Creating a modern Measurement & Test higher education course

I really don't know if I should have labelled this as a question. Sorry if that is not the right thing to do - like I said, I'm new here.

Okay, the internal battle in my head resulted in me unmarking this as a question. Turmoil over.

Hi Kevin,

I work for the major T&M company - Keysight (previously Agilent, HP). We have a lot of training material, such as pre-written labs, presentation slide-sets, animations, posters, iPhone apps and access to experts that can help. We also have a specialist website called educator's corner and research corner with lots of other information.

We are happy to discuss what we and what a modern lab can do for you and your institution backed up with many examples from our customers - from Ivy League and Russell Group establishments to smaller, local colleges.

art_mcfall@keysight.com

My best insights into measurement issues came early at age about 16 in school Physics. This was entirely due to the excellence of the teacher (great guy who had done time in prison as  a conscientious objector during WW2). No fancy test gear but well designed experiments featuring basic lenses, mirrors, rulers, blocks of wood, home made thermocouples, ancient surplus ballistic galvanometers etc. With this kind of basic gear you can actually see the errors, where they come from, how to mitigate them etc. Using modern electronic test gear it is so much harder to work it out - and too easy to believe that the ls significant 3 of  6 digits on a meter actually mean something (check some specs to see just how often they don't !!).

Computers, software and especially the bane of engineering teaching, simulation, don't help. So dump the Pi, avoid NI stuff for education and only let the students use the Keysight *donations  after they have completed your course !

* (I'm sure Art can give some stuff away - considering the prices they make me pay )

MK

Hi Kevin,

Before I retired I created an entire training curriculum for a full CMMI compliant systems/software engineer process.

Though it has been a while, I still have most of the material I used, so I can probably help you put a good series of training courses together.

Let me know if you think I might be of assistance.

DAB

Hi Kevin,

I read your initial comment, and considered what it was you were looking for in the form of an answer.  It appears you have a good level of experience in the area of test and measurement, and aren't looking for a refresher course. Instead your statements lead me to think that you are looking for a practical solution to what is current in industry, in the field of measurement systems.

Please let me know if this is the direction you would like to take, because the difference between accuracy and significance might be the key question you are trying to uncover.

Jack

Hi Kevin,

If you need for your course some comparison of Test- and Measurement devices I would recommend to use this free tool: https://rentog.com/price-comparison

If you work for Rentog you should declare your interest.

You should also make it clear that the tool is not really free since it only exchanges information for contact details.

MK

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

Hi Kevin,

I have been involved with developing System and software engineering courses and I have also been involved with very advanced test and measurement systems/installations development.

What I think you will find is that you can do very advanced testing with relatively simple test equipment.

Keep in mind that understanding the basics of what to measure and how accurate to measure are more important than speed of measurements and volume of data collected.

You need to understand the requirements of your tested article and plan the appropriate tests to verify its capabilities.

After that, you can do end use analysis to validate the article as to its effectiveness for the intended use.

Simulation is very useful in understanding what to test and how often.

The proper use of simulations have enabled many expensive projects to reach an operational level very quickly.

Again, it all comes down to understanding the device, the context of its use and what information is most useful during the test.

DAB