#MyPolytechnicMajor - Mechatronic Engineering Technology

 

Mikaela Caron provides highlights of a week in her life as a junior majoring in mechatronics engineering technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University.


Mikaela had a very busy week planned when she agreed to document her major and student life for seven days. First up was the Greater Lafayette Startup Weekend, where she decided to pitch a business idea.

 

 
 

Today we begin a new feature, #MyPolytechnicMajor, featuring daily posts from a student. This week, meet Mikaela Caron (@gumbi1822), a mechatronics engineering technology major from Brownsburg, Indiana. "Over the Sept. 9-11 weekend, I attended the Greater Lafayette Startup Weekend, hosted at the Matchbox Coworking Studio. On Friday night, attendees were able to pitch their idea to everyone in 60 seconds. Mine was the top voted idea, with 12 votes. After voting, the top 10-12 ideas were options that attendees were able to choose from to form a team. I had nine members on my team. Everyone on my team was a current Purdue student except one, who graduated this past year. We began brainstorming and getting to know each other. Saturday: We focused on validating our idea. We went out and surveyed 120 total students. Later in the day we began to brainstorm our solution and begin our presentation. Sunday: We finished putting the final details into our presentation and finished our mockup. In the evening we gave our final presentation. Sadly we did not win, but I had a great time! I learned so much about business and how hard it is to actually begin developing an idea into an actual final product.” #PurduePolytechnic #fortheexperiences

A photo posted by Purdue Polytechnic Institute (@techpurdue) on

 

 

 

Mikaela's class schedule includes courses in mechanical, manufacturing and electrical engineering technologies, all of which require hands-on practice of theories. "That’s what I like about the Polytechnic majors: you learn the concepts and then do something in lab that relates to all of that,” she says.

 

 

 

 

Mikaela Caron’s plan of study in mechatronics engineering technology includes courses in several academic disciplines. Here’s a snapshot from one Wednesday class: “During my Introduction to Digital Systems course (an electrical engineering technology course) we used the Arduino Mega 2560. We are still learning the basics about how they work and how we're going to utilize them. In the picture, I am adjusting the values of a program we made, using C programming language, to display binary numbers using LEDs. I am excited for this class because the labs are very interactive and applicable. I am minoring in computer and information technology, and I enjoy this class because we are programming hardware and I like seeing how the hardware and software work together in order to create something!” #MyPolytechnicMajor #TheWayYouLearn #TheoryBasedAppliedLearning #CProgramming #Arduino

A photo posted by Purdue Polytechnic Institute (@techpurdue) on

 

One of the events Mikaela was able to attend was the International Manufacturing Technology Show 2016 in Chicago.