INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM BASED LEARNING (PBL)

PBL is a learning process that places you, the student, at the centre. Unlike traditional teaching methods, PBL will not seek to open your brain and fill it with facts and figures so that you can regurgitate these on demand in an examination. Instead the process mimics the natural learning process whereby you learn through action, through making connections with what you already know, learning in collaboration with others and through making mistakes. PBL is a strategy that is used by many institutions for students in groups between 5 and 12 for solving problem. The PBL approach encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between group members. The PBL approach, therefore, implies that there must be an atmosphere of collaboration and cooperation between group members. You may make ignorant statements, you may come up with negative questions, and you are likely to make mistakes and to feel out of your depth at times. These are perfectly normal characteristics in the learning process and you should look upon your experience in such a way and importantly look upon your colleagues in the group in the same way. In the PBL Process, a group leader will be appointed and a secretary and the problem given will be read and each group member will be asked if he/she understand the problem statement. All queries are done here about the problem using the necessary tool required. Then the group must ask themselves, what they think the problem is about. A brainstorm is then done to find out what each member of the group knows about the problem. Then the questions: What you know? and What you need to know? arises in which the lecturer or tutor or chair person will ensure that a list regarding to the questions be investigated in more detail is established. This is designed to help the group understand the issues surrounding the problem. The group must agree on the learning objectives that they will have to research before the next meeting. Individual study is required for

each member of the group to either take on all the objectives or specific, depending on the route the group decided to take. The group will meet for the second time with each learning objective considered and the students contribute the results of their research to the discussion. At the end of this stage of the process the Minutes Secretary will be given time subsequent to the meeting to write out the report. The group will be given a further problem and the process will begin again with a different Secretary and Group Leader.

30 January - 5 February

ASSIGNMENT # 1
One might ask the question: Why do we care about measurement? Measurement is so universal, without it, the exchange of goods and services cannot take place. Measuring a length of cloth or a herd of animals or a days labor gives it a value in terms of size, or number, or achievement, which enables others in the community to offer something else-food, protection, even love or loyalty of equivalent value. As a result, Measurement is almost as important to human society as language, and it occurs in the earliest civilizations, long before the development of writing. According to Dr. H. James Harrington, 1991, if you cannot measure it you cannot control it. However, measurement provides definition and helps us understand quality and consistency; two example areas are medicine and production (replication). Quality of life is important to most of us; consequently, medicine is important to us. We cant replicate quality if we cant measure it first. Clearly, manufacturing requires measurement to replicate merchandise and then control its production. Measurement also helps us express appreciation; two examples are sports and art. A 98-mph fastball speed could not be described without a radar gun and a general understanding of speed and if video systems and photoelectric sensors did not exist, we couldnt always settle a horse race or a NASCAR event without degenerating into tribal warfare. This also helps to show the importance of measurement. Measurement represents a substantive result with which the person who performs the measure can relate. Measurement provides a relationship between one domain and another. Measurement in isolation is meaningless; hence, measurement always has a reference basis from which it establishes a relationship between the domains. The basic outline for instrumentation is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates the general stages of measurement and their functions and operations. Each of these stages participates in obtaining information from an event. The sensors detect the physical event and make the original transformation of data from one domain to another, thereby relating the two domains. (In most cases, sensors transduce or transform a physical quantity into an electrical signal.

Figure 1. Basic outline of a measurement system We measure to reveal a condition and possibly alert the user. We also measure to quantify the magnitude of phenomena. Probably most importantly, we measure to control processes. All these should lead to insight to phenomena and processes. Ultimately it provides an interpretation of

events. The most important part of giving meaning to measurement is to provide understanding into the measurement process. Measurement is integral to life. It follows then that if we need measurement then we need instrumentation to perform those measurements.

20 February - 26 February

Assignment # 2

Measurement Sensor The first stage in the measurement chain is the sensor or sensing unit. Sensors are present everywhere in todays society. Sensors and transducers are almost the same thing except that a transducer changes one form of energy to another, whereas a sensor produces an electrical output regardless of the energy input. Therefore, sensors are a subset of transducer. Every measurement has a target a physical parameter of interest. Termed the measurand, this is what drives the entire measurement process. The measurand could be a certain property of a material or a condition of a process. Once you map a measurand to a set of possible sensors that appear able to do the job, you must address another layer of issues. Every application will have a unique set of requirements (these relate to the transfer function of the sensor) that need to be sorted through to arrive at the best choice of sensor. Some specific terms are used in order to help one understands the measurement process. These are: Transducer: changes one form of energy to another (e.g. a mercury thermometer transforms thermal energy into expansion of the liquid metal). Sensor: produces an electrical output regardless of the energy input or stimulus (e.g. a baby thermometer uses a thermocouple and conditioning circuitry to convert thermal energy into an electrical signal that represents temperature). Measurand: a physical parameter of interest, it is the stimulus (e.g., thermal, acoustic, radiofrequency, light, or mechanical energy such as pressure, acceleration, or temperature). Span or range: the smallest and largest values of stimuli the sensor will encounter. Full scale output: the maximum excursion of the output electrical signal. Accuracy: the deviation of the measured value the output from the sensorfrom the true value of the measurand. Resolution: the smallest increment of input stimulus that can be sensed (e.g., the change of a single bit within an analog-to-digital converter). Linearity: the proportionality of the sensor output to the measurand input. Hysteresis: the sensor response dependence on previous inputs, the sensor has a different transfer function for increasing input stimuli from decreasing input stimuli. Noise: every value outside the realm of specificity. (That is, unwanted signal or value) Precision: the repeatability of the measurements from the sensor.

Sensitivity: the conversion efficiency of the sensor; the sensor gain of output amplitude/input amplitude. Stability: the long-term behavior of the sensor (e.g. temperature drift or the change in a pressure sensor's output for changing temperature.) There are many applications where measuring instruments are used. Take for example the thermocouple; it is used to take basic temperature measurement on piping systems within certain applications. Also, it can be used to take the robust temperature measurement on piping components, temperature measurement on high-pressure piping systems and flow measurement on high-pressure, high-flow pipe.

5 March - 11 March

ASSIGNMENT # 3

Three main desirable attributes of an Op-Amp for instrumentation use are: Very high input impedance Very high common mode rejection ratio Very high open-loop gain 1. An anti-aliasing filter is an analog filter that band limits the sensor output signal to satisfy the Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem. The Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem is a fundamental concept that imposes a constraint on the minimum rate at which an analog signal must be sampled for conversion into digital form, such that the original signal can later be reconstructed perfectly. 2. A second order low pass filter is required to provide a -40dB/decade roll-off. 3. (i) Design an active 1st order low-pass filter with a cut-off frequency of 5Hz. (ii) What is the percentage attenuation at 30Hz for this filter?

4. Design an Op-Amp circuit to implement the following: Vo = 3.5 x[V1(t)-V2(t)]+1.5.p