A novel interdisciplinary course measurement and automated data acquisition-an update

A novel multidisciplinary course was developed that integrates knowledge gained and tools acquired from the introductory freshman, circuits, mechanics and C/C++ courses and is built around the concepts associated with automated data acquisition systems. This 3 quarter hour, laboratory intensive course used a suite of data acquisition equipment located in the Computer Aided Teaching Laboratory. Since then the laboratory computers have been replaced by the students' personal laptops and a PCMCIA card has replaced the data acquisition board. Laboratories early in the course explore the subsystems of an automated data acquisition system. The students then learn the operation of the National Instruments DAQCard-1200 card, learn the operation of analog to digital and digital to analog converters, and learn the use of the C/C++ commands provided for controlling these subsystems. The students learn these concepts while doing typical experiments dealing with the measurement of temperature, strain, and the evaluation of a temperature controller.