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Session 3220

Tele-experimentation: The Emerging Approach to Science and Engineering Lab Education

Bill Diong*, Miguel Perez** and Ryan Wicker** *Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering **Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering The University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract A project has been initiated to enable students and researchers to conduct Science and Engineering (S&E) experiments via the Internet as an answer to the dual needs for improved distance education in those fields as well as for more effective utilization of scarce research hardware resources, with the ultimate goal of having such experimentation become a ubiquitous component of distance education and research. The first step towards this objective consisted of implementing, as a prototype, a method whereby students studying Control Systems are able to conduct experiments on a small wind tunnel system located in the UTEP Controls laboratory while off-campus via the Internet using only Web browser software and to view (near) real-time data from that experiment the same way. Specifically, this allows the remote user to vary the PID controller gains and then monitor the effect of such variations on the dynamic response of the air velocity in the wind tunnel. The general approach and particular implementation, having now been established, can next be adapted to other S&E experimentation systems (for Biology, Chemistry, Physics and the various Engineering disciplines) on the UTEP campus and then elsewhere so as to result in a much broader impact, especially with the ongoing development of Internet 2. The intent is to eventually develop standardized (as much as possible) hardware and software platforms with generic modules for addressing various functions inherently needed by such experimentation systems, especially those used for instructional purposes.

Motivation Two major events have shaped American society over the past decade and continue to exert an influence today. The first was the end of the Cold War, which has had an unfortunate side-effect of reducing Federal funding for NASA and University research and education activities. The second was the advent of the World Wide Web, which has led to the incredible popularization of the Internet as an alternate means of personal and mass communication, information assimilation and dissemination and, more recently, distance education and research.

With the above as motivating factors, a project was initiated at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) aimed at providing a springboard for improved distance education in the fields of Engineering and the Sciences as well as for more effective utilization of scarce research hardware resources. Although the idea of tele-operation of hardware systems over the Internet is

Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education

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Perez, M., & Wicker, R., & Diong, B. (2001, June), Tele Experimentation: The Emerging Approach To Science And Engineering Lab Education Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--9895