[valarauca1]

Mechanical and Technical engineering base of the city already exists.

The automotive industry has already created a host of general consulting engineering companies specializing in everything from hydraulics to electronics to fluid flow is insane.

One area of the city is literally known as "automation alley" due to the huge number of PLC controlled robots it produced in the 80's and 90's.

The ideas of line automation were invented in Detroit.

Also the exposure the metro-area children get to this technology is unpresendented. While HN doesn't seem to be "big" on First/FRC high school robotics competition. Nearly every school in the suburbs has a team that builds at least 1 50k+ robot per year to compete locally. There are multiple programs and competitions FIRST isn't the only. I bring this up because Michigan teams don't exactly compete but dominate was a better word before the region limiting system was put in place.

Finally the education system is also in place. Lawerence/Kettering university were founded by Ford and GM as trade schools to crank out engineers for their companies, now they're private universes. But the it demonstrates just how many engineer degrees come from the state let alone the metro area.

[jcastro]

Hey I judge at First every year! You're right that the amount of engineering prowess (and willingness to go into engineering) is really high, but for some reason the area is never mentioned among the heavyweights for some reason.

Oakland U also has (or had) a decent engineering program, no idea how it's coming along these days though.

[phkahler]

OU is still hosting the annual AUVS intelligent ground vehicle competition - autonomous vehicles. My team took 2nd place back in 1994. Yeah Google, we've been doing that stuff for 21 years. They're also building another engineering building.

[IndianAstronaut]

The problem now though is that robotics and automation is more than just engineering the machine, the challenges are in managing and building the AI. This area of study and research is not so active in Michigan.

[cdgore]

Ann Arbor is about 40 miles from Detroit, and the university there has one of the top AI programs. I believe they are building an autonomous car testing ground for the auto industry as well http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531301/town-built-for-d...