Introducing Reality Into Process Control Classes: Team Work At A Distance

Providing hands-on experiences for engineering students is often complicated by either a lack of equipment, technician support, or both. Yet most topics in chemical engineering are best learned via a hands-on approach. Computer simulations have been used in lieu of a truly hands-on experience but these are often lacking in the fullness of details that real systems provide. Over the past three years we have been examining the potential of using remotely located experiments (via a high-speed Internet connection) to overcome this difficulty.