Inspiring electrical engineering students through fully-engaged hands-on learning

Hands-on learning has proven to be very effective in motivating electrical engineering students to study foundation courses. The advent of student-owned, functionally robust, portable test and measurement equipment, now offers fertile ground for developing innovative pedagogy to more fully engage and inspire students. In this paper we discuss two examples of how student-owned test and measurement instrumentation is impacting the electrical engineering curriculum at RIT: in a Freshman Practicum course with a flipped lab and in a Certificate Program in Mechatronics to enable the required laboratory content to be delivered online.