Engineering education benefits from the application of modern technology, allowing students to learn essential Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related concepts through hands-on experiences. Robotic kits have been used as an innovative tool in some educational fields, being readily accepted and adopted. However, most of the time, such kits' knowledge level requires understanding basic concepts that are not always appropriate for the student. A critical concept in engineering is the Cartesian Coordinate System (CCS), an essential tool for every engineering, from graphing functions to data analysis in robotics and control applications and beyond. This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel Two-Dimensional Cartesian Coordinate System Educational Toolkit (2D-CACSET) to teach the two-dimensional representations as the first step to construct spatial thinking. This innovative educational toolkit is based on real-time location systems using Ultra-Wide Band technology. It comprises a workbench, four Anchors pinpointing X+, X-, Y+, Y- axes, seven Tags representing points in the plane, one listener connected to a PC collecting the position of the Tags, and a Graphical User Interface displaying these positions. The Educational Mechatronics Conceptual Framework (EMCF) enables constructing knowledge in concrete, graphic, and abstract levels. Hence, the students acquire this knowledge to apply it further down their career path. For this paper, three instructional designs were designed using the 2D-CACSET and the EMCF to learn about coordinate axes, quadrants, and a point in the CCS.
Keywords: STEM; educational mechatronics; engineering education; hands-on learning.