Designing Engineering Courses with Embedded Virtual and Real Experimentations

Abstract

Engineering requires solid mathematical knowledge in addition to hands-on experience. At the same time, finding the right balance between mathematics and applications is challenging. This paper presents the implementation of virtual and real experiments in three math-heavy engineering courses at the University of Southern Maine. These courses were Communications Engineering, Antennas, and Plasma Engineering. Furthermore, the virtual experiments implemented were MATLAB R2022b simulations, HFSS simulations, and videos. The real experimentation included antenna building, a software-defined radio project, a 3D printing project, and a case study analysis. These virtual and real experiments were distributed between the aforementioned three courses. Based on student feedback, having these virtual and real experiments aided their learning process and students enjoyed having hardware experiments embedded in a course.

Keywords

• virtual experimentation
• real experimentation
• projects
• simulations
• problem-based learning