A Multidisciplinary Problem Based Learning Experience for Telecommunications Students

The Telecommunications Engineering degree contains the study and understanding of a wide range of knowledge areas, like signal theory and communications, computer networks, and radio propagation. This diversity makes it hard for students to integrate different concepts, which is essential to tackle real and practical problems that involve different subjects. As a response to this need of integration, a group of professors at Rey Juan Carlos University carried out an educational project based on Problem Based Learning (PBL), called the Wireles4x4 Project. In this project, groups of students build a complete system to autonomously drive a radio controlled car, involving different technologies such as wireless communications, positioning systems, power management, and system integration. The results show that the participating students improve not only their specific knowledge on the involved issues, but also their capability of integrating different subjects of the degree and the skills for autonomous learning.