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The UOC patents remote electronics lab

It lets people do real practical work from anywhere in the world

Lab@Home is a tool to remotely teach basic analogue electronics skills. This UOC invention is made up of an electronics board that connects to a computer and the software to make it work.

Lab@Home lets students get practical experience with the design and assembly of electronic circuits and learn how to use signal devices commonly found in electronics labs. For example, this means they can take measurements using instruments such as multimeters or oscilloscopes.

Germán Cobo, professor and researcher in the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications, is one of the people behind the invention. He explained that "Lab@Home lets students get practical experience with electronics from anywhere in the world, practically and easily". Carlos Monzo, a professor in the same faculty and another of the people responsible for Lab@Home, said that "it's a tool that we’ve already rolled out in two Telecommunication Engineering courses and the general response has been really positive as it lets us combine theory and practice and improve our students' learning process in an entirely online setting". "The invention, even though it's small and cheap to produce, lets people work with a wide variety of electronic components and measurements," said Cobo.

Alongside Cobo and Monzo, the invention has been developed by David García Solórzano, Jose Antonio Morán Moreno and Eugènia Santamaria Pérez, professors in the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications. Cobo and García are members of the Learning Analytics for Innovation and Knowledge Application in Higher Education (LAIKA) research group. Lab@Home has been awarded a patent by the Spanish Patent Office (Dispositivo para el montaje y la medición de al menos un circuito electrónico y procedimiento, programa informático, sistema y sistema informático para controlar el dispositivo). This patent gives the UOC exclusive rights over the invention for a period of twenty years and prevents third parties from producing, using or marketing products with the same characteristics.