Engineering - Engineering Technology (58) Remotely accessible laboratories are becoming more common, but can they really help satisfy the learning objectives for engineering technology laboratories? Sharing lab resources is becoming more attractive as the pace of technical innovation escalates. The cost of purchasing and maintaining a sophisticated piece of laboratory equipment is easier to justify if it can be used by a large number of students. Journals and conference proceedings are full of implementation projects, but objective evaluations are rare.
Our project involves the development, deployment, and evaluation of a remotely accessible energy laboratory. Our work uses a model similar to the WEAVE program developed by faculty members at Duke for web enable experimentation. Although our laboratory facility is physically located on the West Lafayette campus of Purdue University, web-based controls and an interactive tutorial allow this equipment to be used by Associate Degree students at seven different Mechanical Engineering Technology locations across the state of Indiana. Our project compares learning for students that use the equipment first-hand versus students that use the same equipment in a distance learning format. Our hope is that any project that demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of using remote access to distribute laboratory resources will have a significant impact on the engineering technology community.
