University laboratories deliver unique hands-on experimentation opportunities for STEM students, but often lack state-of-the-art equipment and provide limited access to their equipment. The University of Texas Cloud Laboratory (CLAB) provides remote access to cutting-edge series elastic actuators for student experimentation regarding…

Contribution: This article presents a teaching experiment platform for an undergraduate laboratory program designed to fulfill the needs of control engineering classroom experiment teaching. The teaching experiment platform is a cost-effective teaching tool that can be promoted on a large scale in colleges and universities. The teaching experiment…

Contribution: Prior studies indicate that students experimenting with characterization of optical planar waveguides use expensive ready-made prism couplers without clear understanding about construction of the entire optical measurement system. This paper presents a cost-effective modified bright-mode prism coupler that helps students learn…

This paper presents a MATLAB-based application to teach the guidance, navigation, and control concepts of a quadrotor to undergraduate students, using a graphical user interface (GUI) and 3-D animations. The Simulink quadrotor model is controlled by a proportional integral derivative controller and a linear quadratic regulator controller. The GUI…

This paper presents a new photovoltaic (PV) power systems laboratory module that was developed to experimentally reinforce students' understanding of design principles, operation, and control of photovoltaic power conversion systems. The laboratory module is project-based and is designed to support a renewable energy course. By using MATLAB…

This paper presents a teaching experiment that explores the levitation of a disc of ferromagnetic material in the presence of the magnetic field produced by a single electromagnet. In comparison to the classical experiment of the levitation of a sphere, the main advantage of the proposed laboratory bench is that the uniform magnetic field…

This paper describes in detail a successful training program developed for sessional (part-time or nonpermanent) laboratory demonstrators employed in the Electrical Engineering Department of an Australian university. Such demonstrators play an important role in teaching practical concepts and skills in engineering. The success of the program…

In order to meet changing curricular and societal needs, a three-phase system and synchronous motor laboratory experience for sophomore-level students in a wide variety of engineering majors was designed, implemented, and assessed. The experiment is unusual in its early placement in the curriculum, and in that it focuses primarily on basic…

A laboratory course on the theory, fabrication, and characterization of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices for a multidisciplinary audience of graduate students at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, has been developed. Hands-on experience in the cleanroom has attracted graduate students from across the university's engineering…

Servomotors are widely used in computerized numerically controlled (CNC) machines, hence motion control is a major topic covered in undergraduate/graduate engineering courses. Despite the fact that several syllabi include the motion dynamics topic in their courses, there are neither suitable tools available for designing and simulating multi-axis…

This paper describes a new educational power electronics laboratory that was developed primarily to reinforce experimentally the fundamental concepts presented in a power electronics course. The developed laboratory combines theoretical design, simulation studies, digital control, fabrication, and verification of power-electronic circuits based on…

This paper presents a comparison of online to traditional face-to-face delivery of undergraduate digital systems material. Two specific components of digital content were compared and evaluated: a sophomore logic circuits course with no laboratory, and a microprocessor laboratory component of a junior-level computer systems course. For each of…

A technique for automatic error analysis using interval mathematics is introduced. A comparison to standard error propagation methods shows that in cases involving complicated formulas, the interval approach gives comparable error estimates with much less effort. Several examples are considered, and numerical errors are computed using the INTLAB…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate-level robotics course offers students the chance to integrate their engineering knowledge learned throughout their college years by building a robotic system. Robotics is thus a core course in system and control-related engineering education. This paper summarizes the experience of developing robotics courses…

This paper presents interactive power electronics educational tools. These interactive tools make use of the benefits of Java language to provide a dynamic and interactive approach to simulating steady-state ideal rectifiers (uncontrolled and controlled; single-phase and three-phase). Additionally, this paper discusses the development and use of…