What are the requirements of becoming a robotics engineer?
I am very much interested in robotics as junior in high school right now. What should I look for in colleges if this is what I am interested in? I want to know what are the things I need to get done right now or over time to pursue this career. #college-selection #robotics #robotics-engineer
3 answers
Douglas Lemmo, P.E.
Douglas’s Answer
Hi,
In addition to the basics of machine design, strength of materials, etc. that you will get in an Mechanical Engineering course, a robotics engineer will also need skills in the area of electric, hydraulic or pneumatic power systems and knowledge of electronic controls. The Design of a robot, would most likely include team members with one or more of the above skills all working together to achieve the desired result.
Soumya’s Answer
1. Depth knowledge in one domain (Mechanical/Electrical/Computer Science) or it can be a Major in one with minor in other.
2. Prior experience in robotics projects (For an intern it is college projects, for a full-time it would be college projects + previous internships)
3. Ability to communicate your work to an engineer from a different background: Most important as a robot is an integrated system.
4. Ability to do Fault detection and analysis no matter what background you are from: Root Cause Analysis
5. Team-building/leadership roles.
Lori’s Answer
You also have some opportunity to pursue the computer engineering / computer science side of robotics if you are more interested in the programming / artificial intellgience / component design etc. for the robots.
For college/university, you should look for somewhere that either has robotics as a minor or a large variety of engineering majors and minors to allow you to try a few different things and help you to figure out what part of robotics you like. I always loved watching the MIT battle bots competitions on PBS :-). If you are able, there are also some places that offer robotics summer camps or home kits you can buy to get kicked off in exploring all the fascinating facets of robotics!