Modernizing A Physical Measurements Laboratory In Engineering Technology

In 1997, the Mechanical Engineering Technology faculty at Youngstown State University were awarded a National Science Foundation Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Grant to modernize a Physical Measurements laboratory, NSF-ILI Grant # DUE-9750992. This paper details the experience of that project. The objectives of the project were: to greatly increase the number of sensors available for student use in the laboratory; to introduce modern Computer Data Acquisition equipment and techniques; and to shift the course emphasis as much as possible from lecture to laboratory, using the strengths of interdisciplinary teams of students (MET and EET) to aid in learning. Equipment was purchased, and nine experiments were designed or revised to investigate the behavior of over thirty sensors and sensing systems, as detailed below. Several experiments use National Instruments data acquisition hardware and its LabVIEW software, including custom Virtual Instruments. However, the course is not intended to teach LabVIEW programming. Instead, these tools are used to aid efficient progress through experiments, and to provide real-time graphic displays of sensor and circuit performance. This paper details the lab development, describes the equipment used, describes the use of LabVIEW in this course, and gives feedback on the project and the experience of modernizing the laboratory.