不需要鲜奶油:教授使用树莓派 改造实验室的电路板

碰巧 最好的——蝙蝠侠、蜘蛛侠、超人. 重启. 感谢博士. 詹妮弗Bastiaan, 机械工程副教授, 和克里斯蒂·布林克·布劳威尔, 机械工程实践教授, the Dynamic Systems with Controls Lab (MECH-431) is joining the club.

“We’re trying to make it fun while teaching the core concepts,巴斯蒂安说. “我们知道学生们的想法，因为我们就是他们.”

Brinker Brouwer earned her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering in 2001 and 2003, 分别. 巴斯蒂安是凯特林1997级的一员. 在一起, they are using a Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Terrell Teaching Innovation Grant to pay for the materials for upgrading the two labs.

“以前的实验室都是严格以电脑为基础的. This is hands-on, using the Raspberry Pi platform,巴斯蒂安说.  

在修改后的课程中, students will complete assignments involving physical measurements and analysis of sound pressure signals and also reverse engineer products using the Raspberry Pi computing platform. 之前的课程更侧重于基于模拟的项目.

现在, students will code various simulations and demonstrate their designs in an end-of-term robot competition. The Raspberry Pi used in class has four gigabytes of RAM and a quad-core processor from Broadcom. Bastiaan said it is similar to what is in a smartphone but less powerful than a laptop.  

Moving away from simulation work solves two other problems: cost and academic dishonesty. The previous hardware in the course needed to be replaced, which was expected to cost $150,000. In the new course setup, motors are $6 each; a Raspberry Pi is $55. 新的硬件套件包括一个树莓派板, 带触控板的无线键盘, 一个10英寸的触摸屏显示器, 用于扩展功能的AUTO pHAT子板, 一个带编码器的直流电机和一个相机模块等等.

“Many students have these same things at home that they are tinkering with,” Brinker Brouwer said. “It’s incorporating sophisticated software that industry is using with their fun toys to do interesting things.”

除了, faculty members will now have more freedom to change the assignments from term to term, 减少重复旧材料和过时材料的机会.

“天气非常干燥, 无聊，没有什么实验, 动手学习和硬件,巴斯蒂安谈到之前的球场布局时说.

布林克·布劳尔表示同意.

“Mechanical engineers like to build stuff and break stuff,” she said. “他们想要插手. The material they are learning really clicks when they see an application physically responding to their own designed input.”

The idea for the motor change came to Brinker Brouwer during the pandemic. 她的祖母住在养老院，不能有访客. Brinker Brouwer found a way for her family to communicate with her grandmother through a Lovebox. 

一个爱盒是一个小的, wooden box with a heart on the outside that receives text messages through an app. 只要收到短信，它的心就会转. Her grandmother could then rotate the heart in the opposite direction to send the family emoji hearts back.

像大多数工程师一样, 布林克·布劳维尔对盒子的结构很好奇, 于是她把它拆开了. She discovered it didn’t take much to create—a small DC motor powered the rotation of the plastic heart and an LCD screen displayed the message.

“我以为, ‘How can we have the students build something in class and collect meaningful data just like they will in the real world?’”Brinker Brouwer说.

在春季学期, the students did just that by making their own boxes with bulldogs instead of hearts, as they reverse engineered the Lovebox using a Raspberry Pi coded with MATLAB and Simulink software.

“Reverse engineering is a really big thing in industry to understand competitors’ products and what makes them tick,巴斯蒂安说. “这是为今后的工作做准备. When I worked in industry, we would buy whole cars and tear them down piece by piece. Other companies would pay for that information to know their competitors’ products.”

除了, students are using the Raspberry Pi board with a USB microphone to collect sound pressure data, filter it and compare it to data collected with a professional data acquisition system. Students also have used the Raspberry Pi with MathWorks programming workflows to create and debug program code in one mode and implement the debugged code in another mode. They have experimented with the workflows to perform exercises with blinking lights on the Raspberry Pi board and spinning the DC motor attached to the AUTO pHAT.

24岁的Jonathan Eby很喜欢实施讲座的概念.

“This hands-on experience provides the opportunity to understand the practical side of an analytically intense course,他说.

23岁的马修·格雷弗(Matthew Graver)表示同意.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed the ability to use new technology to program functions for lab, and these devices make it easier to visually understand what I am accomplishing and how the data fits with our lab goals,他说. “The use of the Raspberry Pi devices, in particular, have been quite useful and educational to use.”

Angel Najjar ‘23 said she couldn’t imagine learning the concepts without the new hardware kits.

“看到你的代码运行是一回事, 但能亲眼看到它运转发动机, 解决问题, 等. has given me a concrete understanding of what we are doing and its purpose,” she said.

Eby说他会把这个实验室推荐给其他学生.

“这不仅是机械工程学位所必需的, 但这是一次愉快的学习经历,他说.

严重的说, “This lab does a great job giving you more programming experience, and students get to learn how to use different technologies to work toward programming different functions. Becoming more familiar with MATLAB and the Raspberry Pi devices has been one of the highlights of the class that I know will benefit me in the future.”

纳贾尔也会推荐这门课.

“我想我学到了很多，”她说. “I like how hands-on it is, and I am way more confident in my programming abilities.”

看起来评论已经出来了，学生们喜欢这个重启.