Abstract:

The paper shares experience in teaching indirect resistance measurement during distance learning due to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant changes in the life of people. It was necessary to quickly find solutions to problems of any nature. One of the problems was that the universities student learning took place in an electronic environment. The teachers had to teach the students remotely and at the same time, the students had to not lose their practical training. The solution to this problem appeared to be the use of virtual environments in education.

The study of measuring active resistances is included in the Electrical Measurements course for electrical engineering students. Also, the students should be able to process the results of measurements to indicate the accuracy with which a given measurement is made.

The students use the NI Simulink environment for the resistance measurement In the online studying. Virtual measurement tools are set with internal resistances close to those of real meters. The students determine the methodological uncertainty after conducting the simulation measurements. The same calculations can be done using a specially developed program in MatLab and the students themselves can check that they have worked correctly.

A program for statistical analysis of measurement data has also been developed. Students use it to process data from multiple indirect resistance measurements and provide an assessment for the measurement result.

The developed program supports mathematical calculations but requires the active participation of the students in its implementation. They must make certain decisions at certain stages of the computational process.

The simulation measurement of active resistance and its data processing program described in the paper were applied in the online training of students of engineering subjects at the Faculty of Physics and Technology at the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” (Bulgaria) in the course of "Electrical measurements" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The use of virtual environments in the education of engineering majors helps to increase the student's interest in the taught material; the students gain skills in working with measuring instruments and subsequent confidence in working with real ones.

Keywords:

Indirect measurement, Education, Electrical Engineering.