Learning by Tinkering: Applications of a PC Printer Port in Mechatronics

任何具有打印机端口的IBM克隆PC都可以用于与各种对学生有意义的有趣的现实世界设备进行交互。全国各地的大专院校、高中和个人手中都有数百万台这样的个人电脑。该项目将开发材料，向摩根州立大学和全国各地的学生展示如何使用这些资源与编程相关，并鼓励学生个人“修修补补”和实验。该项目将开发与计算机控制现实世界外围设备有关的材料，供全国各地的学生使用。这些资料将通过万维网和教程手册的形式分发。将开发新材料，教授工程专业大一新生在控制灯具、螺线管、电机以及测量红外和温度等参数的环境中的编程技能。这些现实世界的外围设备在制造业、机器人和自动化等领域的应用也将融入该项目。将探索将这种有意义的程序设计应用于大学之外和高中的可能性。

Any IBM clone PC having a printer port may be used to interfaced with all manner of interesting real world devices which have meaning to students. There are millions of such PC's in colleges and universities, in high schools and in the hands of individuals throughout the country. This project will develop material to show students at Morgan State University and across the nation how to use this resource to give relevance to programming and to encourage individual "tinkering" and experimenting by students. The project will develop material related to the computer control of real world peripherals for use by students throughout the nation. This will be distributed using the World Wide Web and in the form of tutorial manuals. New material will be developed to teach freshmen engineering majors programming skills in an environment of controlling lamps, solenoids, motors and measuring such parameters as infrared and temperature. Applications of these real world peripherals to such fields as manufacturing, robotics and automation will also be woven into the project. The possibility of moving this meaningful application of programming outside the University and into high schools will be explored.