Electrical Circuit Virtual Lab

Zekeriya Aliyazicioglu, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, Electrical and Computer Engineering

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Summary

The students are introduced to design/implementation, testing and verification Electric Circuit problem using MATLAB Simulink Simscape and Live Scripts to understand the concept better. This will increase the interest level in the subject material, better retention in the course, and better engagement. The reinforcement of student understanding of theoretical principles by means of enhanced graphical aids and interactive simulations through virtual lab experiences.

Course Application Area: Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Industrial, Chemical and Aerospace Engineering majors. Each topic in this curriculum is in a module so that instructors can select parts for use in their own curriculum.

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Learning Goals

The most of our new generation students are visual learners, whose understanding of engineering theories is enhanced by hands-on activities, simulation, and needs to be able to break down the problems.Using computational tools such as MATLAB helps to break down problems into steps and visualize the simulation results to develop their understanding abilities in order to help them in their future classes.

MATLAB Live Scripts and Simulink Simscape are used to create interactive documents, which combine formatted text, equations, codes, images, and simulations to improve students' understanding of fundamental electric circuits and analysis.

The materials covers eight topics (modules) in electrical circuits. Each module has Live Scripts file that included learning objectives, description, examples, and exercise problems. Instructors may work on examples in the class and have students work on exercise problems individual or group works. The students go through the process of filling in the Live Script template, demonstrate the results. The MATLAB Live Scripts included interactive elements such that students could use sliders to change variables values and see how the data on a graph changed in response. 
MATLAB Simulink Simscape helps them to verify the answer of exercise problems and change the values of elements to analyze the responses. Simulink Simscape models of examples and exercise problems are given. Students could be capable of modify the given models for the exercise problems.

Students will be able to check their understanding by verifying the results, playing with the supplementary resources, discussing them with group and class or using the Live Scripts as a basis for asking a question in a discussion group.

Goal is to design/implementation, testing, and verification Electric Circuit problems using MATLAB Simulink Simscape and Live Scripts to understand the concept better. Instructors will be able to use this Live Script files to develop future teaching materials efficiently.

Context for Use

The materials covers eight topics (modules) in electrical circuits. These course modules are for freshman or sophomore level Electric Circuit courses in Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Industrial, Chemical, and Aerospace Engineering majors. Each topic in this curriculum is created in a module so that instructors can select parts for use in their own curriculum.

The average class size is 32-35 students in our engineering programs. Students take many classes with lab concurrently. This materials can be used in the lab directly too.

Students convert exercise problems into a computational problems by filling in the Live Script templates for each exercise and simulate the Simulink Simscape models to verify the answer. Students may need some programming background, but they can learn MATLAB in this course with given many examples of Live Script and Simulink Simscape files.

Description and Teaching Materials

MATLAB Live Script and Simulink Simscape modules have been created for eight different modules with expected outcomes. Each module provides  background information, instructions, interactive tasks, examples, and exercises in Live Scripts and verifications in Simulink Simscape

The first version of the materials are available on MATLAB Central

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/100933-circuits?s_tid=srchtitle_Electrical%20Circuit%20Virtual%20Lab_1

 

Teaching Notes and Tips

Eight different modules have been created in the Electric Circuits. These modules focus on many engineering majors and they can be used in asynchronous or synchronous model of electric circuits' classes and labs.


Assessment

Each module has 3-6 exercise problems. Students can be assessed equally on the calculations, MATLAB Live Script, and Simulink Sandscape model for each exercise problem. These modules are available online and other instructors can download and use it in their classes.

References and Resources

Electric Circuits, James Kang, 1st ed. Cengage Learning, 2018