Webinar on Learning and Teaching with Teleoperated Instructional Shake Tables

Building upon tools developed within the NEES effort, the University Consortium on Instructional Shake Tables (UCIST) has developed a series of exercises to allow the students to perform remote experimentation using Quanser’s bench-top shake tables. Prof. Shirley Dyke, the founder and director of UCIST presented this project recently in a webinar. You can watch the recorded version to learn about the exercises and associated lab manuals developed based on these remote experiments and to see interesting demos that’s shows how Quanser’s Shake Table is operated remotely.

The main goal of this project is to provide opportunities for students worldwide to use tele-operated shake tables for learning (currently only 5 or 6 Shake Table in U.S. are tele-operated). Students can also see a direct link between engineering and real world applications. The project uses Quanser’s Active Mass Damper and a tele-operated Quanser’s Shake Table to introduce and demonstrate the real-life application of structural engineering concepts in the 2nd semester freshmen course.

In the remote experimentation students are able to operate a Shake Table over the internet, view live video and stream data on the local computer. This is achieved through developing an Real-time Data View interface. Students also learn more about MATLAB and various cyberinfrastructure tools.

Capabilities of this remote experiment have been well received by students. To assess the effectiveness of this teaching approach, 805 students were surveyed and the results show that all major indicators of learning increased over time. Any class size and class level can benefit from this remote hands-on platform.

Contact Prof. Dyke and UCIST at sdyke@wustl.edu to test the tele-operated Shake tables yourself!