abstract
- Engineering students not majoring in an electronics-related area often wonder about the importance of some courses in their curriculum. Problem-Based Learning can solve this problem by presenting students with real-world applications of different concepts. In this work, implementations of Problem-Based Learning cases, for electricity and electromagnetism courses are presented. In the electricity course, the students were charged with proposing a circuit for a supercapacitor to be used as a battery for different devices (such as vehicles), while in the electromagnetism courses, the students had to build and simulate a prototype of an electromagnetic engine to mimic the functioning of a levitating train. The students were graded based on their problem-solution proposals and were asked their opinions about the challenges. Overall, students exhibited a good performance in the courses (mean grade was 85.27) and liked the challenges; particularly, the electromagnetic challenge was found as very compelling, and students mentioned that the electricity challenge falls back because it lacks a hands-on component. © 2022 IEEE.