Design of open source platform for automatic control systems education based on cooperative learning

摘要

This paper exposes the design of a platform for the learning of control systems based upon collaborative efforts of the students in this area. The context of this platform arises according to some general educative and technical elements. The first element is to help to the technical processes that the students follow in the design of digital controllers in the automatic control area, e.g., modeling, simulation, evaluation and debug. The second element is focused on the development of a novel open source platform for automatic control, whose aim is to help to improve the educational process of the students in this area. The educational concept of the platform is based on cooperative learning methodology, in which the students collaborate with the platform design according to their needs and expectations. This methodology allowed to know initially the points of view of the students with the aim to establish the perspectives, motivations, skills and weaknesses of them in the automatic control area as well as in the different technical subareas needed in the design of the platform such as programming or signal conditioning. In agreement with the cooperative learning methodology, the construction of the platform was divided in small tasks with objectives clearly defined associated to the learning of the different educational contents in the components of hardware and software needed in the design of it. Our students interacted with each other, sharing common issues and difficulties associated with the technical behavior of the platform. This process increased the group motivation so as to find common aims both technical and human as likewise it encouraged the creativity in search of technical solutions in the design of the platform. The previous steps guarantee the principal concept of the cooperative learning methodology defined as positive interdependence, which is associated to how the student learns the different theoretical and practical educational contents and how this helps to the other group-mates to learn these contents through of the interaction with them.