Application of Laboratory Based Teaching and Learning at TU-K

Inspiration

During the workshops attended in Germany, a major lesson learnt was that the professors have laboratories in which they are involved in research that integrates to their normal teaching obligations. Some of the laboratories visited were in the areas of Virtual Reality, motion tracking, 3-D printing, etc. It is with inspiration from this way of operation that a small lab has been established at the TU-K in the school of computing aimed at:

  1. Incorporating exposure of students to working with hardware
  2. Providing real-world data for visualization and web development

In the air quality sensors laboratory, the lecturers are exposing students to hands on training as is demonstrated by the images below

Preview of Sample Output from the Lab Activities

In partnership with partners (code for Africa – Kenya office) we get low cost low power sensor modules.

Students are taken through assembly sessions in small groups and afterwards they were able to assemble the sensor modules to working sensors

Students troubleshoot and install embedded software / drivers to the sensors.

Staff use the data collected from the sensors to implement topics like APIs integration, visualizations, etc

Conclusion

The experience has been fulfilling and even as a lecturer you feel there has been learning. The students are better prepared to work on similar tasks in the industry