Teaching Analytical Instrument Design with LabVIEW

Chemists may be required to setup, troubleshoot, repair and sometimes construct the instruments they use for analytical measurements. Many students are intimidated when first "looking under the hood" of a modern instrument. This curriculum was devised to provide hands-on experience with the theory and design of modern instruments. A background in electronics is considered fundamental to this goal. This course extensively utilizes LabVIEW to economically provide basic electronic instrumentation and to serve in data acquisition and manipulation for a student design project. LabVIEW provides many built-in functions including a graphical user interface (GUI) and has universal acceptance in research and manufacturing settings. Programming is accomplished by placing and connecting icons that represent various functions. Virtual instruments produced by combining data acquisition boards with the language are functional equivalent to their real counterparts. The course culminates in construction of a computer-cont...