STEM

New University of Houston Robotics Lab Provides Students with Hands-on STEM Skills

• By Rhea Kelly
• 06/04/19

The University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering has unveiled a new robotics laboratory designed to prepare students for real-world engineering challenges. Technologies and equipment for the lab were donated by the Omron Foundation, the charitable arm of industrial automation company Omron.

The lab features a robotics area as well as a section dedicated to senior design projects, where students work on capstone projects that give them real-world design experience and job-ready skills. For example, recent senior projects included a sorting robot and a mobile robotic billboard.

"Prospective employers will expect [students] to speak intelligently about what they worked on for their design project, so the experience they gain at this stage is very important," said Len Trombetta, associate department chair for electrical and computer engineering, in a statement. "This makes our graduates very marketable because these are skills companies want."

Trombetta added that access to state-of-the-art technology encourages students to excel: "If you walk into a laboratory, and there's equipment there for you and resources available to you, you're going to do a better job than if you have to fight for a bench or scrounge for equipment. It means a lot for the students to be able to come in and have a place they call their own, where they can work on their projects and have all the equipment and resources they need."