Unistep's Vision
The roots of Unistep extend way into early 90s when our founders were getting their feet wet teaching in community colleges. Like all the instructors before and after us, we quickly realized that
the mandate of the community colleges created some formidable challenges
in delivering effective education in electronics and other related
fields :
- You had to provide hands-on experience on actual working circuits;
you couldn't get away with teaching the theory alone (which, in our
view, is far easier).
- Commercial/industrial equipment was difficult to get hold of in
adequate quantities, if any at all, because they carry hefty
price tags, and funds are always scarce.
- Even if you could get your hands on these pieces of equipment, essential as they are for the student's experience, they, still, most of the time lacked educational qualities; internal circuits are hidden away and usually too complex to be of educational value.
- Some interesting and useful circuits could be built on prototyping
boards, but assembling and getting them to work took so much effort and
time that satisfactory results were few and far in-between.
This was our starting point. We wanted to design and manufacture circuits that would be the
teaching aids that we wished we had when we were teaching! In fact, that
is the comment we hear most often from instructors during our demo sessions: "These
products are like what we'd design for our courses if we had the time
and the means!". Well, that is exactly what they are!
- Simple circuits with sophisticated functions illustrating fundamental concepts
- Robust construction that can stand up to that familiar abuse in the lab
- Low cost
- Good support documentation
- Maintainability by the lab technicians (like IC's on DIP sockets)
- Flexible power supply requirements
- Entire circuit is visible, observable, and measurable
One unique concept we have pioneered is what we call the "Challenge
Module". This is a version of the circuit where some critical passive
components are mounted on single-pin sockets, instead of being soldered
to the board. These machined contacts are excellent from an electrical
point of view, and they allow the circuit to be modified very easily.
So,
now, in addition to being able to include the circuit module in the lab
curriculum as it is, the instructor can get the students re-design
critical sections of the circuits and measure the performance of the new
design in the lab -- without touching the soldering iron or sacrificing
the robustness of a circuit built on a PCB.
We think (and hope) this will have a
big impact on getting the students involved and engaged.
Happy teaching!
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