ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 crisis transformed students' campus lives into a new normal. With telemeeting applications, the regular face-to-face lectures are being converted into online lectures. However, the conventional online/offline simulation and remote laboratory cannot provide a real experience of laboratory apparatus and investigations, including cooperative learning. Therefore, the telepresence laboratory is established and utilized for the 2103-360 Mechanical Engineering evaluation and Laboratory II class, which was fabricated for third-year undergraduate mechanical engineering students. To satisfy seven outcomes, students must examine the accuracy, repeatability, and resolution of an IGUS Drylin linear motion system in this lab. The lab, with a telepresence laboratory, is conducted 10 times in a semester where there are two groups of 4-5 students participating in Lab A at a time. Based on the students' findings of the analysis, it can be concluded that the telepresence laboratory can provide all learning outcomes to students. Also, regarding the investigation, more than 86% of students agreed that the lab assisted them in defining issues, designing experiments, conducting experiments, analyzing, concluding, and reporting skills. More than 77% of students agreed that they learned about the equipment from the lab. Also, 89% of students are satisfied with the lab, and 91% of students would recommend other students to take the telepresence laboratory. In conclusion, the telepresence laboratory can be employed in place of the regular face-to-face lab. It succeeds in promoting collaborative learning, where students discuss and work together to complete a task. The investigations are designed with a real-time web interface. Students can utilize their mobile devices to access and control the equipment. This practice complies with the new normal.
ABSTRACT
The paper proposed a real-time Web interface for a physical plant that can be plugged into a commercial tele-meeting application. The Web interface is developed with responsive and interactive with a physical hardware. This results in a telepresence working environment that the students can work as a team to investigate the performance of a machine, i.e., a linear stage. The proposed system is applied to the third-year laboratory course and the feedback is positive. The working environment complies with the health measures for Covid-19 and supports a new campus life. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
A more capable Raspberry Pi ecology replaced the Arduino kits in an elective mechatronics course for mechanical engineering students. The paper proposed an instructional design that allowed mechatronics projects to advanced into cyber-physical systems. The in-class lectures were provided at minimal;students were encouraged to learn from the user community. The experiential learning was provided by exercises using kits with compatible peripheral devices as well as student-initiated projects. Written exams were used to assess the theory while the exercises and projects confirmed the same contents experientially. The proposed instruction design mitigated the impact of the COVED -19 pandemic during the second half of the course. A remotely-operated rig was developed with Raspberry Pi for the hands-on exercises. The projects were completed at home. The written exam was conducted online with a newly developed exam room feature in the Courseville LAS with open-ended questions that were designed to test the basic competency and advanced understanding. The resilience of the proposed instructional design overcame challenges from the pandemic with the newly developed tools on the Raspberry Pi platform;students were able to master knowledge, and skills satisfactorily.