An enhanced methodology to improve a basic electrical and instrumentation laboratory session

First year students have shown difficulties understanding basic electrical, instrumentation and electronic concepts. In this context, traditional laboratory work is considered as old-fashioned and not very useful for them. In addition, an important part of the time in the lab is spent giving explanations about the basic functioning of measurement instruments and not actually working on the lab experiments. Also, in laboratories with many students the waiting time for the help of the professor is often long and most of the questions are repeated group by group and year by year. To overcome all these issues, we present an improvement of a traditional instrumentation lab practice with an interactive and visual platform that allows students to associate electrical concepts with real day life elements. Self-explaining videos of all the instrumentation elements aid students to be better prepared for practical work before class and to get an immediate on demand help while they are in the lab. This way, the time they are waiting for help is reduced, making the most of the lab practices.