A 'Teaching Instrument' - Experimental Element of Education during Lockdown.

How to ensure that experimental work can continue in such lock down conditions too?

Here is a paper written by Prof. K V Sane, with whom I had an opportunity to work with, during 1989-1992. The solution is, what he calls a 'Teaching Instrument'.

You may have already realized how the specifications of several instruments in electronics labs are way above their actually utilization. A 1GSPS/100 MHz DSO commonly found in electronics labs, hardly ever gets used beyond 1 MHz.

Today, the cheapest 3-1/2 digit DMM sells for less than Rs. 100. It is not impossible to imagine a 10MHz BW DSO front end connected to your laptop (for the display) for Rs. 250. Thus, it is quite possible to imagine a 'Lab in a Box' with a set of components etc, all for less than Rs. 1000 that may be quite sufficient for conducting experiments at home during lockdown conditions.

Getting a student to build such a 'teaching instruments' will generate an additional benefit of student involvement, skills in soldering, system design etc, which are currently sorely lacking.

 

Parenting an Industry in Engineering Institutes

This is an old idea I thought strongly about in the past, which is making a comeback, at least in my mind. Perhaps, it is the right time to consider it seriously, however crazy it might appear:

"If a medical college must have a hospital to function, why should it not be mandatory for an engineering college to have an industry on campus? For how long would we keep fooling the country that we are engaged in 'blue sky' research? That 'blue sky' research has no term period. Choose an industry of your choice, whatever is needed and beneficial in your region, choose the scale that you can handle. But for your own sake, choose something."

This idea will also address the concern of many academics who often defend the Indian engineering educational institutes and feel they are the victims. However flawed their defense of the Indian engineering educational institutes maybe, this proposal addresses that also.

Also, if you notice, this idea is making a backdoor entry in many engineering institutes in India already - how would you describe the so called 'Incubation Centres' if not a backdoor entry of industry into educational institutes?

However, as currently implemented, the incubation centres are flawed. The engineering colleges which are hosting such incubation centres, do not have their own skin in the game, they are merely working as landlords. They take government's grant money and use their extra space to rent to start ups. That has to stop. The engineering institutes must take larger ownership of these start ups and groom them as their own. And not just to sell off to an established company but to actually manufacture something.