Design And Prototying Suite Serves As Learning Vehicle

Consisting of virtual instruments, a multifunction data acquisition device, and a custom-designed benchtop workstation with a prototyping board, the NI Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrument Suite (NI ELVIS) has been assembled to help budding engineers and scientists learn and put into practice engineering theory in areas such as electric circuits, signal processing, communications, control systems, and mechanical measurement. The LabVIEW-based design and prototyping environment provides a ready-to-use suite of common lab instruments, including an oscilloscope, function generator, digital multimeter, and programmable power supplies, along with a bode analyzer, dynamic signal analyzer, and arbitrary waveform generator. NI ELVIS, with its removable prototyping board, is said to be especially useful in helping engineering students build custom circuits and interfaces. The system costs $1,860. For more details, contact Ernest Martinez at NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, Austin, TX. (800) 258-7022.