This workshop will promote the following objectives: 1. Provide the highest quality undergraduate education in this field, 2. Motivate and attract talented students, 3. Minimize lecture-preparation time for the instructors, and 4. Facilitate teaching of these courses by EE faculty specializing in other fields. Power electronics and electric drives have the potential to improve industrial productivity by means of robotics and factory automation, and of making the United States become a nation that uses electricity most efficiently. There is a looming crisis in the undergraduate education of power electronics and electric drives which, if not addressed, will leave the nation with far too few engineers to take advantage of these opportunities. Power electronics will also be crucial to transitrtren, in the motor vehicle sector allowing more efficient use of energy. The University of Minnesota has studied the restructuring of these courses since 1994. This effort received a strong impetus from funding by NSF, EPRI, and the local utilities in May 1997 when a three-year project Innovations in Power Engineering Education there, including prior workshops on "Teaching of Electric Drives" and "Teaching of Power Electronics". Both of these workshops were highly successful, each attended by nearly one hundred participants. The new workshop will build on the new experience resulting from this prior activity and also attempt to develop integration of the two areas. The new workshop will build on the new experience resulting from this prior activity and also attempt to develop integration of the two areas. As a part of the workshop proceedings, copies of completed lecture notes, lecture transparencies, and the simulation exercises discussed during the workshop will be distributed. Ways of tightly coupling lecture material to simulations and hardware laboratory will be discussed.