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Development of a Suite of Virtual Experiments for Physics and Chemistry Undergraduate Laboratories

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Conference

2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Indianapolis, Indiana

Publication Date

June 15, 2014

Start Date

June 15, 2014

End Date

June 18, 2014

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Laboratory Applications of Computers

Tagged Division

Computers in Education

Page Count

17

Page Numbers

24.419.1 - 24.419.17

DOI

10.18260/1-2--20310

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/20310

Download Count

342

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Paper Authors

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Oluyemisi Oladayo Satope iLabs OAU

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Satope Oluyemisi is a developer at iLabs OAU and a final year student in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering OAU. She has worked with iLab in robotics education for high school students. Also, as the chairperson of Women in Engineering OAU Student Branch, she has been involved in several tech programmes for high school girls and students in general.
Presently she is working on online education with online laboratories for physics and chemistry experiments in iLabs.

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Isaiah Oreoluwa Boboye Obafemi Awolowo University

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Olawale Babatunde Akinwale Obafemi Awolowo University

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Olawale B. Akinwale earned his first degree at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, finishing with first class honors in 2004. He obtained his second degree from the same department in 2011. He is a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife in Electronic and Electrical Engineering, majoring in Instrumentation. He is also a lab developer in the OAU iLab Research Group. He developed the first reported robotic arm remote lab in Africa making use if the MIT iLab shared architecture and National Instruments LabVIEW. His interests include online experimentation, methods in enhancing pedagogy, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and home automation.

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Lawrence O. Kehinde Obafemi Awolowo University

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Professor Lawrence Kunle Kehinde, a former Departmental Chair, Engineering Dean and University Deputy Vice Chancellor, received his B.Sc. 1st class Honours in Electronics (1971), and a PhD, Control Engineering (1975), at the University of Sussex UK. As a Fellow of the international Atomic Energy Agency, USA; He had his Post Doctoral Studies in Nuclear Instrumentation at the University of California, Berkeley USA (1977-1978). He has spent most of his years as a Professor of Instrumentation Engineering at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria where he still teaches. He was the Rector of the first private Polytechnic in Nigeria. He recently concluded a 3-year Visiting Professor term at the Texas Southern University, Houston Texas USA. He has worked in Techno-Managerial position as the Director of ICT at OAU for years. His major field is Instrumentation Designs and has designed various equipment. He was the founding Principal Investigator of the University’s iLab research and he currently designs remote and virtual experiments for remote experimentation in Science and Engineering. He is at present the Coordinator of a State Research and Educational Network in Nigeria. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of both the Computer Association of Nigeria, and Computer Professionals of Nigeria and a Member of IEEE and ASEE. He is also a reviewer for journals. He has over 75 publications in Journals and Proceedings. He also jointly held two British Patents in the past.

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Olabode Idowu Asubiojo Obafemi Awolowo University

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Abstract

DEVELOPMENT OF A SUIT OF VIRTUAL EXPERIMENS FOR PHYSICS ANDCHEMISTRY UNDERGRADUATE LABORATORIES.Inadequate funding and lack of equipment is a bane of undergraduate laboratory practicein Physics and Chemistry. If it is possible for students to have virtual equivalents of theseexperiments, they can easily perform them on-line thereby increasing their understandingand speed of completion if and when they get to the real lab.Using Physics and Chemistry laboratory manuals of freshmen at a university, the authorshave developed virtual laboratories for selected experiments. These include Calorimetry,Specific Heat Capacity, Latent Heat Capacity, Ohm’s law, pH measurement and Acidbase Titration. The idea is to eventually upgrade these in future to a MOOCs suit that anumber of universities can use. This work involves a synergy of faculties in Physics,Chemistry, Electronics and Computer Engineering.The design process used by authors is purely graphical; it involves the use of imageswhich are given certain properties programmatically to behave like the liveequipment when interacted with by the students on their computers using their keyboardsand mice.An apparatus bench containing the materials and equipment for each experiment ispresented with adequate prompts for each step to be taken by students. A help guidedescribing the theory and procedure for performing each experiment in real laboratoryThe programming sequence (algorithms) is implemented using flash or HTML5. HTML5in particular is a potential candidate for cross-platform mobile applications. Many of itsfeatures have been built with the consideration of being able to run on low-powereddevices such as smart phones and tablets.Comparison of performances of students who had previously done the virtual labs beforetaking the real lab and those who had not will be carried out.

Satope, O. O., & Boboye, I. O., & Akinwale, O. B., & Kehinde, L. O., & Asubiojo, O. I. (2014, June), Development of a Suite of Virtual Experiments for Physics and Chemistry Undergraduate Laboratories Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--20310

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