Improving Data Acquisition And Reduction In A First Year Student Laboratory Experiment

The College of Engineering at The Ohio State University requires all engineering students to complete introductory courses in engineering as part of their academic experience. The courses are usually taken during a student’s first year and follow either a standard two course track or an honors three course track. Courses in each track have both lecture and hands-on laboratory components. For the second course of the standard track, four-member-teams of students must design and build a roller coaster as their 10-week lab project. One supporting experiment requires the acquisition of voltage and time data on two channels. An off-the-shelf virtual oscilloscope instrument had been used to acquire time data, but its use resulted in an operational bottleneck in the lab. It took students too long to learn or relearn the virtual tool, and too long to acquire, read-off, and notate time data. To help resolve the problem, an on-purpose data acquisition and reduction computer program was written in the LabVIEWTM graphical programming language and was implemented on laboratory computers. Also, to further help in time management and data processing accuracy, tables of geometric values were developed for each apparatus. This paper describes the old and new methods of data acquisition and processing as used in one lab experience in support of the student-team roller coaster design process. It presents an assessment of the effectiveness of the new method relative to the old, and shares information regarding future efforts to improve student experience with laboratory data acquisition and reduction.