Distributed Laboratory for System Dynamics and Control

对于需要获得对物理系统的直观感觉的系统动力学和控制入门课程的工程学学生，我们的分布式实验室是一种通过使用廉价的定制硬件和软件套件的动手体验来探索基本概念的方法。与传统的实验室体验不同，我们的分布式实验室工具包由每个学生带回家，并按照与家庭作业大致相同的方式按自己的进度进行处理，从而允许每个学生根据自己的学习方式定制实验室体验。在我们的试点项目中，将设计和测试零部件成本低于100美元的批量购买的实验室套件。我们的套件包含一个基于标准微控制器芯片的控制器板，该芯片实现实时控制和数据采集软件，并通过串口与主机通信。正在研究的系统将是连接到控制器板的硬件模块。主机将是学生的家用PC，运行用于实验控制的Visual Basic应用程序。作为常规课程的一部分，将构建25个套件，其中包括电机驱动的惯性硬件模块、电力网络加扬声器模块和悬臂梁模块，并作为常规课程的一部分提供给机械工程专业的本科生。我们的评估计划将评估项目进度、学生和其他利益相关者对分布式实验室的看法，以及实验室对学生学习的影响。

For engineering students in introductory system dynamics and controls courses that need to gain intuitive feel for physical systems, our distributed laboratory is a way to explore basic concepts through a hands-on experience that uses inexpensive, custom hardware and software kits. Unlike traditional laboratory experiences, our distributed lab kit is brought home by each student and tackled on a self-paced schedule in much the same manner as a homework assignment, thus allowing each student to customize the laboratory experience to his or her learning style. In our pilot project, lab kits whose parts cost are less than $100 when purchased in lot sizes of 100 will be designed and tested. Our kits contains a controller board based on a standard microcontroller chip that implements real-time control and data acquisition software and communicates with a host over a serial port. The systems under study will be hardware modules that connect to the controller board. The host computer will be the student's home PC running a Visual Basic application for experiment control. Twenty-five kits with a motor-driven inertia hardware module, an electrical network plus speaker module and a cantilever beam module will be constructed and given to undergraduate mechanical engineering students in the beginning system dynamics course as part of their regular curriculum. Our evaluation plan will assess project progress, views of the students and other stakeholders about the distributed lab, and the impact of the lab on student learning.