Preparatory Course "Practical Electronics" Focused on Measurement and Instrumentation

The one-week intensive preparatory course "Practical Electronics" focused on measurement and instrumentation, which is designed especially for school-leavers of secondary schools (high schools in the USA), is described in the article. In many cases students, who are coming at the CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, have only a vague idea of electronics despite they use electronic devices every day. The course is organized before the 1st semester and only basic secondary education in physics is supposed. It is divided between a theoretical part and a laboratory work. Each day starts with two hours lecture, where the actual laboratory work is explained. The following activities run in laboratories. A set of necessary components, solderless breadboard, connecting wires, and a low-cost multimeter are prepared for each student. While the 1st day is devoted to the connection of the simplest electric circuits and voltage measurements using a low-cost multimeter, the 2nd day starts with connecting of the virtual measuring instrument (VI) based on a microcontroller, which includes a simple DC voltmeter, a digitizing oscilloscope, and a pulse generator. It is used in tasks solved in the following part of the course.