Pocket-Sized Portable Labs: Control Engineering Practice Made Easy in Covid-19 Pandemic Times

New pocket-sized laboratories are proving to be an excellent tool as complementary equipment that students and lecturers can deploy to test control engineering design techniques. Here, the description and outcome results of an IFAC activity funded project entitled as Pocket-Sized Portable Labs: Control Engineering Practice Made Easy are presented. The project was executed in Portugal, from January 2021 to the end of June 2021, during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. The global aim of this project was to motivate preuniversity students to enroll in control engineering courses by showing and demonstrating that simple practical experiments may be easily accomplished using portable pocket-size laboratories. © 2022 The Authors.

Teaching Control during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper aims to analyze some different solutions that were adopted in control education activities during the pandemic. The authors of this paper are educators in the control education field from different countries on all the continents, who have developed a questionnaire with the idea of collecting data about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the control education activities. The main objective is to study the diverse alternatives that were used worldwide to perform the online educational activities during that period, such as methodologies, tools, learning management systems (LMS), theoretical exercises, laboratory experiments, types of exams, simulators, software for online lecturing, etc. As a result, comparisons between preand during-pandemic educational resources and methods are performed, where useful ideas and discussions are given for the control education community. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors.

Teaching Control during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper aims to analyze some different solutions that were adopted in control education activities during the pandemic. The authors of this paper are educators in the control education field from different countries on all the continents, who have developed a questionnaire with the idea of collecting data about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the control education activities. The main objective is to study the diverse alternatives that were used worldwide to perform the online educational activities during that period, such as methodologies, tools, learning management systems (LMS), theoretical exercises, laboratory experiments, types of exams, simulators, software for online lecturing, etc. As a result, comparisons between pre-and during-pandemic educational resources and methods are performed, where useful ideas and discussions are given for the control education community.

How we turned fully digital due to covid-19: Two control engineering teaching experiences

While living in a digital era, both teachers and students of Engineering Courses were not ready for the drastic change associated with the Covid-19 first confinement (March 2020). This forced change from a presential mode to a fully online mode provided teaching/leaning difficulties as well as new opportunities. Moreover, as most engineering courses require laboratory practice, on-line teaching raised additional challenges. This paper reports two different experiences in two different Control Engineering university courses in the North of Portugal. The goal is to share some learning tools that are particularly relevant in the pandemic time we are living: pocket-sized laboratory kits that students can easily take home and experience real-world control contents;an open Mural that can serve as an exchange of knowledge. Perceptions received both from students and lecturers regarding these two experiments are presented. © 2021 IEEE.