Abstract
The European Project Semester (EPS) project-based learning framework is a multicultural and multidisciplinary one semester engineering capstone programme provided by a network of European Higher Education institutions. Its aim is to prepare 3rd-year undergraduate students to their future professional life, enhancing hard and soft skills and following ethical and sustainable design and development practices. At the School of Engineering of Porto Polytechnic (ISEP) the focus of the EPS programme (EPS@ISEP) is on solving multidisciplinary problems through teamwork, involving engineering, design and business students [1]. The students work in teams of 5 to 6 students, assembled according to the identified Belbin team roles, and also maximizing student cultural and scientific diversity. On the first week each team chooses to solve one of the open-ended multidisciplinary problems on offer. Those projects involve typically some type of automation and control[2]. One of the obstacles these eclectic teams face is the lack of hardware/software skills required to design, assemble and test a microcontroller based systems. To help overcome this situation, the programme syllabus includes an 8-hour intensive "Arduino & Electronics Crash Course" at the beginning of the semester due to its market penetration, low-cost, availability of documentation and support, and soft learning curve. This course has effectively contributed to provide students with the necessary knowledge to design and implement simple control systems, leading to the adoption in multiple EPS@ISEP past projects of the Arduino platform/ecosystem. However, the crescent sophistication of the projects, namely the integration with Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, requires the definition of a new strategy, considering the available hardware/software alternatives. This paper analyses the experience of the EPS@ISEP students regarding the use of microcontroller based platforms in the development of engineering capstone projects, and proposes possible future hardware/software alternatives, both from the technical and pedagogical perspectives.

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In recent years, cognitive robots have started to find their way into manufacturing halls. However, the full potential of these robots can only be exploited through (a) an integration of the robots with the Manufacturing Execution System (MES), (b) a new and simpler way of programming based on robot skills, automated task planning, and knowledge modeling, and (c) enabling the robots to function in a shared human/robot workspace with the ability to handle unexpected situations. The STAMINA project has built a robotic system that meets these objectives for an automotive kitting application, which has also been tested, validated, and demonstrated in a relevant environment (TRL6). This paper describes the STAMINA robot system and the evaluation of this system on a series of realistic kitting tasks. The structure of the system, evaluation methodology, and experimental results, are presented along with the insights and experiences gained from this work.

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To support the full adoption of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in modern production lines, effective solutions need to be extended to the technological domains of robotics and industrial automation. This paper addresses the description, application and results of usage of the Open Scalable Production System (OSPS) and its underlying skill-based robot programming ideology to support machine tending of additive manufacturing operations by a mobile manipulator. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.