Teaching LabVIEW

[bravedonxiote]

Gurus of LabVIEW,

I am a newly minted professor and as part of an electronics class I am teaching LabVIEW. Teaching coding, whether it is LabVIEW or traditional written coding is generally difficult (at least that has been my experience as a student) due to the fact that students perform at different speeds/different levels of understanding. 

Is there any built in LabVIEW function (not examples, I've already shown them that) that would allow for students to better follow my teaching in class? I often get complaints on both sides saying that I am both going too fast and going too slow, so ideally I'd like to have some way of having my live coding able to be delayed by some amount on a separate screen while still showing the up to date coding at the same time. (That way if students fall behind briefly they can look at a separate screen and catch up to the point where I stop in order to let other students catch up. Think of it like TiVO but for LabVIEW, etc.) Does any teaching tool like that exist for LabVIEW? If not, could you make this happen, NI? Haha...

Also, is there any free online based LabVIEW coding place where my students could practice coding if their install file corrupts their computer or another catastrophic issue happens? Octave online for matlab and circuits.io for arduino have been great, I feel like NI needs something like this as well at least for basic LabVIEW.

Other experiences/teaching ideas are welcome as well if you know of something that worked particularly well.

[majoris · Accepted solution]

You could record your lecture with OBS and live stream it on youtube with a pin code so only students can see it. I think you can actually set up stream delays i.e. fixed time intervals between when you do stuff and when it appears on the stream. Youtube also allows random access of the stream while live so rewinding and reviewing is trivial.

If you're at a university, why not get Labview on lab computers for them to use? Your example of if Labview install corrupts seems like a pretty rare thing to worry about. Why can't they reinstall it? Also, you can always use labview in evaluation mode, and can even get the evaluation extended generally.

[Gregory]

I like majoris suggestion of using Youtube. Any screen capture program should do the trick though. Then you can distribute the video files after class and the students can replay it. Also, if they get VLC they can play at any speed (1.5x for example) until it's going at the rate they want.

The trick is getting students to come to class once you start giving videos of all the lectures 🙂

[Bob_Schor]

In our Student Lab, we (and often "we" is spelled with a single letter, the one following "H") install LabVIEW on all the machines that the students use, and encourage them to install their own copy (with some suggestions for what they should install) on their laptops.  That part hasn't been a problem.

As with any programming paradigm, the only way to learn to program is to Write Programs.  I generally give a brief (hour and a half) overview of "What is LabVIEW", then I hand them a USB 6009 and we build a Touch Sensor together as a 1-2 hour Class Exercise.  A Good Idea is to have the students work in small teams (2-3) and to each have a simple "problem" to solve, particularly one that involves acquiring data from a simple device (thermistor, accelerometer, pressure transducer), doing something relevant with the data, saving the data in some format for post-processing, etc.  These exercises should take a few days, with questions encouraged.

Some institutions (regretably, not ours) either buys a dozen myDAQs for the lab, or, better, requires (engineering first-year) students to buy them, then integrates the myDAQ into Circuits courses (where it serves as the Breadboard + Power Supply + Oscilloscope + Voltmeter + Signal Generator), using some of the "canned" routines that come with myDAQ.  Sooner or later, most of the students start to dive "under the hood" and find ... LabVIEW!  By this time, they have no fear and are off and running ...

Bob Schor

[bravedonxiote]

majoris,

That's a good idea, I'll try OBS. As for your question, it's not so much that the students actually have issues installing, but in general someone can always come up with an excuse for something, etc. This is why as much as I can when I teach I use programs that are free and online so that students can't use the excuse of "Oh, I forgot my computer, etc.". Accessibility is key. That being said, we don't actually have teaching labs because our department chair doesn't believe in them so I have to make due with other alternatives.

[bravedonxiote]

majoris,

That's a good idea, I'll try OBS. As for your question, it's not so much that the students actually have issues installing, but in general someone can always come up with an excuse for something, etc. This is why as much as I can when I teach I use programs that are free and online so that students can't use the excuse of "Oh, I forgot my computer, etc.". Accessibility is key. That being said, we don't actually have teaching labs because our department chair doesn't believe in them so I have to make due with other alternatives.

[bravedonxiote]

Bob_Schor,

You know, our university actually does have good support with the myDAQ stuff (we actually have enough for each student), but it has been my experience that having all that actually decreases student understanding (due to software incompatibility and confusion around how to install software or just people forgetting to bring the myDAQ, etc.). I really prefer (as do the students) to do things where literally all that is required is an email and internet access and go from there. As for the eventual "diving under the hood", well, most of our students take 18 hours per semester (which seems like a lot compared to when I was in school, I took 16 at most) if not more so the "diving under the hood" doesn't generally happen unless I encourage it somehow. I really really REALLY want a cloud based LabVIEW. Like, even if we had to pay for it and it was tremendously slow I think it would be valuable.

[Hooovahh]

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@bravedonxiote wrote:

As for the eventual "diving under the hood", well, most of our students take 18 hours per semester (which seems like a lot compared to when I was in school, I took 16 at most)

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20 was standard at my university for everything after your sophomore year, with some electing 24.  This was about 10 years ago.

People all learn differently of course, but throwing too much in my face at once would probably have a negative effect too.  That being said I learned best when I saw examples of code, taking real world measurements.  I'd then just probe around and see how it worked, then save it as a new VI and start messing around.  Many of the myDAQ examples look great for this, and the NI examples have been improved a lot, I'd say a focus was on improving them starting in 2012.  I'd also recommend checking out the myRIO Project Essentials Guide.  It clearly focuses on the myRIO but it goes over many different sensors and how to connect them along with basics of sampling techniques and signal processing.

[bravedonxiote]

majoris,

I just wanted to extend my gratitude for your help with this. I tried it out during class today and I had near unanimous agreement that it was helpful compared to what we were doing previously. This will come in handy not just for LabVIEW, but other coding languages, Matlab, Arduino, PIC, etc. You have changed the world for the better a bit today. I'm quite certain my students would all thank you as well.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Hooovahh:

Sounds like you attended GMI (Kettering)?

-AK2DM

[Hooovahh]

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@AnalogKid2DigitalMan wrote:

Hooovahh:

Sounds like you attended GMI (Kettering)?

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Yup