Impact of Web-based
experiments in
Monterrey Tech
Miguel Angel Romero-Ogawa
Associate Dean of Engineering
July 8th, 2005
1
Monterrey Tech
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Privately funded
Non-profit
Independent
Non government
operational support
 27 non-profit sponsoring
organizations
 567 trustees
2
Monterrey Tech
33 campuses
 8,253 faculty
 96,832 students
Tec Milenio
6 campuses
 870 faculty
 8,611 students
Virtual University
5,804 students
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Texas
Florida
South Carolina
Arizona
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Guatemala
El Salvador
Nicaragua
Costa Rica
Panama
Honduras
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Colombia
Venezuela
Peru
Ecuador
Chile
Bolivia
Virtual
University
2004
Programs
1. Graduate
Students
5,804
2. Continuing education
30,859
3. Social programs
59,512
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12 field offices
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Students abroad: 7,221
(2004)
North America
29%
Europe
60%
Asia
4%
South America
4%
Oceania
4%
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Students from other countries:
4,065
(2004)
North America
45%
Europe
30%
Asia
4%
South America
20%
Oceania
2%
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Educational
model
Ethics,
attitudes
and values
Professional
Social
Leadership
international responsability
and
competitive and humanistic
entrepreneurship
perspective
and life skills
International
perspective
8
Web-based Experiments
 Information technology has facilitated the concurrent,
collaborative, multidisciplinary development of
engineering
 Major impact areas:
 Remote process control and monitoring
 Collaborative distance engineering
 Distance learning
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Virtual Laboratory
Intelligent Systems Center, Dr. Jose Luis Gordillo
 Virtual Laboratory generic model and methodology
development
 Interinstitutional project: ITESM (Campus Cuernavaca,
Monterrey, Estado de México and México City), UNAM
and IPN
 Funded by the National Council of Science and
Technology, 2002
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Tele Engineering Laboratory
Electric Engineering Department, Dr. Manuel Macias
 Integration of electronic, telecommunication and
computing technologies through the development of
systems for:
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Data acquisition, analysis and presentation,
Distance process automation and control,
Man-Machine Interfaces,
Computer Aided Remote Monitoring
 This course has been offered 4 times (2 years) for
mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and
computer science programs
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Automated manufacturing
remote system
 Collaboration project with Esslingen Hochschule für
Technik, funded by SIEMENS, using this installation and
propietary software. Students are able to perform
distance collaborative engineering
 Run for the first time during the first semester 2005,
currently some students of Monterrey Tec are on a
summer exchange working on related projects
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Automation
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Automation
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Distribution of the
Laboratory
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Monitoring and Control
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Portable Virtual Instrumentation
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Laptop +
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DAQ-Cards (PCMCIA) +
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Internet Messenger =
Internet
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Remote Assistance
Internet
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Electric Circuits Course
Electrical Engineering Department, Lic. Luis Molina
 Server containing information regarding 6 experiments:
Theory, problems to solve, tutorials for simulation, digital
videos, instructions and digital videos regarding access
and use of measurement instruments
 Remote laboratory with server to control and monitor
instruments (oscilloscope, multimeter, signal generator
and power source) as well as two webcams
 PC room where students can run simulations
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Electric Circuits Course
 Lecture once every other week, problems are discussed,
videos regarding a simulation of the remote experiment
 Students work on exercises and remote experiment on
their own (individually or in teams)
 After a week, students learning is assessed by solving
problems and executing remote experiments in teams
under the supervision of professor and TA’s
 Tests have been conducted comparing the performance
of traditional taught sections with virtual lab supported
sections, the results slightly in favour of the latter
http://www.mty.itesm.mx/etie/elearning/circuitos1/index.html
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Electric Circuits Lab Course
Electrical Engineering Department
MSc. Luis Molina and MSc. Sergio Malacón
 Students develop a project that must be remote monitored
and controlled
 Students get lectures and tutorials on the first half of the
semester and finish their projects during the second half
 Virtual-real laboratory with 8 e-learning benches
 Has been offered for 4 semesters (2 years)
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Virtual Learning Environments
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Remote Electronics Lab:
Regulated Power Supply
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Remote Electronics Lab:
Bipolar Transistor Amplifier
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Remote Electronics Lab:
Electronic Circuit Design
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Heat Transfer and Process
Control
Chemical Engineering and Mechatronics Departments
Dr. Vicente Garza and Dr. Rubén Morales
 Pilot scale tube and shell heat exchanger coupled to a
cooling tower
 Industrial type of instrumentation
 Used to be operated and controlled by means of an
industrial console (Honeywell TDC-3000)
 In process of renewing hardware systems and
industrial console
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Heat Transfer and Process
Control
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Heat Transfer and Process
Control
 Used in both Chemical Engineering and Mechatronics
Department courses offered for the Chemical
Engineering undergraduate program:
 Heat Transfer Operations
 Unit Operations Lab
 Process Control Lab
 Control room is “next door”
 Not yet web-based, in process of development
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MIT iLABs project at ITESM
 Monterrey Tech invited to participate on the iCampus
MIT project in 2004
 The starting point in this collaborative relation is the
iLabs project, due to the fact that some faculty at
ITESM has had previous experiences in mounting lab
experiments on internet
 A MOMU was signed, converting ITESM into iCampus
Hub Affiliate Institution
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Opportunities for ITESM
 Facilitate the implementation of additional web based
experiments
 Use web-based experiments as a teaching aid in the
classroom just in time when you need them
 Use web-based lab experiments as additional
activities and homeworks
 Provide a better lab service to students, especially in
courses with out-of-classroom experimental activities
and high enrollment. They could carry out
experiments almost 24/7
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Opportunities for ITESM
 Run inter-campii services, as some of our smaller
campii do not have the experimental facilities
(freshmen chemistry course for engineering)
 Opportunity to foster inter-campii collaborative work
 Divulgate engineering programs among high schools
all over México
 Build collaborative networks with other institutions
around web-based experiments (i-Labs)
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MIT-ITESM iLAB Project
Implementation
 A software support team has been assembled to
maintain and operate the service broker and related
hardware and software
 A hardware support team has been assembled to assist
professors in the development of web based
experiments and MIT’s lab server technology
 Key personnel of the software support team has spent
some time on MIT this summer
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MIT-ITESM iLAB Project
Implementation
 3 MIT postgraduate students are currently at Monterrey
Tech to assist in the installation, startup and troubleshooting of the service broker
 Our development teams will be developing interfaces
with propietary software such as Siemens and
Honeywell
 Although the main interest is on the interactive
architecture, the batch architecture based on our own
service broker is due to start next term on some
electrical engineering courses and experiments
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