Instrumentation for an Introductory Electronics Course

该项目将为科学和工程预科学生创建一个第一年的电子入门课程。本课程将集中于模拟技术，偏向于科学实用电子学。我们将使用计算机自动数据采集和控制系统作为教学工具。每个实验室工作站将包括一个通过I/O板和GPIB DMM连接到计算机工作站的原型板，该计算机工作站运行我们在LabVIEW中编写的教学软件。学生将构建电路，并使用LabVIEW软件来探索，测试和控制它们。基于计算机的数据采集和控制被用作电子学教学的工具，而不是课程本身的重点。 通过使用基于计算机的教学，学生将摆脱与传统电子课程相关的大部分乏味，并能够专注于材料。此外，我们发现，通过将LabVIEW集成到这门电子课程中，我们正在开辟新的教学方法。 这个预演算电子课程提供它的水平，使它提供给大多数新生。 这种方法为学生提供了积极的实验室体验，并在职业生涯早期与普通教师进行一对一的接触。这将使他们开始早期的研究经验，并更好地为工业实习做好准备。

This project will create a first-year introductory electronics course for science and pre-engineering students. The course will concentrate on analog techniques, with a slant towards practical electronics for the sciences. We will use computer-automated data acquisition and control systems as instructional tools. Each lab station will include a protoboard interfaced through an I/O board and a GPIB DMM to a computer workstation running instructional software that we have written in LabVIEW. The students will build the circuits and use LabVIEW software to explore, test and control them. Computer-based data acquisition and control are used as tools to teach electronics, not as the focus of the course itself. Through the use of computer-based instruction, the students will be freed of much of the tedium associated with traditional electronics courses and will be able to focus on the material. In addition, we find that by integrating LabVIEW into this electronics course, we are opening up new approaches to teaching the material. This pre-calculus electronics course is offered it at a level that makes it available to most incoming students. This approach provides students with a positive laboratory experience and one-on-one contact with regular faculty members early in their career. This will get them started towards early research experience and better prepare them for industrial internships.