With support from the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) Arijit Banerjee has been leading an effort to design and create affordable, hands-on experimentation kits for college-level power electronics courses. The beta-version kits are already a hit with his U. of I. students, but Banerjee and his collaborators have ambitious plans that go far beyond the campus level: the kits are intended to be replicated and shared with resource-constrained educational institutions around the globe.

“These kits are designed to enhance students’ understanding by allowing them to directly apply theoretical concepts in a lab setting,” Banerjee said. “By engaging in guided experiments, students gain practical skills and experience that help bridge the gap between theory and application.” 

The Illinois design was cheaper because the kits had been developed to be affordable, single-use consumables. Students work with them throughout the ECE 469 course, “Power Electronics Laboratory”: they start with a fresh board and build on it through various projects, and get to keep the completed piece at the end of the semester.  The low price, without any compromise in the learning quality, was a key factor for the IEEE PELS; their goal is to provide high-quality experimentation tools to students at under-resourced universities that may not have state-of-the-art facilities, or may have no lab facilities at all.

Banerjee also singled out Dr. Ulaş C. Coşkun, research engineer for his significant contributions to the effort. 

Excerpted from article by Eleanor Wyllie