Felix Garcia-Loro

Novel design and development of advanced remote electronics experiments

This article reports on the design and development of a new set of remotely controlled electronics experiments oriented to postgraduates and apprentices. Industrial‐related issues are emphasized to allow understanding of the behavior of electronics components. The experiments are fully delivered online with a high level of flexibility. Remote retrieved results are provided.

Spreading remote lab usage a system — A community — A Federation

Experiments have been at the heart of scientific development and education for centuries. From the outburst of Information and Communication Technologies, virtual and remote labs have added to hands-on labs a new conception of practical experience, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education. This paper aims at describing the features of a remote lab named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, embedded in a community of practice and forming the spearhead of a federation of remote labs. More particularly, it discusses the advantages and disadvantages of remote labs over virtual labs as regards to scalability constraints and development and maintenance costs. Finally, it describes an actual implementation in an international community of practice of engineering schools forming the embryo of a first world wide federation of Virtual Instruments System in Reality nodes, under the framework of a project funded by the Erasmus+ Program.

Middleware solutions for service-oriented remote laboratories: A review

The evolution of Web 3.0 and consequently eLearning 3.0 have demanded a major change of the way learning objects are provided and implemented. It is foreseen that learning objects in eLearning 3.0 should be interoperable and easily discovered, and will represent any kind of virtual or physical object. Several approaches attempted to implement remote Laboratories as a Service (LaaS) in order to achieve such interoperability and to allow their integration into heterogeneous educational systems for pedagogical purposes and for more convenience, as well as, their coupling and mashing up with other learning objects in order to yield a scaffold and rich educational environment. This paper provides a broad study on the available middleware solutions for service-oriented remote laboratories implementation, emphasizing the pros and cons of each and the upcoming challenges in developing service-oriented remote laboratories.

Educational Scenarios Using Remote Laboratory VISIR for Electrical/Electronic Experimentation

In 2015, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (DIEEC) of the Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) in Spain started together with the Santiago del Rosario National University (UNSE, Argentina) and with the support of the Research Institute of Education Sciences of Rosario (IRICE-CONICET, Argentina) under the Coordination of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP, Portugal) the new development and deployment of the VISIR system inside the UNSE University as part of the VISIR+ Project.

Online Experiments With DC/DC Converters Using the VISIR Remote Laboratory

This paper shows the development of two new experimental exercises that are at the top of the state-of-the-art platforms for setting up, wiring, and measuring electronic circuits online, virtual instrument systems in reality (VISIR), allowing: 1) non-isolated linear regulated dc/dc converter and 2) non-isolated switching-regulated dc/dc converter. Those experiments are part of a new setup in the VISIR oriented to master as well as experienced students and users that would like to increase their experience in industrial electronics and power components management. The development of the two experiments is explained along with the necessary configuration to the core-platform VISIR. This is preceded by a brief overview of VISIR, including its hardware and software components. Finally, the remote experimental results obtained are presented.

Fingerprint Verification System in Tests in Moodle

This research describes the method of combining traditional authentication (password and username) with biometric technology, specifically fingerprint authentication. This authentication model is applied in distance education where courses are developed in learning management systems. It introduces the features of distance education as well as the biometric sensor operation. It describes the changes that are necessary to introduce the learning management system in order to use the fingerprint as data in the process of authentication. Finally, we perform tests of assessment for the new authentication system in lab sessions at the college.

Use of VISIR Remote Lab in Secondary School: Didactic Experience and Outcomes

VISIR remote lab, designed as a learning tool in subjects related with Electricity and Electronics in undergraduate and graduate courses, has unlikely been used in secondary school technology teaching up today. In the following document, a research work is presented in order to show the development, implementation and learning outcomes of an educational experience for secondary students, using VISIR remote lab as a means to carry out practices of measuring and introducing a methodology based on the features of Bloom-Anderson’s taxonomy. The experience have been guided by a work document in which explanations and didactic activities have been included, specifically designed under a cognitive skills development focus.

From a Hands-on Chemistry Lab to a Remote Chemistry Lab: Challenges and Constrains

The spread of remote labs in Universities is a current reality. They are strong e-learning tool which allow students to carry out online experiments over real equipment and Universities to have e-learning tools for learning methodologies such as Blended learning and Distance learning. These remote labs are developed for many science fields such as electronic, robotic and physic. Nevertheless it is very difficult to find chemistry remote labs. This paper wants to show the difficulties of choosing a chemistry lab which can become a remote chemistry lab, and a first approach of converting a hands-on chemistry lab to remote one.

International Cooperation for Remote Laboratory Use

Experimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists and engineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alternatives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known as virtual and remote laboratories and are sometimes indistinguishably referred as online laboratories. Similarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote laboratories require some effort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration several factors that affect their adoption (i.e., cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e., benefit). This chapter analyzes these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large number of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an example in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, based on a remote laboratory named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.

European Robotics Week to introduce robotics and promote engineering

We present an activity framed within the European Robotics Week event. Robotics and computational practice are ideal tools for developing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pedagogy. A modular and adaptive hands‐on workshop is described in detail. The workshop is based on multiplatform educational robotics content as a first step into the robotics world. Three educational tools are used to introduce examples of robotics applications. The operational details, materials, and examples of activities for selected modules are presented with the expectation that all teachers can adapt these activities to their classes. Despite the small number of students, the experience delivered results that might be useful for other instructors to promote workshops with similar or identical content to generate further benefits. This study demonstrates that it is important to combine theory and practice and include fun tasks that intertwine the challenges of applying theory to problem solving. Furthermore, the results show how the same content can be deployed using three different robotics education tools.