Paperless Lab at the Faculty of Engineering

At the 10^th INTEND 2016- International Technology, Education and Development Conference, that was held recently, the new "Paperless Lab" instruction system was introduced for the first time.

 

The "Paperless Lab" was developed in the Electrical Engineering Faculty at HIT, at the "Renewable Energies" lab by Dr. Yuval Back, Dr. Hen Friman and Mr. Netzer Matzliah, the lab's engineer.

 

The "Renewable Energy" field and is the basis for tomorrow's science, engineering and technology world. It deals with studying and researching the sources of the future's energy, including various viewpoints of current research in the engineering and energy fields.

 

In June 2011, after receiving a prestigious grant from the Chief Scientist and with the full support of the faculty's dean Dr. Yosef Ben Ezra, the excellence center and the research group "Renewable Energy and Smart Grid" had opened, led by Dr. Yuval Beck. The group's objective is to create scientific collaborations that will lead to receiving prestigious grants, as well as to publishing joint essays. The goal is to promote the Renewable Energy and Smart Grid Excellence and Research center. Collaboration with the industry enables the establishment of joint ventures which will promote research and HIT in this field.

 

 

The lab provides the students with the basic tools for understanding and designing renewable energy systems as well as getting to know the chemical and physical basis of the energy production mechanisms.

 

Among the topics studied in the lab: Introduction to photo-voltaic panel, as well as design of a commercial system that utilizes solar energy for electrical energy production.

 

The teaching method at the lab is innovative and unique done as e-learning- Paperless Lab. The lab has no lab book and the entire scientific background that is needed for conducting tests can be found in the Moodle system. Only after the reading is completed by the student, can the file be opened where the test's instructions can be found. After the completion of the test the instructor can check dynamic graphs that are produced in real time so he can evaluate the students' work immediately. At the end of the semester the students are asked to give feedback on this innovative method.

 

Dr. Friman presented at the conference data that has been accumulated over 4 years from students' feedback, which shows that students enjoy the lab, benefit from it and even prefer to see this method implemented in other labs as well.