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Undergraduate Engineers For Curriculum and Laboratory Equipment Development: A Freescale S12 Microcontroller Laboratory Trainer

Abstract

For over five years we have used student designed and developed laboratory equipment with great success. Typically a student team will design and fabricate a prototype of a next –generation piece of laboratory equipment. Other students are then hired to fabricate multiple production run pieces of the equipment. Student developed laboratory equipment solves two challenging problems confronting most engineering programs: 1) the need to update laboratory exercises and equipment without adequate funds and 2) satisfying Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requirements for a major design experience within the curriculum. In this paper we will briefly review previous projects completed such as a Motorola HC12 microcontroller based teaching platform, a Freescale S12 microcontroller based teaching robot, and a Verilog HDL based robot. We will also review the lessons learned in such a venture and potential challenges. We then focus on the most recent student developed laboratory equipment – a Freescale S12 based laboratory trainer.

Background

Engineering departments are often faced with the need to update laboratory exercises and equipment without adequate funds to do so. Another challenge faced by departments are satisfying Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) criteria for a major capstone design experience within the curriculum. ABET Criterion 4. Professional Component guidelines state, “Students must be prepared for engineering practice through the curriculum culminating in a major design experience based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work and incorporating engineering standards and multiple realistic constraints.” These constraints are further defined in Criterion 3. Program Outcomes and Assessment which states, “Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain: (c) an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability [1, 2].

In this paper we will describe how we solved these two challenges by updating our microprocessor laboratory facilities on a limited budget using student engineers. We have successfully used student engineers in the past to develop custom laboratory equipment and teaching aids including a:

- Verilog HDL controlled robot [3], - Labview based digital signal processing and bioinstrumentation laboratory program [4],

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Barrett, S., & Hager, C., & Yurkoski, M., & Lewis, R., & Jespersen, M., & Ruble, Z. (2008, June), Undergraduate Engineers For Curriculum And Laboratory Equipment Development: A Freescale S12 Microcontroller Laboratory Trainer Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3088