Laboratory exercise and programme design

International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education, Oct 2000 by Joseph, J D C, Julien, K S

Abstract This paper describes a new and evolving laboratory programme for the first and second years of the three-year Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering at The University of the West Indies. It contains examples of exercises, which incorporate MATLAB and PSpice, and associated equipment built locally.

Keywords laboratory, MATLAB; modelling; PSpice; simulation

From time to time changes occur in engineering education not only because more knowledge must be imparted but also because of perceived weaknesses in the old programmes, new techniques in teaching and tools such as the PC and the wide array of educational software available for use with it.

Until 1988 the laboratory courses for the three-year Bachelor of Science degree in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the West Indies ran in the traditional manner with the exercises directly linked to, and following material already covered in, the lectures. Generally, since no credits were involved, the students did not take the exercises seriously, and these exercises largely consisted of connecting the apparatus and taking readings.

Design projects were solely done in the final year, and only if their projects included hardware did the students encounter and learn to solve the problems that typically occur with hardware.

The new laboratory programme

The laboratory exercises are now largely self-contained, and the laboratory is no longer just a venue for verifying material from the lectures, but is also used for teaching. Prior to starting a laboratory exercise the students are given an introductory lecture, and the script for the laboratory exercise may contain preparatory material which the student is required to complete before beginning the exercise. In this way, the laboratory programme can operate independently of the related courses and can fit into the modular structure of a semester system.

In each semester of the first and second years, except for microprocessor systems, work done in the laboratory is packaged as a three-credit course consisting of the traditional laboratory exercises, simulation exercises and design projects which students are required to design, simulate and construct.

During each of 10 weeks, students now spend three hours performing the traditional laboratory exercises and another three hours using a PC for simulation exercises which may be chosen from programs such as LabView,1 Micro-Cap,2 MATLAB/SIMULINK,3 Mathcad,4 PSpice,5 Microsoft C6 and VisualBasic.7

Credit is awarded according to the quality of the reports generated from assignments completed during the semester and performance in the oral examinations and demonstrations based on these assignments, which are held at the end of the semester. The performance of the exercise and the submission of a report is a pre-requisite for entry to the oral examinations and demonstrations, and non-performance or lack of submission results in a proportional loss from the maximum mark available for the oral examination or demonstration.

The production of good quality reports generated on a word-processor such as Microsoft Word8 is encouraged. This program in conjunction with the simulators, which also run under Windows,9 allows easy manipulation of text and graphics in the production of high quality documents. The aim is to help the students acquire the skill of writing good technical reports.

The use of oral examinations increases the students' skills in verbally communicating in a technical environment and forces them to learn to understand principles rather than just memorize and apply formulae.

The reports from the traditional laboratory exercises are due two weeks after these exercises are performed, and the reports from the simulation exercises and projects are required to be submitted one month before the oral examinations and demonstrations begin. Two weeks before the oral examinations and demonstrations begin, the graded reports are returned to the students for use in preparation for the oral examinations and demonstrations.

The examinations

On the day and time specified the students come to the laboratory with the following:

* Their floppy diskettes containing all the relevant results of the computer exercises along with the print-outs and/or reports

* Their reports from completed traditional laboratory exercises

* Their completed design projects and reports

* Their examination cards and student's identification cards.

The students are asked to demonstrate their projects and are examined on their grasp of the engineering principles, which relate to the assignments, and their proficiency in the use of the computer-aided design software.

Procedures for the examinations

The procedure for the first-year examinations differs from that of the second year. However, both first-year and second-year examinations last two hours and are held over two days, but each student comes once to the laboratory.

The first-year students enter the examination in groups of 15 to be examined by one of three examiners. They demonstrate only one project and the examination is centered on this.