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National Digital Learning Resources for RLO project
Dr Dermot Brabazon and colleagues from across Ireland were recently awarded NDLR LInCS (Learning Innovation Community Support) funding for a project entitled Development of Engineering Virtual Instruments as Re-usable Learning Objects (RLOs).
The project involves project partners from Dublin City University, University College Dublin, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Trinity College Dublin, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Athlone Institute of Technology, University College Cork and Institute of Technology Tallaght.
In the proposed work we will produce Re-usable Learning Objects (RLOs) that demonstrate implementation techniques specific to LabVIEW and Data Acquisition hardware on the one hand, and which can be used to learn and explore physical and engineering principles on the other. For example, in the Department of Electronics & Mechanical Engineering at DKIT these resources would be used to aid the learning of LabVIEW programming for data acquisition with 2nd year students at level 7. The resources themselves will take various forms including Virtual Instruments (VIs) programmed in LabVIEW and Camtasia screen captures and videos of how software and hardware should be set-up.
In the Irish Universities and IoTs, staff are interested in developing learning resources that will help engineering project students to become more familiar and efficient in developing data acquisition software and hardware applications. In Civil Engineering at AIT for example, dynamic testing of structures is a common task (i.e. recording and processing data measured from structures under various forms of excitation.
A simple video/screen cast tutorial with a step by step practical approach to setting up LabVIEW and the hardware to carry out a simple dynamic test will be developed in the proposed work. This would be a very beneficial resource to students across all of the Universities and ITs where engineering is taught. Once completed, these will then be combined into advanced VIs which go beyond the level of Know-How and Skill as specified for level 7 or level 8 modules. These in turn will provide a unique resource for teaching at level 9.
Many of these resources are developed already for research purposes but will be re-packaged in a better pedagogical format for teaching purposes. VIs currently used for research purposes will thereby be altered for teaching purposes in related areas. For example, VIs systems that are currently used extensively in UCC within the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC) can be amended for teaching of Energy Engineering and Coastal Engineering to students. Amongst its primary features, the virtual instrument, which is normally composed of a data acquisition card (DAQ), sensor(s), and control software, can read voltages from sensors and send controlling voltage signals to actuators.
The coupling of these features into a single card and the ease of its control via the PC has opened up new applications for this technology.
These teaching tools have been applied, in particular, to science and engineering undergraduate courses. RLOs developed will be applicable to the teaching of robotic system control, mechanics of machines, materials science, as well as advanced manufacturing processes.These RLOs lend themselves to off-line learning, whereby the student can interact with the theory and results from actual experiments on their laptop or PC at home. RLOs developed in such as manner can also provide substantial aids to distance learning students taking modules remotely.