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Creating a modern Measurement & Test higher education course

Former Member

Good day all, I'm new to the Element14 community so please feel free to give any kind of advice to my question even if it's not directly related. I have recently started lecturing in Engineering (focus on electrical/electronic at higher education/degree level) and am appalled at the age and irrelevance of the teaching materials and equipment my institute currently offers. Our management has today said that they wish to expand the course offerings in our area but I have voiced concerns that much of what we teach requires some significant updating and so of course this is my task. I am going to focus on two modules I have ownership of over the next year or so which we title Measurement and Test, and Instrumentation and Control. In Measurement and Test the course runs through an introduction to the principals of measurement, standardisation and calibration, test equipment and procedures, and data acquisition.

 

I wonder if anyone here has experience of developing such a course? Or perhaps even there is someone here who has a similar goal. I am keen to make contact with any course developers in this area and am absolutely for the sharing of work and effort in such a thing if I were so lucky as to find a person in my position here. I would even consider collaborating with someone on creating a publicly available course/MOOC for wider use among internet citizens because this really is my passion going forward (any widely used and open platform).

 

If you are someone who has experience in this area then maybe you might be able to point me to the most complete and, importantly, up-to-date information available on the web. Or at least point in the direction of that content image. Book and literature recommendations are of course most welcome because I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze at least a little cash out of those tightly clasped wallets in management.

 

Much gratitude for reading this far kind and wise soul!

 

ps. I myself have a keen interest in hardware/software interaction and would love any ideas for raspberry pi-based ideas for this course so throw it out there if you have something in your head.

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  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Hey Kevin,

     

    Maybe it's just me, but even grad students seem to have a limited grasp of electronics; and how to apply theory to application.

     

    You could probably burn the entire semester doing calibration statistics. (possibly making yourself the most hated professor on campus)

     

    If you have a bunch of engineering students, perhaps this is a good opportunity to give them some real measurement and control problems.

     

    Raspberry Pi and Arduino are just two popular  platforms for learning digital control.

    (I suppose an FPGA based measurement and control course might be a bit much)

     

    Still you could incorporate any of the above into a one or two semester course (with labs).

     

    I would recommend making the students responsible for purchasing their "test" kit and keeping it in good condition throughout the course.

     

    Then you could assign various problems, let them structure what and how to measure, then present it in a formal report.

     

    You could culminate with something sweet like keeping a single cylinder engine running with spark, fuel injection, and exhaust monitoring.

    ( self balancing robots, autonomous planes, or whatever)

     

    Basically each student will be building and testing their own analytical instrument based on a problem given.

    (any engineer that doesn't get excided about that ....)

     

    Does your school have any machine tools/ fabrication shops? (if not, A CNC router is just another exercise in command and control...)

     

    I agree that simulation is a poor substitute for doing

     

    Al