Remote Online Live Digital Logic Lab Establishment

Sample experimentation for an OR logic circuit
Sample experiment for an AND Logic
Sample experiment for a NOT logic
Sample experiment for voltage across a LED
Sample experiment for voltage across a resistor

Inspiration

 Recently  a very high level of urgency is arising,  due to the widely spread risk associated with the Corona virus, to establish an online capability for students to be able to conduct remote real time experimentation in a viable area such as digital logic design.

Providing real live experiences to remote students would help them to acquire seamless experiences that would prepare them to real life jobs. Students are given the capability to access remotely a real digital logic lab and do experimentation aimed at satisfying the requirements of a digital logic lab course.

What it does

Our proposal aims at establishing a remote real live access to a physical digital logic lab for the purpose of completing the requirements of a digital lab course. Real live access is provided through a website where complete lab experiments would be available to learners. A graphical user interface was built where the learner is required to select components and then position them on a testing board. The interface is connected through the internet to the physical lab. The circuit in the physical lab would be in a non-active status until the circuit is completely constructed at the leaner’s remote site. Once the circuit is completed at the leaner’s site, a signal is provided to the physical circuit in the lab to activate it. The student then would be able to view the real circuit operation in the physical lab through a real live camera.We have demonstrated through a feasibility study phase that the above concepts are practically feasible and we practically demonstrated the success of sample experiments.

How I built it

A software interface was built using python IDLE on a Raspberry-PI device which can work as a server. For remote access we installed VNC server on the Raspberry-PI and we installed various versions of VNC viewer on different types of devices such as laptops or smartphones for the purpose of testing remote access via different devices.

Challenges I ran into

Establishing a physical connection between the remote user interface and the physical lab was a challenge using JAVA. We had to switch to Python due to the available Python classes that can be imported to be utilized in generating control signals for various physical systems designs.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of controlling various logic systems within a physical lab remotely. We constructed voltage measurement, Not, And, and OR logic systems experiments. We were able to follow the operations of the physical components in the lab through a live camera that was installed in the lab.

What I learned

We learned that ambitious ideas can become a reality once determination combined with knowledge are satisfied.I learned a lot about programming to generate precise graphic and image control using Python.

What's next for Remote Online Live Digital Logic Lab Establishment

We propose to extend the results of our feasibility studies to a complete set of digital log lab experiments for a full digital logic design lab course. The leaner would gain practical experiences for all the set of experiments brought through a live connected camera showing the actual physical design in the lab. We will implement five full units of logic design experimentation. Each unit has two sets of experiments. The required level of support is provided in the submitted full proposal available in the ZIP file.