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- An Alternative Way of Teaching Operational Amplifiers Using a Reconfigurable and Expandable KitPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Portela, Paulo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Viegas, ClaraEarly on, students must develop competences by implementing simple or complex electronic circuits with Operational Amplifiers (OpAmps). Traditionally, these skills were mainly developed in laboratory classes, but technology allows us to explore other and complementary ways of aiding students in this achievement. This paper presents a contribution to improve the way OpAmps are included in electronic engineering courses’ curricula. A reconfigurable and expandable kit to teach electronic circuits based on the OpAmp uA741 was designed and implemented. This kit comprises a software application locally interfaced with a hardware platform capable of running in a PC. This platform includes a circuit with the OpAmp uA741 able to reconfigure according to a set of parameters defined by a software application. Its reconfiguration capability also enables the establishment of automatic connections for measuring and for applying signals to a reconfigured circuit, plus the ability to simulate the same or other OpAmp-based circuits. This paper provides an overview about the OpAmp uA741 and its relevance in engineering education. After presenting the kit and make some considerations for its improvement, at the end a brief discussion about its implementation in education according to specific educational strategies and methodologies are provided.
- Using embedded instruments to design weblabsPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Pinho, Diogo Eloi; Alves, Gustavo R.The existence of digital instruments able to be remotely accessed justifies the appearance of weblabs in engineering education. Currently, weblabs adopt digital standalone and/or modular instruments to enable the conduction of remote experiments. Although, the evolution of digital processing techniques and the dissemination of reconfigurable devices, such as FPGAs, can be seen as an opportunity to reduce costs and to increase the flexibility in the design of digital instruments and, therefore, in the development of weblabs’ infrastructures. This paper explores the use of other type of digital instruments to create weblabs, named embedded instruments. It starts contextualizing those instruments, and suggests some architectures for their adoption in weblabs’ infrastructures. Latter, it points out the importance of following the IEEE1451.0 Std. to design embedded instruments able to be reconfigured in FPGAs, which can be the main elements of a reconfigurable weblab infrastructure. An example of an embedded oscilloscope implemented in a FPGA and described according to an architecture based on the IEEE1451.0 Std. finishes the paper.
- Libro de atas del XIV Congreso de Tecnologías Aplicadas a la Enseñanza de la Electrónica (TAEE2020)Publication . Alves, Gustavo R.; Fidalgo, André; Felgueiras, Carlos; Costa, RicardoA conferencia TAEE conhecerá na sua 14ª edição um momento histórico. Não só é a primeira vez que a será organizada fora do território Espanhol, como terá lugar a verdadeiramente pioneira experiência de realizar esta conferência num formato puramente virtual no Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto. Esta opção representa a solução possível para um evidente problema mundial, que surgiu de forma repentina durante a preparação desta edição. Optamos por aplicar a típica abordagem de engenharia, instintivamente encarando este novo problema como uma verdadeira oportunidade, e aproveitando as limitações impostas para experimentar novas soluções para novas questões. Tentamos criar uma TAEE diferente, não melhor nem pior, mas indo buscar proveitos às tecnologias de comunicação emergentes de forma a criar e dinamizar um evento onde não estaremos fisicamente juntos, mas poderemos comunicar e conviver de forma virtual. A grande motivação da TAEE será sempre os visíveis entrosamentos, dedicação e motivação da comunidade e serão estes fatores que permitirão o sucesso nesta nova forma de estarmos e trabalharmos juntos, mas à distância.
- An educational remote laboratory for controlling a signal conditioning circuit with an LDR sensorPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Bastos, Paulo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Fidalgo, AndréIn the past few years, the technologic evolution of communication and information systems had a major impact in our lives. In education, this evolution broke some geographical barriers, facilitating students’ access to real laboratories using a simple device connected to the Internet, contributing therefore to improve teaching and learning methods. To support this evolution, this paper describes a remote laboratory that provides students’ access to a typical electronic instrumentation system. Through a set of webpages, users can remotely control a light intensity sensed through a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensor connected in an arm of a configurable Wheatstone Bridge (WB), whose output differential voltage are amplified / attenuated by an Instrumentation Amplifier (IA) circuit. Through this laboratory, users are able to control several components of a typical instrumentation system, visualize changes and analyze some measurements, in the same way as they would do in a traditional hands-on laboratory. An overview of the developed remote laboratory and a contextualization within other available solutions are presented in this paper. At the end, some considerations for its adoption in education are described.
- μLAB A remote laboratory to teach and learn the ATmega328p μCPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Perola, Francisco; Felgueiras, Manuel CarlosRemote laboratories, also known as weblabs, are presently widely adopted in engineering education, since they provide more flexibility to access a real laboratory. As a contribution to teach and learn Cs (microcontrollers), this paper presents a remote laboratory based on the ATmega328p C. The laboratory allows students and teachers to remotely program a hardware infrastructure based on the ATmega328p C and control/observe a set of attached experiments
- A demo platform to teach and learn the behaviour of a PI controllerPublication . Felgueiras, Carlos; Serradeiro, Kevin; Fidalgo, André; Costa, RicardoNowadays new demands are posed to engineering education. Students are becoming more autonomous and curious, which requires the use of new educational platforms to complement theory with practice. A well-designed engineering course should include ways to demonstrate evidence of specific theories, in order to involve students and to dissipate any mistrust that they may have when specific theories are presented. On the other hand, it is important to create sustainable solutions, i.e., low cost solutions that do not produce much waste to the environment. While traditional and/or remote labs can be considered for many situations, there are others where a simple demonstrative platform is enough. It was precisely based on this condition, that a simple PI controller platform was idealized and implemented. This allows a teacher to show the behaviour of a PI controller according to the definition of a set of parameters that will enable the displacement of a pointer with accurate and responsive corrections.