Asynchronous hands-on experiments for mechatronics education

There has been great interest and effort at many engineering educational institutions to introduce on-line, or "asynchronous" courses. However, at the present time, the vast majority of on-line or distance education courses lack any hands-on activities that require the manipulation of physical artifacts or physical experimentation. This paper describes a series of hands-on Mechatronics experiments associated with an introductory Mechatronics course that could be done "anytime, anywhere" (asynchronously). The experiments are based on a relatively inexpensive "kit" of components and a single-board microcontroller. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.