Laboratory in microprocessor control of electromechanical systems

Background. Programming is widely known to be a cognitively demanding field. Learning programming can be a strenuous task without the proper guidance and methodology. Students often face difficulties in understanding even the most basic and fundamental concepts of programming, leading to their confusion and disappointment. Serious games for programming have the potential to alleviate students’ difficulties with programming. Aim. This article introduces a new serious game named jAVANT-GARDE which aims to educate the player on the basic concepts of programming and object-oriented programming through Java. By design, the game is suitable for everyone, even for players with no previous knowledge of programming. This article aims to present important information regarding the design, implementation and pilot evaluation of jAVANT-GARDE. Method. The game was evaluated by 42 high school students (age 16-17) in terms of perceived player experience and short-term learning. The participants played the game for one hour in the school lab and then answered a questionnaire based on the MEEGA+ framework. Results. Students evaluated positively the game in terms of its usability, confidence in playing the game, challenge, satisfaction, fun, focused attention and relevance. Moreover, the majority of students stated that would prefer learning programming with this game to learning through other teaching methods. Conclusions. The results of the pilot study and students’ replies in the questionnaire are rather positive. This gives us the initiative to proceed with studying the effect of the game in long-term learning of programming concepts.

Distributed I/O as a service: A data acquisition solution to Industry 4.0

The interest of children in learning to program computers has increased dramatically in recent years with the adaptation of new programming languages such as Scratch or game-based approaches. That being so, it is still unclear how best to teach programming concepts to young children. There is a gap in the literature on how to introduce basic programming concepts to children at the primary school level, while taking factors such as the grade level and approach used into account. This paper explores the best approach for introducing basic programming concepts to school children in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades as well as the effects of the approaches on students’ learning gains (per concept). The concepts addressed here are those used in a traditional Introduction to Programming course, such as programs, memory and variables, inputs and outputs, conditionals and loops. The paper presents the resulting improvements achieved by the 4th, 5th and 6th graders in a multigroup pretest-posttest design, with a control group (the use of a blackboard as an unplugged approach) and two experimental groups (the use of a visual execution environment (VEE) with a mouse and the use of the VEE with Makey Makey). We present the results exploring the interaction between the grade and approach factors for the 144 children (9-12 years old) enrolled in primary education. The results provide statistically significant data indicating how the children succeeded in learning basic programming concepts according to their grade, the type of approach used, and the programming concept under study.

Проаналізовано особливості застосування систем SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) та технологій Інтернету речей в умовах переходу промисловості до Індустрії 4.0. Показано, що використання веб SCADA забезпечує більшість вимог до таких систем та є масштабованим рішенням на всіх її рівнях. Розроблено та реалізовано веб-SCADA, компоненти якої працюють на одноплатних комп’ютерах типу Raspberry Pi, визначені вимоги до технічних характеристик компонентів системи.

CHAPTER 14 - Building Data Flow Machines On VMEbus

Recent advancements in single board computers, communications technologies and protocols, as well as the concepts of service-oriented architectures (SoA) and everything as a service (EaaS), constitute a prelude to the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. Billions of devices are interconnected and integrated as modular web services, which can be used and re-used by developers making the building and realization of complex applications easier. In this work, we take advantage of the SYNAISTHISI platform, which is able to interface and integrate devices, services and humans, and expose their capabilities as virtualized semantically annotated services that can be mashed into applications. We analyze the development process from a developer's perspective, present an ontology for smart meeting rooms and focus on a real-world case, that is delivering a complex application for counting the persons in the interior of a smart meeting room, using technologies that support IoT.

A system with fast torque response is very beneficial in applications where direct torque control (DTC) is highly desirable. The principle of DTC is to control machine torque and flux directly by selecting the switching states of inverter according to the errors of torque and flux; however, the response of direct torque control is slower during start-up and during change in load. Fuzzy control with grey prediction strategy is proposed for the implementation of DTC to improve its slow response. Moreover, it uses less sensors than the conventional method. Experimental implementation of the fuzzy logic controller and the grey predictor is carried out to verify the behavior of the controller. The controller is implemented with a single board computer that uses a TMS320C30 DSP.

Background. Learning programming is a cognitively demanding field of study accompanied with various difficulties. Although there is a high demand in the market for programmers, software analysts and engineers, a high dropout rate is recorded in relevant fields of study. Serious games are a promising means of engaging students in learning programming by giving them more incentives and making the process of learning programming concepts and languages more entertaining. Aim. This article introduces a new serious game called PY-RATE ADVENTURES, which aims to assist young students in their introduction to the basic programming concepts using Python. The game does not have any prerequisites and is suitable for players with no previous knowledge of programming. This article aims to present important information regarding the analysis, design and pilot evaluation of PY-RATE ADVENTURES. Method. The game was evaluated by 31 people that had recently graduated or were students of an Interdepartmental Programme of Postgraduate Studies in Information Systems. The participants voluntarily played the game and answered a questionnaire based on the MEEGA+ model, after their hands on experience with the game. This questionnaire’s purpose was to evaluate PY-RATE ADVENTURES in terms of perceived player experience and short-term learning. Results. The participants positively evaluated the game almost in all the elements of player experience. Furthermore, the majority of the users consider that the game helped them to learn basic programming concepts in Python and stated that they would prefer to learn programming with this game rather than other teaching methods. Conclusion. The positive results of the pilot evaluation give us the motivation to proceed and evaluate the game with students in secondary education, in order to extract stronger and generalisable conclusions regarding the impact of the game as an educational tool for learning programming concepts.

With the emergence of inexpensive 3D printing technology, open-source platforms for electronic prototyping and single-board computers, “Do it Yourself” (DIY) approaches to the cultivation of microbial cultures are becoming more feasible, user-friendly, and thus wider spread. In this perspective, we survey some of these approaches, as well as add-on solutions to commercial instruments for synthetic and system biology applications. We discuss different cultivation designs, including capabilities and limitations. Our intention is to encourage the reader to consider the DIY solutions. Overall, custom cultivation devices offer controlled growth environments with in-line monitoring of, for example, optical density, fluorescence, pH, and dissolved oxygen, all at affordable prices. Moreover, they offer a great degree of flexibility for different applications and requirements and are fun to design and construct. We include several illustrative examples, such as gaining optogenetic control and adaptive laboratory evolution experiments.

In this paper the MatLab software package is considered from the point of view of a universal environment for modeling DC and AC motor systems. The analysis of methods of mathematical, structural and physical modeling in MatLab was carried out using the Simulink block library and the SimPowerSystems application. For the study, two electromechanical systems were selected - a direct-current motor with independent excitation and an asynchronous motor with a squirrel-cage rotor, as one of the most common for driving technological installations of mining. Using a laboratory facility, a simulation model has been developed. It makes possible to evaluate, analyze and compare the results obtained during modeling with real data. The qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the transient process, such as the regulation time, the amount of overshoot, the number of oscillations, were subject to evaluation. During the evaluation and analysis of the modeling results, the advantages and disadvantages of various methods for modeling DC and AC motor systems in the MatLab software package were established.

The subject matter of this essay concerns the use of manipulatives and teaching aids in the teaching of mathematics for the 1st and 2nd grade of primary school, combined with educational robotics applications. In particular, the use of the programmable bee-bot floor robot combines procedures that involve the use of manipulative means (creating a track as a cardboard model, painting, assembling), teaching aid tools (demonstration of the programmable bee-bot floor robot), and finally, the comprehension of simple programming and mathematical concepts. Through the implementation of an educational scenario aiming to familiarize students with the basic geometric concepts, mathematical operations (multiplication table), basic algorithmic structures (simple problems and step solving), there will be involvement with the cognitive areas of informatics (basic programming concepts)) and mathematics (geometry, calculations).

This paper presents a system architecture, data communnication scheme and application programming interface model or concept for a multiprocessor system based on a network-on-chip (NoC) platform. Each processing node connected to a mesh node has its own local (instruction and data) memory portion, and a global (shared) memory portion. The introduced communication scheme gives only a mimimum overhead in order to offer direct memory-to-memory data transfer. Each processor can make direct message delivery to another processor (producer initiated), or make a request to copy memory blocks from a remote processor (consumer initiated). The complete data transmission is handled by the network interface and a special memory controller. The network interface managed by the specialized memory controller can directly access the shared memory portion. Thus the processing node can continue its normal operation and will be not blocked during the data transfer process.

Improving students' understanding of basic programming concepts through visual programming language: The role of self-efficacy

The concept of microprogrammable architectures can provide the system designer with a powerful development tool. This paper describes the development process of a medium scale computer system, using a specific microprogrammable processor. The hardware architecture used in this system is referred to as the MPP (microprogrammable processor) while the resulting computer system is referred to as the MP-60.The MPP hardware was designed to accomplish two primary goals; to shorten the lead time for computer system development by establishing a set of hardware building blocks, and to provide a mechanism for computer system emulation.

Open raceways are one of the principal commercial-scale systems for cultivating algae to produce biofuels and bioproducts. A critical process parameter in such a system is algae cell concentration in the aqueous culture, commonly measured in terms of optical density (OD). A prototype OD sensor exclusively for real-time measurement of algae cell concentration in open ponds was designed, constructed, and tested in a laboratory scale raceway and an open-pond raceway. In the lab test, the sensor OD measurements were highly correlated with spectrometer OD measurements. The OD curve recorded by the sensor clearly showed the diurnal pattern of algae growth associated with the on-off cycle of the lighting system in the lab facility. The test data also clearly highlighted unique cultivation activities such as growth media addition and harvesting. In the open pond raceway test, sensor OD data were also highly correlated with spectrometer-measured OD even though the range of OD variation was significantly less during this test. The OD curve clearly indicated a higher biomass accumulation rate in the pond from late morning to late afternoon than during the rest of the day. These tests of the OD sensor demonstrated its potential to provide accurate real-time algae concentration data in an open pond cultivation system, the type of data that would be necessary for timely management decision-making. This sensor would also eliminate the cost associated with frequently collecting and analyzing samples, making commercial-scale algae production more economically practical. Keywords: microalgae, optical density (OD), open pond raceway, sensor, pond monitoring, circuit design, optoelectronics DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20181101.2839 Citation: Yao Y, Ge Y F, Thomasson J A, Sui R X. Algae optical density sensor for pond monitoring and production process control. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2018; 11(1): 212–217.