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Designing a senior-level course that involves problem-based learning, including project completion task, is laborious and challenging. A well-designed project motivates the students to be self-learners and prepares them for future industrial or academic endeavors. The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges when instructions were forced to move either online or to a remote teaching/learning environment. Due to this rapid transition, delivery modes in teaching and learning modalities faced disruption making course design more difficult. The senior level Flight Controls course AME - 4513 is designed with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) related projects for the students to have a better understanding of UAS usage on various applications in support of Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. The purpose of this paper is to present the UAS lab modules in a junior level robotics lab, AME - 4802, which preceded the Flight Controls course in the school of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Successfully completing the course project requires independent research and involves numerical simulations of UAS. The Robotics Lab course focuses on hands-on projects of robotic systems with an emphasis on semi-autonomous mobile robots, including an UAS introduction module. - The UAS module in the Robotics Lab class is introduced in Spring 2020. Therefore, most of the students enrolled in the Spring 2020 Robotics Lab course have introductory knowledge about the UAS system when taking the Fall 2020 Flight Control course. In addition, Spring 2020 Robotics Lab was affected due to COVID-19. - The UAS module was not introduced in 2019 Spring Robotics lab. Thus, the students enrolled in Fall 2019 Flight Controls course did not have prior knowledge on the UAS system. - We thus present the implementation of UAS module in a junior level robotics lab which preceded the senior level Flight Controls course in following Fall semester, when the same instructor taught the course. 

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have become popular in the past two decades because of their key role in numerous military applications, which range from aerial support of troops involved on the battlefield to surveillance and border patrol. The versatility of UAS platforms make it extremely appealing for several civilian applications, and considerable cost reduction for critical components has made this technology a powerful resource for private operators. In this paper we present a collaborative effort with the objective of establishing a competitive UAS educational program at the Rose State College (RSC, a two-year institute) and creating a pipeline to develop a UAS workforce in Oklahoma. The approach modified freshman and sophomore aerospace and mechanical engineering courses at RSC to incorporate UAS design into applicable courses. Experiential learning opportunities involving UAS are included through class projects. Modifying the “Introduction to Aerospace Engineering” course at the University of Oklahoma (OU, 4-year institute) and applying the theoretical concepts learned in class to real examples involving UAS. UAS platforms are not considered as mere special cases, but will be given proper attention both in class and through dedicated homework assignments and projects. We also investigate pipeline of students from RSC to OU. Many of the RSC students attending selected undergraduate classes at OU decide to continue their education by pursuing a bachelor’s degree in engineering. This positive trend is encouraged by providing UAS students at RSC to perform undergraduate (UG) research at OU. This paper presents different activities to establish curriculum and collaboration between the two institutions to support Oklahoma’s workforce.