Smart Factory Systems
Smart Factory Systems drops students into Industry 4.0 - the world where manufacturing is software, data, and robotics as much as it is metal. Working in Python on a genuine six-axis robotic arm, students automate pick-and-place work, integrate conveyors, pneumatics, and optical sensors into a functioning production cell, and learn to collaborate safely with machines that move.
Data is the course's second language. Students stream live cell telemetry into IoT dashboards, mine large datasets for bottlenecks, and build predictive-maintenance models that catch failures before they happen. Digital twins let them rehearse and validate robot programs in simulation - complete with collision checking and augmented-reality visualization - before any code touches hardware. Lean methods and supply-chain thinking, framed by the semiconductor industry, connect the cell to the global economy it serves.
Because a connected factory is an attackable factory, students harden their own systems using core security principles. The capstone is an end-to-end smart factory design of their own: automated, instrumented, simulated, and secured.
View the full lesson plan — all 180 periods →
Course structure — 6 units, 6 weeks each
In every unit, weeks 1–5 build the skills and week 6 applies them in a project, with a deliverable due at the end of each day.