DIY Metrology Course
We see positive developments such as the growing maker community. We have a large number of people interested in building things again! Many individuals are keen on hands-on creation, but they lack the knowledge and skills to tackle substantial projects beyond the realms of 3D printing and Arduino programming. Our goal is to channel this national traction and steer their enthusiasm and energy toward engineering. The current state of affairs in maker spaces and robotics club lets people be creative but doesn't focus on engineering. They may not know they want to be an engineer. We aim to leverage the growth and excitement in engineering education.
BUILD projects are not step by step instructions like they experience in lab courses. The projects challenge students to think, problem solve, and implement practical solutions. It is that opportunity to gain hands-on experience and an understanding of the engineering process that is important. Remember that we are starting with freshman engineering students and this is all new to many of them. Long gone are the days of having a significant percentage of incoming engineering students that have had shop classes in high school, worked on their own cars, etc. Certainly there is a portion of the students who have participated in robotics clubs and other activities, but it is a smaller percentage.
The BUILD program is not just about the individual projects; it's about nurturing the next generation of engineers who can adapt to the ever-evolving demands of the field. The program aims to create an environment that truly prepares students for the challenges and opportunities of 21st-century engineering.
Designing a test has become difficult with today's technology. Everything seems to be in a black box and we no longer have access to as many internal test points as before, with many functions now integrated into one chip. Learning how to develop and generate test inputs/signals has become an art and that art isn't being taught in most programs. I teach graduates of dozens of schools. I rarely come across a recent graduate who has even a rudimentary command of an oscilloscope. They have gone through a few labs in school where they went through step-by-step instructions being told where to turn knobs, what buttons to press in what order, and what to write down in their report but they never learned how to figure out how to use the equipment and they have no idea what's going on under the hood. If I give them an unknown signal and ask them what it is, they do not know where to start. This is uniform across graduates from dozens of schools who work in my lab.
Something we plan to add to the program is to have students build their own test instruments including an oscilloscope and network analyzer. We have no illusion that their test equipment will be superior to Keysight and Tektronix. Rather, if they have designed rudimentary equipment through facilitated discussions, built, and used it to work on their projects, they will have a strong foundation when they use commercial equipment and will have a deep understanding of the machine, its capabilities, and its limitations. They do not get this by dutifully running through a step-by-step lab run by an overtaxed graduate student.
We are also in the process of developing an inexpensive near field antenna chamber for use at BUILD schools. This uses technology developed by the BUILD program and will be built at each school by BUILD students. For more information on this exciting project, please contact Jerry Branson or Randy Roush at the BUILD foundation.
Summary: What’s in this for you?
We have found that graduating engineers don’t fully understand their test equipment (1). In the build program we do not give you step be step instructions to “make it through” a lab. You’re going to understand why you’re pressing which buttons on that scope!
(1) This may be the understatement of the website. We’re going to fix this! See our paper in the Summer 2025 issue of the National Academy of Engineering Bridge to see what we’re doing about it.