The Role of an Experimental Laboratory in Engineering Education

The Laboratory of Instrumentation for Measurement started its activities in September of 2000 and initially was intended to support the Instrumentation for Measurement course of the Mechanical Engineering Degree of Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. Since that time its multidisciplinary team has promoted and enlarged the scope of responsibility and interests. During these 18 years, the lab has been involved in experimental engineering education, mainly in the field of mechanical engineering but also in other engineering disciplines and fields such as medicine, nutrition, rehabilitation, sports, and multimedia, for example. This intense involvement attracted and helped to support students for master’s theses and final projects, Ph.D. students, and younger learners within non-formal learning programs, all focused on experimental tasks, project-based learning, and mentoring and coaching approaches. The lab has also been involved in informal learning initiatives and has supported regular R&D activities of a research group (funded by the National Science Foundation), while maintaining high quality standards for its students. This work describes the work of the lab and examines results, not in an analytical perspective, but based on real education-related outputs.