Developing Research Projects on a Learning Factory - a Tool to Enhance Learning and Teaching (#1910)

Authors

Roman-Flores, Armando

Cuan-Urquizo, Enrique

Vazquez-Hurtado, Carlos

Castillo-Herrera, Luis G.

Macías-Duarte, Luis F.

Robledo-Rios, Daniel

Sandoval-Padilla, Saul

Abstract

A learning factory is a concept developed to mimic industrial settings for academic or consulting services. This environment offers the space where Industry 5.0 concepts can be understood through experiential learning. Interest in these settings has increased in recent years because of their potential to offer an enriched setting for engineering education, training, and research. This work aims to present a roadmap towards the development of a learning factory in academia, starting from the conceptualization of the idea, and recommendations for implementation based on previous developments by the authors. The proposed approach is described from planning, development to validation phases, and finishes with a discussion of lessons learned and useful best practices. This document also describes the experiences of developing projects for undergrad courses, capstone projects, research internships and graduate projects. Projects include work on additive manufacturing, collaborative robots, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, mechatronics, automation, to name a few. Some of the results obtained from these projects include obtaining grants, publications, conference presentations, collaboration with other institutions, and the development of entrepreneurships.