Development of innovative labs for education in mining engineering programs

Abstract

The School of Mines and Energy of the Technical University of Madrid is working on the transformation of an educational laboratory on Mining Technology to develop an Innovative Lab in this field. As part of a project developed by several European partners and supported by EIT Raw Materials, this is one of the first experiences oriented to educate and train undergraduate and MSc students, by creating a space devoted to the development of their technical and entrepreneurial skills. Moreover, in these spaces, the use and integration of new tools and technologies will help to educate the future professionals who will develop their activity within the 4th industrial revolution, in which the mining industry is called to evolve giving place to "smart mining factories" with cyber-physical mining systems. This will be translated in a completely new way to interact among computers, automatic systems, robotics, and humans. This paper describes how this education project is being developed.