An Electronic Instrumentation Design Project for Computer Engineering Students

Ongoing technological progress in electronic instrumentation triggered the development of an innovative, hands-on teaching program to help students toward a fuller understanding of recent changes in the field. This paper describes the different stages of a design project to teach electronic instrumentation to computer engineering students at the University of Oviedo, Gijón, Spain. The project involves designing a weather station to measure the main meteorological variables and then displaying this information on a computer screen. Although this course is intended for nonspecialist students of electronics, it could easily be adapted to other syllabuses with minimum modification of the specifications. The course provides not only enhanced academic training but also increased student motivation, as students participate actively in all course activities and work in a team within which each student has specific responsibilities.