Providing Meaningful Hands-on Design Experience in the Remote-learning Environment with a Miniature Mechanical Testing Kit

Laboratory work teaches students how technical knowledge is applied in practice and has long been recognized as a crucial component of a complete undergraduate engineering experience. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many engineering programs have been unable to provide these traditional hands-on activities in the remote learning environment. To address this challenge within our program at the University of Toronto, a low-cost, open-source miniature mechanical testing kit (MMTK) was designed and deployed in a third-year engineering design course. Students in their junior year in this course were delivered the kits and were responsible for assembly, sample testing, as well as designing and performing experiments using the MMTK. Students were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the activities. Results showed the MMTK was a useful tool that provided students with a unique hands-on experience during the pandemic. Activities with the MMTK have generally increased students' confidence with hands-on work and conducting experiments. Future work will include further development of the MMTK for use more broadly within engineering research and education.