LabVIEW - College to Indusrty

[pacific]

hello Friends,

i am a Master's student in Electrical Engineering. Most students like me are confused about how to meet the expectations of employers. We have a good start in LabVIEW and have access to all the packages but need direction and guidance from the experienced people. i would like to know what is the best way to learn LabVIEW from the view point of getting a job.

I am not a beginner. I have cleared the CLAD exam and now preparing for the CLD. My problem is that I do not have much experience with live projects. But my university has a site license and hence I can work on all the modules like IMAQ, Signal Processing, Sound and Vibration, LabWindows, TestStand etc. Which modules must I try and master? I would aslo like to know if there are any good hobby projects which will help me show my knowledge in LabVIEW. Also is there any place from where i can get cheap and used hardware?

Thanks a lot for all the help.

[BJD1613]

My best suggestion about what you will work on in actual industry is that 99.9% of all applications that I have written have 4 key points.

1. A great user interface.

2. Some kind of data acquisition (GPIB, SERIAL, DAQ, IMAQ, etc.)

3. Use of some kind of hardware for acquisition (daq boards, pxi, vxi, fieldpoint, or other)

4. Some way to log it to a file. ( tab delimited text, or using the report generation toolkit)

I have been in the automation/test industry for about 5 years and this is what I have seen. If you can master these simple points you should be well on your way.

Now for a more advanced approach I would focus on the architecture of applications. (State Machines, Action Engines, Syncronization Techniques, multiple processes) and the new wave that has been coming up in LV is GOOP (Graphical Object Oriented Programming). If you can master these you will be a great asset to any company.

2 other sayings that I like to have in my back pocket at all times.

START WITH CLEAN CODE, AND YOU WILL END WITH CLEAN CODE

WHY DEVELOP AGAIN, THINK REUSE (create your own library)

Hope this helps

[williamlweaver]

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@BJD1613 wrote:
My best suggestion about what you will work on in actual industry is that 99.9% of all applications that I have written have 4 key points.

1. A great user interface.

2. Some kind of data acquisition (GPIB, SERIAL, DAQ, IMAQ, etc.)

3. Use of some kind of hardware for acquisition (daq boards, pxi, vxi, fieldpoint, or other)

4. Some way to log it to a file. ( tab delimited text, or using the report generation toolkit)

...

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Wow! What a fantastic suggestion! I can't agree more.

As a teacher, it's my job to prepare students for industry and may I add a few suggestions to the list:

2. Rather than mastering a few concepts, explore a bunch of the packages and example programs in LabVIEW. That way you can sharpen your ability to get up to speed quickly with new programming tasks.

3. Realize there is little chance your industry programming will be exactly like your school programming. Be receptive to new projects and try to find how they are similar and how they are different from your experience.

4. Program with a buddy, team or group. Not many projects are made solo (maybe early Napster....) Learn how to brainstorm with others... Check out eXtreme Programming or Scrum.

5. Pick a game to write in LabVIEW. An Adaptive Vibration Stabilization System is way cool to insiders, but LabVIEW Centipede, Tempest, or Frogger is way more interesting and often just as involved.

Hope this helps!

-Bill =]

[BJD1613]

I actually had some courses in the EET circulum at Penn State that required LV development. I had 2 measurment classes and my senior design project involved LV. I started there with version 5.1. My biggest suggestion is to grasp a hold of the state machine architecture. I was creating these enormouse sequence structures that were not flexible if I needed to exit in the middle of the sequence. I also as a young programmer would use alot of local and global variables. Until I saw this example I didn't really understand what kind of problems they can create if you use them carelessly. If I were an instructor of a college course I would buy the NI version of basics 1 and 2. I have been a NI instructor for about 3 years now and I feel that the content in these manuals are right on target. You of course need to add some of your own examples/challenges but for the most part this will cover all the material that you need to know. Actually by starting with LV in college you have a good jump start on most people. Although it is growing in popularity, LV is not taught in alot of college courses. Hope this helps you out and good luck.

[pacific]

Thank You BJD1613, qswitch and everyone else.
I have started my window style calculator and I am having a fun time with LabVIEW!!