Capstone projects in virtual instrumentation

In the paper, the authors describe the philosophy behind the allocation of capstone projects and the outcomes achieved in a virtual instrumentation course at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, giving examples of projects that have actually been executed. The projects are selected interactively by consultation between the student and the course coordinator, the latter acting as the senior advisor in adopting a project that is suitable to the level of understanding and capability of the student. The emphasis is on engineering problem solving with lateral thinking. Both software simulation and real-time application projects are encouraged. The authors present two examples of recent projects. Although the examples given are software oriented, real-time projects are also commonly pursued.