The OpenEngineering Laboratory

The OpenEngineering Laboratory (OEL) offers practical laboratory-based teaching at a distance covering, electronics, signal-processing, control, materials and mechanical engineering. The OEL allows our engineering students to remotely connect to instrumentation, data, and equipment to undertake experiments and investigations. There are more than 30 activities serving over 6,000 students per year. Students can access the OEL from wherever they have an internet connection and at a time of their choosing.

Key features include:

Equipment accessed in real-time
Ultra-low latency connection for instantaneous experience
Video, sound and data streaming from test-grade engineering rigs
Capacity for over 300 experiment kits available simultaneously
Available to students 22 hours per day

Example activities:

Pendulum

Investigate the dynamic behaviour of a driven pendulum to observe the relationship between its frequency, amplitude and phase.

A photo of 61 metres of a red very thin copper wire with a diameter of 140 microns that is randomly tucked inside a conical glass flask to ensure that it is uniformly heated.

Resistivity

Monitor the electrical resistance of a copper wire through heating and cooling cycles to investigate the effect of joule heating on the efficiency of power transmission.

A picture of the transparent section of a wind tunnel that contains two toy cars, one green and one red. The transparent section has a round hatch that can be opened to insert and remove items from the wind tunnel.

Wind tunnels

Students explore aspects of fluid flow by remotely operating a wind tunnel.

the OpenEngineering Lab is a fantastic way to add the additional dimension of 'hand-on' to the module. With distance learning it is notoriously difficult to supply students with hardware kits – the OEL is a great solution. I have found the experiments illuminating and interesting – they have added to my understanding of the excellent course material. It also offers a safe environment. It has allowed me to continue with the module even though I am on holiday in Barbados – truly offering a global reach. Great stuff!”

Electronics Student

It is refreshing and exciting to be able to undertake a laboratory based experiment. It has really helped to put what I have been reading about into a practical exercise.

Mechanical engineering student

For more details about Open University courses in Engineering see here.