Weblabs at MIT A Retrospective Perspective Clark K. Colton Department of Chemical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA USA How did it get started? How was it funded? How did it work out? What are the challenges for the future?

A Brief History of MIT Weblabs Rest of World Jesus del AlamoClark K. Colton MIT Jame Trevelyan University of Western Australia Jim Henry University of Tennessee Others. Microelectronics WeblabAnimation Weblab Microsoft iCampus Grant to MIT (35 projects/5 yr) iLabs Project: Jesus del Alamo PI Objective: Demonstrate feasibility of diverse weblabs Transistor electronic characteristics 15 sec Flow meter calibration by bucket and stopwatch Process control on the internet with Labview Telerobots on the internet

A Brief History of MIT Weblabs Rest of World Jesus del AlamoClark K. Colton MIT Jame Trevelyan University of Western Australia Jim Henry University of Tennessee Others. Microelectronics WeblabAnimation Weblab Microsoft iCampus Grant to MIT (35 projects/5 yr) iLabs Project: Jesus del Alamo PI Objective: Demonstrate feasibility of diverse weblabs Microelectronics iLabiLab Heat Transfer Project Transistor electronic characteristics 15 sec Flow meter calibration by bucket and stopwatch Process control on the internet with Labview Telerobots on the internet Three labs in three subjectsThree heat exchangers Conduction, convection, radiation Exchanger performance Process control Five experiments

A Brief History of MIT Weblabs Jesus del AlamoClark K. Colton 2002 MIT >200 reports Rest of World iLabs Project: Steve Lerman Co-PI Center for Educational Computing Initiatives

A Brief History of MIT Weblabs Jesus del AlamoClark K. Colton 2002 MIT >200 reports iLabs Project: Steve Lerman Co-PI Center for Educational Computing Initiatives iLabs - Africa Steve Lerman and Jesus del Alamo, Co-PI Grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York Rest of World

A Brief History of MIT Weblabs Jesus del AlamoClark K. Colton 2002 MIT >200 reports 2005 iLabs - Africa Steve Lerman and Jesus del Alamo, Co-PI Grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York 2008 Funding winding down: One Programmer iLab Archecture Software Rest of World Batch: In use in Africa Interactive: To be tested at MIT (heat exchanger) and Univ. W. Australia (fluid mechanics) iLabs Project: Steve Lerman Co-PI Center for Educational Computing Initiatives

Jesus del Alamo (EECS) PI Steve Lerman (CECI) Co-PI Microsoft iCampus Grant iLabs Project iLabs Software Architecture Development iLabs Hardware and Implementation in Classes Carnegie Corporation iLabs in Sub-Sahara Africa

Internet Animation iLabs Project (Microsoft iCampus) Salary MIT Chemical Engineering Dept. Hardware Cambridge-MIT Institute Carnegie Corporation

MIT Weblabs at Other Schools MicroelectronicsHeat Exchanger Heat exchanger performance Process Control * Sub-Sahara Africa Brown University University of Texas Cambridge-MIT Institute (Nigeria) Obafemi Awolowo University Cambridge-MIT Institute* University of Toledo (Ohio) Ongoing

Issues and Challenges Hardware and Software Quality of components Robustness Initial cost Maintenance – Hardware Maintenance – Software Internet Distribution Development of Interactive Community Batch vs. interactive Simple free standing Complex shared Utility of specific experiments Narrow or broad applicability Infrastructure costs Economy of scale Summary of Student Assessments (Heat Transfer for Weblabs) The weblab was educational. The weblab was fun. I prefer the weblab/hands on experiment. High agreement Moderate agreement 50/50 split Student-grade vs. industrial-grade architecture