LabBitcoin: FPGA IoT Testbed for Bitcoin Experiment with Energy Consumption

This paper describes a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) testbed that enables Bitcoin experimentation in real-time with energy consumption. The Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure enables practical activities considering a remote lab paradigm to allow students and enthusiasts to obtain a deep understanding of Blockchain technology, considering higher cognitive domains according to the Bloom taxonomy. The proposed solution is validated with an open-source Bitcoin miner implementation in Verilog, mobile, and web interfaces for energy consumption monitoring. This testbed may be used to foster Verilog design challenges for FPGA devices that provide a suitable solution considering performance and energy consumption metrics.

Digital Twin Based Interactive Mechatronics Lab Development for Remote Lab Offering and Evaluation

Mechatronics and control education is supported by laboratory intensive assignments that allow students acquire software and hardware skills to solve real world problems. However, COVID-19 force many schools to switch into remote learning complicating the instruction of practical assignments. This paper presents a novel proposal for interactive remote teaching of the laboratory component of the course ME-142: Mechatronics at the University of California, Merced using Digital Twins (DT) and the flipped classroom methodology. Each lab experience is composed by a set of on-demand supporting materials with the foundations of mechatronics simulation using MATLAB/Simulink to enhance and adapt the learning experience of the students. Once the students acquire advanced simulation skills, a set of Digital Twin models are provided to the students in order to begin their interaction with virtual representations of real systems for identification, analysis, controller design and validation, which are available online for remote access. By the end of the course, students were able not only to gain valuable experience with mechatronic systems but also interact and build advanced modelling techniques as Digital Twin, contributing to compensate the lack of remote hardware interaction.

EXPERIENCES WITH REMOTE TEACHING OF MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING LABORATORY AND PROJECT COURSES

COVID-19 has profoundly affected many, if not all, Canadian engineering courses during the2020/2021 academic year, many of which transitioned to online teaching. Delivering hands-on, highly interactive laboratory and design project courses is particularly challenging to do remotely. We present and reflect on experiences with remote teaching of three hands-on laboratory courses in a new Manufacturing Engineering program at the University ofBritish Columbia (UBC). These courses include MANU 230: Manufacturing Laboratory, MANU 330: Manufacturing Engineering Project I, and MANU 386: Industrial Automation. All three courses are taught in the same laboratory/classroom by one of the authors. In general, it appears that the students appreciated the remote lab experiences provided. However, it wasapparent from both survey data and informal feedback that students preferred in-person laboratory sessions. While, perhaps not an ideal method of delivering these types of courses there appears to be some place for remote laboratory classes in the future.