Development of A Remote-Access, Simulator-Enabled, Team-Friendly Lab for an Electric Machines Course
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
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ECE Division Technical Session 1: Online or Remote Teaching and Curricular Developments
- Page Count
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15
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--40916
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/40916
- Download Count
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357
Paper Authors
L. Brent Jenkins Kennesaw State University
L. Brent Jenkins, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kennesaw State University.
Abstract
In early March of 2020—as it became clear that our summer courses would likely be online and knowing that we lacked the means to offer an Electric Machines lab via such a modality—a literature search and a web search were conducted to explore the available options. The findings of particular interest included a simulator that mimics the hardware/software in our physical lab and a YouTube video describing a simulator that had been made asynchronously accessible to remote students via a Linux utility.
The appeal of the simulator we found is best conveyed by a summary of its capabilities. Students can use it to: place realistic “images" of equipment modules into a virtual workstation, add the necessary electrical connections, place a drive belt on machine pulleys, adjust instrument settings, take measurements using instruments having the same “look and feel" as the virtual instrumentation in our physical lab, and obtain results consistent with those of the actual equipment.
Unlike the remote-access application described in the YouTube video, we needed to create a team-oriented synchronous lab to enable provision of real-time instructor assistance and to broker the sharing of a relatively small number of simulator licenses among students in multiple sections of the course. Instances of the simulator were installed in virtual desktops hosted on campus to satisfy the simulator licensing requirements. A multi-user collaborative environment was selected to provide both a meeting environment for each section as a whole and private environments for the use of each team and the instructor. Means were also provided for teams to communicate with the instructor and for the instructor to visit a team’s private environment either in response to a request for assistance or simply to check on the team’s progress.
The remote-access, virtual lab thus described has provided an excellent means for distributed students to collaborate in a remote-teaching environment. The technical capabilities of its simulator have compared favorably to those of the physical lab it temporarily replaced. The on call instructor assistance enabled by the collaboration software has been acceptable to students in terms of both extent and wait time. These conclusions are based on both instructor observations and an end-of-the-course student survey.
Jenkins, L. B. (2022, August), Development of A Remote-Access, Simulator-Enabled, Team-Friendly Lab for an Electric Machines Course Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40916
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