Preliminary Development of MyAras: Level 1 Mobile Virtual Lab

Abstract

Process control is an essential aspect in chemical engineering, which has been emphasized in Dynamic and Control Process course (KKKR 3684) the-oretically and through a conventional laboratory experimental, A2 (Tuning and Control) for hands-on learning. The tank level is chosen as the con-trolled variable to introduce control scheme to students. This conventional lab uses an old version facility and requires constant maintenance resulting lab schedule being postponed several times. Besides that, every experiment must be carried out in a group of four to five students thus the access and learning time per student is limited. As an alternative to this conventional laboratory, a mobile-based virtual lab has been designed to cater the limita-tions using a mobile application. The proposed virtual lab is known as MyAras and is developed using Android Studio software of version 2.3.3, which also a strategy to facing the 4.0 Industrial revolution. MyAras is a mobile virtual application and time independent, cost-effective, easy access and provides unlimited self-learning period for all students. Level 1 means the mobile virtual lab is still in the development stage and has not been fully launched to students. A questionnaire has been given to students and lectur-ers regarding their awareness and the importance of mobile virtual lab prior to its development. Preliminary study has found that 81% of students have shown their interest in running the virtual lab and 38.1% of students had never used such application as their practical learning tool.