Competencies in the areas of fluid power, electrical, and electronic systems and controls are essential for technicians' understanding of manufacturing processes and other dynamic industries including transportation, construction, agriculture, power generation, and petrochemical. The artificial separation of electrical/electronic and fluid power systems curricula does not adequately prepare students to design, troubleshoot, repair, and service electrohydraulic and electropneumatic systems. This project integrates the electrical/electronics and fluid power technical curricula to foster synthesis of the knowledge and produce graduates with necessary skills and competencies. The goal of this project is to develop mobile and industrial electrohydraulic and electropneumatic technical education to produce more broadly-trained and competent technicians, as well as increase the knowledge of the incumbent workforce and technology teachers with an emphasis on experiential learning using state-of-the-art technology. The curricula will be redesigned to integrate these disciplines into four courses with a team teaching approach for students majoring in electrical and electronics technology, heavy equipment and vehicles, air conditioning and refrigeration technology, engineering graphics technology, and manufacturing technology at OSU-Okmulgee. The key to teaching this interdisciplinary technical curriculum is a unique hydraulic and electronic trainer which permits experiential learning opportunities in laboratory exercises. This project will serve many non-traditional students: the campus' average student age is 26.9 years and the racial distribution is more diverse than the state population. Curriculum developed for this project will be produced on multi-media and packaged for distance learning applications for the incumbent workforce. Results of this project will be disseminated to academic and fluid power professional associations, through the Internet, and on an electronic bulletin board.
