LabView Instruction for the Advanced Lab

This one and one-half day workshop will be held on the Reed College campus in the Physics Department’s Advanced Laboratory and will be of interest to professors seeking to include LabVIEW-based instruction in their instructional lab curricula. By the workshop’s end, each participant will have the course materials and experience necessary to create a similar instructional lab at his or her own institution. The requirements as well as low-cost solutions for developing such a lab will be addressed during the workshop and suggestions will be provided for adapting the material into a teaching unit ranging from three weeks to a full semester.

This one and one-half day workshop will be held on the Reed College campus in the Physics Department’s Advanced Laboratory and will be of interest to professors seeking to include LabVIEW-based instruction in their instructional lab curricula. By the workshop’s end, each participant will have the course materials and experience necessary to create a similar instructional lab at his or her own institution. The requirements as well as low-cost solutions for developing such a lab will be addressed during the workshop and suggestions will be provided for adapting the material into a teaching unit ranging from three weeks to a full semester.

No prior knowledge of LabVIEW is necessary. In advance of the workshop, each participant will be supplied with the book Hands-On Introduction to LabVIEW for Scientists and Engineers (Oxford University Press, 2009) and be asked to devote 15 to 20 hours of self-study of selected chapters to learn the LabVIEW programming language (free trial versions of LabVIEW software can be downloaded at http://www.ni.com/trylabview/). In addition, at the workshop, each participant will be given a myDAQ data acquisition device to keep, courtesy of a generous donation from National Instruments.

During the workshop, participants working in groups of two will use their acquired programming skills to control their own myDAQ units as well as Reed‘s LabVIEW systems (Windows machines equipped with National Instruments Multifunction Data Acquisition and GPIB boards) to build several computer-based instruments (including a digital oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, digital thermometer, and temperature controller) and to explore GPIB control of instrumentation.

No prior knowledge of LabVIEW is necessary. In advance of the workshop, each participant will be supplied with the book Hands-On Introduction to LabVIEW for Scientists and Engineers (Oxford University Press, 2009) and be asked to devote 15 to 20 hours of self-study of selected chapters to learn the LabVIEW programming language (free trial versions of LabVIEW software can be downloaded at http://www.ni.com/trylabview/). In addition, at the workshop, each participant will be given a myDAQ data acquisition device to keep, courtesy of a generous donation from National Instruments.

During the workshop, participants working in groups of two will use their acquired programming skills to control their own myDAQ units as well as Reed‘s LabVIEW systems (Windows machines equipped with National Instruments Multifunction Data Acquisition and GPIB boards) to build several computer-based instruments (including a digital oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, digital thermometer, and temperature controller) and to explore GPIB control of instrumentation.