Andrew Nafalski

Remote laboratory netlab for effective interaction with real equipment over the internet

Remote laboratories (RL) are becoming a common educational environment at a growing number of universities worldwide. However, there are no standards guiding the development of remote laboratories, so each of about 120 currently existing RLs is a unique development. In this paper we do not introduce a standard, but we rather showcase an effective example that has been developed at the University of South Australia (UniSA) and adopted elsewhere, so it may possibly be proposed as a standard graphical user interface (GUI) for effective interaction between users and instruments in remote laboratories.

Project-based teaching in engineering programs

Student projects are commonly seen as the major vehicle to inculcate the generic skills now required by bodies responsible for accreditation and by employers, in addition to their traditional role in developing technical implementation skills. They might also be viewed as fostering student centred learning, which in turn may be interpreted as catering for alternative learning styles. The Capstone approach envisages a final year project as distinctly different from preceding studies. So much rides on the final year project that it is not possible for most students to fulfil all the expectations placed upon them. At the University of South Australia we have ameliorated the problem and in the process increased motivation and therefore success by incorporating project work at all stages of the program. The comparative luxury of having more time to devote to higher level activities opens the possibility of inter-institutional co-operative projects in a global environment.

Effect of continuity of potential on accuracy in magnetic field analysis using nonconforming mesh

Methods of analyzing magnetic fields in rotating machines using nonconforming meshes, in which only an interpolation technique is applied, are investigated. The effect of the continuity of potentials at nonconforming surfaces on accuracy is examined, it is shown that although the flux distribution is not affected by the discontinuity of the potential, the force and torque are fairly affected by the discontinuity. Therefore, it is shown that a continuous method, or a discontinuous method using a fine mesh should be used especially in force and torque calculation. An analysis of an induction motor is also carried out using a nonconforming mesh.

Motivational project-based laboratory for a common first year electrical engineering course

Over the past few years many universities worldwide have introduced a common first year for all engineering disciplines. This is despite the opinion of many academics that large classes have negative effects on the learning outcomes of first year students. The University of South Australia is also faced with low motivation amongst engineering students studying non-major courses. In 2006, a project-based laboratory was successfully introduced for first year students enrolled in electrical disciplines, which increased student satisfaction, reduced the attrition rate and improved students’ success rate. This paper presents the experiences with the project-based laboratorys implementation in three different projects in the common first year course, Electrical and Energy Systems, where each project aims to increase the motivation of students in one of three disciplines: electrical, mechanical or civil engineering.

Final year projects with involvement of industry and high schools

In the final year of undergraduate degree programs in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of South Australia (UniSA), students accomplish hands-on design projects that account for a quarter of the yearpsilas academic credit load. The majority of the projects, depending on a year - between 60% and 80% - are industry sponsored, i.e. industry defines the project specification and provides industry supervisor(s) and resources in cash and/or inkind contributions. This gives students an opportunity to develop links with industry and build up their skills, knowledge and industry-relevant practical experience in a specialised engineering field, facilitating their rapid industrial employment. Recently also high school students have been involved in these projects, as reported in the paper. The program has been successfully running for the past 3 years and proved to bring benefits to high school students, university students and also to companies that participate in the program.

Active learning in the University of South Australia

The authors analyse the justification, placing, validity and degree of success of some of their innovations in intra-mural experiential learning, in the light of their own theoretical understanding of the reasons for engaging in experience based methodologies for engineering education. These include: problem based learning for teams of first year students; student-managed investigations, seminars and peer assessment of papers in place of didactic teaching in mainstream second year subjects; practically based teaching in third year subjects; problem based learning for final year elective subjects; and team projects for industry clients. Evaluation has demonstrated high levels of student satisfaction in most instances. Students believe taking charge of their own learning is highly relevant to their preparation for the engineering profession. An exception was the attempt to engage first year students in medium scale, real life problem based learning from the outset. It is obvious in retrospect that neither secondary-educated students nor the university are adequately prepared for self-learning, problem based approaches.

Collaborative Learning Based on a Micro-Webserver Remote Test Controller

This paper presents a remote test workbench that was developed to support on-line assignments dealing with the IEEE 1149.1 standard test access port and boundary-scan architecture. The remote test controller is based on the DS80C400 networked microcontroller from Maxim-Dallas, which offers a very cost-effective solution to the development of micro-webservers enabling low complexity data acquisition and control tasks. All remote experiments are integrated into Moodle in exactly the same way as the remaining courseware that is made available to the students. The use of Moodle facilitates the implementation of collaborative learning activities based on the remote test workbench, and the development of the workbench itself is the subject of a collaborative learning project involving students from the universities of Porto in Portugal and South Australia at Adelaide.

Performance and analysis of an advanced type magnetic frequency tripler with three three-legged cores

A new magnetic frequency tripler employing three 3-legged transformers connected in delta is proposed. The device has very little input current distortion and which only changes very little with the fluctuations of the input voltage and the load. In addition, the volume of iron and copper is about the same as in traditional star-connected circuit. Properties of a three-legged transformer and tripler are shown with and without filters. Fundamental analysis based on single-phase equivalent circuit is conducted. Results of experiments and analysis show improved performance of the new tripler.

Indonesian-to-Javanese Machine Translation

Javanese is a multi-level language; it comprises four speech levels used to convey local politeness. However, the negative tendency is detected regarding the use of Javanese speech levels among teenagers. They prefer to use the Indonesian national language (bahasa Indonesia, BI) because of the Javanese speech level complexity. A combination of statistical and memory-based machine translation is designed by the authors to help Javanese youths in translating between both languages. The evaluation shows that translating speech levels of Javanese to Indonesian is more accurate than translating in the opposite direction, as revealed by the average accuracy (A) of 0.83 for Javanese-Indonesian translation and 0.68 for the other direction. Index Terms—Indonesian, Javanese speech levels, machine translation.

A universal workbench for motion control experimentations in LabVIEW environment

The recent advances in technology have led to the development of a number of laboratories for motion control throughout the world. The increased Internet bandwidth allowed many of them to be used remotely by distant users. The benefit of using a motorised linear stage in the laboratory test bench is that it represents various industrial applications for precise position control. This paper presents a novel comprehensive flexible motion platform that can be a base for remote experimentations with Brushless DC/Permanent Magnet Synchronous motors and drives, single/multiple axes flexible mechanical systems with friction/backlash uncertainties, inverted pendulums, etc. A LabVIEW software environment has been utilised to gain from the advantages of the virtual instrumentation representation and data acquisition capabilities.