Shigehiko Kaneko : Department of Mechanical Engineering

Unmanned vehicle navigation


Final meeting

Background
The idea of starting internship program of PhD level was brought from a discussion in one of the working group dealing with the collaboration of university and industries belonging a committee for breeding PhD course students of 21COE. After the discussion of this working group, the contents which PhD course students are recommended to acquire was summarized as the ability for management, application and communication especially in English.

According to the recent survey by the committee on engineering education program at graduate course level (2003.9.19) summarizing the opinion on the achievement level of the students before entering PhD course and after finishing PhD course from university professors and industry people, small difference was found on the items of ability of forecasting their research goal and logical thinking, the level of knowledge and application of their specialties, writing technical papers in Japanese and English and interests in international activities. However, large difference was found on the items of deep understanding and diversity of basic subjects, the ability for innovation, planning and execution, diverse way of thinking and problem definition.

Under such a background, internship in PhD level meant for fostering the ability difficult to acquire by the university education was started in 2007.4. This program is named Mechanical System Innovation II with two credits all through one year. Registered students in 2006 and 2007 were 8 and 5, respectively.

Schedule of internship
Internship starts with the guidance in mid April and after matching meeting with industries in mid May, students start their activities in mid June. Period of internship varies from one to six months depending on the theme and the style of their activities.

Students are obliged to submit intermediate report in mid November, make presentations on their achievement at a meeting in late January and submit final report by the end of January. In some exceptional cases, the starting date of internship shifts down to late November due to the special reason on student or industry side.

Style of internship
Three types of internship are prepared such that (1) to select topic from the list proposed by companies and research institutes (6 students); (2) to pursuit the collaborating topic already operated between the university and the companies and research institutes (7 students); (3) to contact companies and arrange new topic by the students themselves (0 students). Numbers inside parentheses are the number of students participated this program in 2006-2007. Internship activities are widely spread from flow analysis, flow measurement, utilization of air bubbles, evaluation on the fracture of pipes due to the wall thickness deterioration by probabilistic approach, consulting support, flight test utilizing a commercial aircraft, and flight test of unmanned small scale airplanes, etc.

Outcomes assessment
Comments from the registered students are summarized as follows; helpful experiences on deep physical understanding, acquiring new knowledge on numerical calculation method, schedule management technique and problem solution technique etc. In addition, some students rendered internship as a good opportunity to understand the difference on the standpoint of industries and university on the research and could acquire the knowledge and information helpful for them to think about their future career. Most of the comments from the industry people who acted as a tutor are positive saying that such internship program brings a chance for students to have a look at the activities of the researcher who finished PhD course and a opportunity for stimulating young industry researchers as well. However, some of the industry people sent a comment that the period of internship is too short. Therefore, to reflect such a comment properly, the second internship program was designed to start earlier compared with the first one.

Summary
Internship program of 2006 and 2007 brought the following valuable experience helpful to the future career for the students;
(1) Importance of the idea from the standpoint of needs
(2) View from a connection between their current research topic and society demand
(3) Importance of time management and project management
(4) Importance of the activities towards safety and security
(5) Importance of information exchange by the people with different research background
In order to improve outcomes brought from this internship program of PhD level, university professors have to make the students completely understand the aim and give them a good motivation before sending them to companies and research institutes. Investigating the outcomes after finishing internship by university professors is also important.

Acknowledgement
At the end, I appreciate all the people of companies and research institutes who collaborated our first internship program of PhD level.