Integration of the remote students in the mehatronical laboratory

Abstract

In education today distance education students can easily integrate into almost all types of classes except when it comes to laboratory measurements. The laboratory measurements require physical presence of the student in the laboratory. When physical presence of the students is not possible the only way to perform the measurements is to alter the exercises to compensate for deficiency in equipment for remote access which results in separate exercises for distance education students. The purpose of this research was to find ways to integrate the distance education students into the laboratory for mechatronical measurements, without the physical presence or altering the laboratory exercise so regular and distance education students can attend to the same classes. The equipment is comprised of web cameras, National Instruments hardware and graphical user interface for remote access.