Search

We describe the process of creating a control themed advent calendar quiz by means of a joint effort of researchers involved in control education from different countries, of distributing it among our students, and of collecting and analysing feedback from who answered the quiz. The created calendar consists of 24 problems, one for each of the 24 days before Christmas, and has been proposed to university students with the aim of showing them the many aspects that control engineering touches upon, and how this discipline can be useful in a wide variety of applications. We thus discuss the lessons learned from carrying on this initiative, with the purpose of aiding the creation and management of similar ones by listing what we believe are good practices in collaboratively creating quizzes, and in general what we believe may improve control education and serve as a valuable measure for outreach.

In 2023, a group of control academics joined to create a control themed advent calendar, which was open for participants from several European universities. A survey was used to collect participants’ feedback at the end of the activity. The results show that the calendar was mostly perceived as a fun and enjoyable activity, increased the perceived relevance of control as well as the perceived ability to solve control questions and that the questions were in general neither too difficult nor too easy. Some room for improvement was also identified.

Gamification refers to the utilization of gaming methods and tactics in non-traditional areas, like education. In this work, we describe different gamification-based methods for teaching automatic control in engineering studies as an alternative or support to the traditional teaching system. The experiences are being developed within the framework of a teaching innovation project developed at the University of Almería (Spain). The main objective of this project is to analyze the academic feasibility and acceptance of the use of gamified experiences by both professors and students. Specifically, the paper gives an overview of three different types of games. The first is a solitaire-style card game focused on the reinforcement of the theoretical concepts related to open-loop dynamic system analysis and the design of closed-loop control systems. The second is a virtual challenge of tuning Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controllers. The goal of this game is for students to understand the impacts of proportional, integral, and derivative actions when these controllers operate in closed-loop mode. The third is an escape room with the primary objective of improving students’ comprehension of basic control principles covered in the initial introductory course in engineering studies.