Computer-automated data acquisition and automated experimental control have revolutionized physics and engineering laboratory methods over the past two decades. The widespread use of the technology and the recent development of powerful, user-friendly software packages justifies and enables the effective teaching of these techniques at the sophomore/junior level. This project implements a curriculum that combines the teaching of simple computer automation techniques with conventional intermediate level courses in electronics and modern physics. A sound pedagogical marriage can be achieved, so that the students gradually learn about the "tool" that the computer represents, while making increasingly sophisticated use of that tool to learn about experimental physics. Students learn about the tool in a structured and pedagogically sound manner that encourages interactive learning and confronts the student with a series of questions of increasing complexity. The gradually acquired skills are used to increase the efficiency of data collection in the modern physics and electronics laboratory, and this allows the students to spend more time focused on the meaning of the results. The acquired skills help students to participate in meaningful, career-building internships in the middle of their undergraduate years and to become effective undergraduate researchers as they near graduation. The project is being implemented primarily with LabVIEW software, and with electronic meters and sources interfaced through IEEE-488 based hardware.
