The College of Engineering has prioritized updates and upgrades to enhance the student experience.

Students observe a humanoid robot and robotic dog during a demonstration in a robotics lab.

Controls, Automation, and Robotics (CAR) Lab

Mechanical engineering’s CAR Lab has gotten a facelift with a fresh coat of paint and some new robots. In this lab, students practice coding with machines to perform certain tasks. 

The newest additions to the lab include ROVER, a quadruped robot dog, and Cognito, a humanoid robot. Engineering students program these robots to do tasks such as having ROVER open doors or Cognito use a grinding wheel. 

Students wearing safety glasses work together on a wooden engineering project in a makerspace.

The Workbench

Students asked, and they got it: a more convenient space to build and collaborate on projects just steps away from the Design Studio. 

It is stocked with all the basic hand tools; electronics such as oscilloscopes and soldering stations; machine simulators; and several power tools, such as scroll saws, a laser cutter, sanders, and more. 
 

Laboratory electronics testing equipment connected to a computer displaying measurement data.

LiDAR and Radar Equipment

Contributions from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, Iowa Space Grant Consortium, and NASA enhanced the experience for electrical and computer engineering students.

An upgraded signal analyzer reaches the lower millimeter wave band, which supports modern technologies such as 5G cellphones, automotive collision-avoidance radar, and precision location devices like Apple AirTags. 

A sampling oscilloscope allows observations of very short pulses, which are common in radar and LiDAR systems. A new 48-port, 10-gigabit Ethernet switch provides high-speed connectivity essential for medical imaging, AI, and data-intensive research. 

Hands adjusting equipment on a laboratory instrument during a research or testing procedure.

INFORMAT Lab

Inside the new industrial engineering INFORMAT Lab, a conveyor system emulates a real factory production and inspection environment. 

Students fill one of three roles:

  • Process tracker: Uses a stopwatch to record time
  • Inspector: Measures and inspects the quality of the writing by the robot arm
  • Controller: Controls the stop and movement of the pallets and the operation of the robot arm

Students collect real process and quality data to analyze performance, identify bottlenecks, and improve efficiency. 

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