The main objective of the program is to achieve, at a minimum cost, the strengthening of the Electronics Engineering Technology curriculum by introducing a problem based learning approach to laboratory instruction and simultaneously provide the student body a much needed flexibility in their laboratory session schedules. To achieve this objective the program will develop low cost self paced laboratory workstations to teach electronics. Each workstation will consist of a PC, a data acquisition plug-in board, and a function generator plug-in board under the control of the HP VEE test development platform. Virtual instruments will be developed to emulate the typical test equipment in an undergraduate electronics laboratory. The workstations' user interface will provide HINT and HELP icons to guide the students during their laboratory sessions, but students will have to design their own test strategy and methodology. Non major students and students preparing for K-12 teaching will have the opportunity to acquire, at their own pace, in a user friendly and non threatening environment, experience performing actual testing of electronics circuits. The project targets Hispanic minorities, but its potential benefits have a much wider scope. Educational institutions across the nation may find multiple applications to the developed concept: as a viable alternative to distance learning courses which require laboratory sessions, as a low cost test platform for electronics or electrical engineering programs, as an instrument to attract more students to electronics or electrical engineering, as an alternative to reduce the operational costs of electronics laboratories, as an alternative to self paced laboratory sessions, and as an alternative to provide at a minimum cost electronics laboratory experience to future K-2 teachers.
