ELIC – Building the New Generation of Engineers for Automotive in Europe

Abstract

The Automotive industry is currently undergoing a dramatic innovation. Mechatronic solutions integrate knowledge about mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and informatics. Generations of students were specialising on one field, while current solutions require architects that can combine these different subject fields to one solution in automotive industry. For instance, battery systems require nowadays such a combination of skills, where chemistry is used to build Li cells. Physics is used to create the circuit and resistors to control the loading of cells. Voltage sensors are used as input to an electronic (ECU – Electronic control unit) to control loading and avoid overloading. And temperature sensors are an input to the ECU to identify temperature and avoid overheating and outgasing of explosive H gas. Mathematical models are used in the control algorithms. And Software I developed and executed on the ECU. Etc. The future car industry needs engineers to think outside the box, across different disciplines and who are capable of multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team-working. ELIC (Engineering Literacy Online - Teachers as Medium for Change) is an EU project supported under the Erasmus+ program which develops an ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Association) compliant skills set and exam for teachers, as well as a MOOC platform to train teachers to teach interconnected science examples for Automotive.