An Interactive Tool to Learn the Sensors and Transducers Subject for Kinaesthetic Domain Students

Abstract

The main course learning outcome in the Sensors and Transducers subject is the ability of students to present the sensing mechanism for some specific sensors. This sensing principle is physical or chemical in nature and cannot be seen with bare eyes. Different teaching techniques have been used; however, all the techniques did not favour the kinaesthetic domain. Hence, an interactive tool has been proposed to motivate students to be more participate in class and increase their understanding. The proposed tool was the Arduino board, which was connected to five different sensors: water level sensor, infra-red sensor module, proximity sensor, pH sensor, and thermocouple. A graphical user interface (GUI) was developed using Visual Studio software as a monitoring system to show the sensors’ outputs interactively. The tool can be re-developed by students from the circuit connection given in the menu of the monitoring system. The source code for the user-friendly Arduino board can be easily obtained from any related electronics website. The developed GUI can be installed by students on their laptops using the created setup file. Using the interactive tool, students can see in real-time the output of the sensors on the monitoring system by exposing them to their corresponding measurand. All sensors work as expected and the GUI correctly presents the data from the sensors. The setup file can also be installed and the tool can run successfully on the computer even without the Visual Studio software. The positive feedback from students and their performance also showed a positive trend. From the performance of the students, the developed tool has been proven to improve students’ understanding of the sensors learned.