PILAR: a Federation of VISIR Remote Laboratory Systems for Educational Open Activities

Social demands have promoted an educational approach based on an “anywhere and anytime” premise. Remote laboratories have emerged as the answer to the demands of technical educational areas for adapting themselves to this scenario. The result has not only benefit distance learning students but has provided new learning scenarios both for teachers and students as well as allowing a flexible approach to experimental topics. However, as any other solution for providing practical scenarios (hands-on labs, virtual labs or simulators), remote labs face several constraints inherited from the subsystems of its deployment hardware (real instruments, equipment and scenario) and software (analog/digital conversions, communications, workbenches, etc.). This paper describes the Erasmus+ project Platform Integration of Laboratories based on the Architecture of visiR (PILAR) which deals with several units of the federation installed in different educational institutions and devoted to analog electronics and electrical circuits. Based on the limitations of remote labs, the need for the federation will be justified and its benefits will be described by taking advantage of its strengths. The challenges that have come up during the different stages and the different approaches to design are also going to be described and analyzedinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Open learning: Advances in the eMadrid excellence network

Proceedings of: 2011 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON 2011): Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education. Amman, Jordan, 4-6 April 2011.This Special Session is going to present some of the activities carried out by the Excellence Network on e-learning that is being funded in the Region of Madrid, called eMadrid. They are related to the application of open source principles in the educational context and in opening up the alternatives to the learner.The eMadrid Excellence Network [24] is being funded by the Madrid Regional Government (Comunidad de Madrid) with grant No. S2009/TIC-165. We wish to acknowledge stimulating discussions with our partners in the context of the networkPublicad

Laboratórios Remotos: Um Experimento Internacional de Educação em Engenharia

Palestra plenária sobre a utilização de laboratórios remotos como base para a cooperação e colaboração entre Instituições de Ensino Superior e Investigadores da Europa e da América Latina, com especial incidência no Brasil, proferida no 44º Congresso Anual da Sociedade Brasileira de Educação em Engenharia (COBENGE), Natal, RN, Brasil, no dia 28 de Setembro de 2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A grid concept for reliable, flexible and robust remote engineering laboratories

Within this paper, we will describe a grid concept to realize a universal remote lab infrastructure as well as different operation modes based on this concept. This new infrastructure consists of three parts: an internal serial remote lab bus, a bus protection unit to interface the remote lab bus and to protect it from misuse and damage as well as a protection unit, which protects the physical systems (the electro-mechanical models in our remote lab) against deliberate damage or accidentally wrong control commands and which offers different access and control mechanisms. The interconnection between the Web-control units and the selected physical system during a remote lab work session (experiment) as well as the user management is done by the lab server, which also handles the webcams. The implemented remote lab infrastructure is based on the iLab architecture of the MIT, which allows to interconnect remote labs and to exchange remote lab experiments among different universities worldwide

Mobile robot transportation in laboratory automation

In this dissertation a new mobile robot transportation system is developed for the modern laboratory automation to connect the distributed automated systems and workbenches. In the system, a series of scientific and technical robot indoor issues are presented and solved, including the multiple robot control strategy, the indoor transportation path planning, the hybrid robot indoor localization, the recharging optimization, the robot-automated door interface, the robot blind arm grasping & placing, etc. The experiments show the proposed system and methods are effective and efficient

On the use of VISIR under different course implementations

This paper addresses different course integrations of VISIR. The didactic approaches are summarized and the analysis done provides explanations to some of the problems encountered, plus some guidelines for future implementations. A number of strengths and weaknesses are highlighted, leading to suggestions on how to enhance some strategic approaches to motivate teachers and students to the potential of using VISIR in teaching and learning processes. Proper references to previously published work also help to understand the research background and the lessons derived from a more intensive usage of VISIR.N/

Gravity substitute workbench /Skylab experiment-M507/ Final report

Design and development of gravity substitute workbench using electrostatic and aerodynamic principle

Didactical use of a remote lab: a qualitative reflection of a teacher

This work describes the teacher reflections about a didactical implementation using a remote laboratory and their impact on his practice. These reflections are analyzed from three different perspectives: how the literature review influenced the design of the didactical implementation (namely the first); how his reflection upon his practice influenced its modifications; how his research activity impacted and affected his teaching practices in the subsequent implementations and guided the modifications made. The remote lab was introduced in a Physics Course in an Engineering degree and was intended to be a learning space where students had the opportunity to practice before the lab class, supporting the development of experimental competences, fundamental in an engineer profile. After the first implementation in 2016/17 academic year it has undergone two subsequent editions with adjustments and modifications. Some features previously reported in literature such as: teacher’s experience with VISIR, the importance of an introductory activity and defining VISIR tasks objectives, were corroborated by the teacher during his practice and research. Others, such as the difficulty some students have in understanding the difference between simulation and remote labs appeared directly from his practice and were pursued in his research in order to deeply understand its implications