Hands-on Learning of Commercial Electrical Wiring Practices for Electrical Engineering Students Through Two-University Cooperative Effort

Development of hands-on training hardware to teach commercial electrical wiring practices at one university extended to another. Motivation is students who graduate to electrical engineering positions without any experience with the electrical codes or in wiring elementary circuits to code requirements. Four different trainer units were created to give students the hands-on opportunity to wire several common circuits. These units have standard 2x4 stud construction. Wires are already run and boxes are already installed for the experiments at hand. In an integrated approach, students learn to make connections and test their circuits against code. Innovative methods of testing and display of the units are shown. Safety procedures are discussed. Each university benefits from the lessons learned by the other. Assessments, both formative and summative, are presented and are used for continuous improvement.