The electrical engineering program at Texas A&M University- Kingsville (TAMUK) offers power electronics as an elective course and electric machinery as a required course. Due to increased perception that these courses are old-fashion and the materials covered in them are out-of-date, the credit hours of electric machinery courses have been reduced, and there is evident from recent years that shows a reduction in the number of students enrolling in these courses. However, the power industry demand for trained power engineers continues to grow! Hence, the objective of this project is to revitalize these courses with the introduction of start-of-art laboratories using digital control and digital signal processing (DSP). The goals of this restructuring include 1) to provide the requisite information about power electronics and electric drives in such a way by combining them with digital and DSP based control; 2) to make the reconstructed courses appealing and exciting; 3) to ensure the highest quality of education; and 4) to prepare students for industry as well as for advanced courses. As a consequence of these course revisions, a larger supply of trained power engineers is produced to meet modern power industry needs. The course restructuring and laboratory development are based on the materials and approaches developed at the University of Minnesota (UMN). The materials and approaches have been demonstrated to be successful at UMN through the significantly increased number of undergraduate students enrolled in the Power Electronic and Electric Drives courses and in their performance in these courses. This project is mainly targeting minority undergraduate students in South Texas area but working professional engineers in the chemical process industries and in the electric companies in this area can also benefit from taking these courses.
