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Online Video Research Center Addresses Engineering Knowledge Gap
Delivering learning resources on demand supports education outreach to global engineering community
Alan Earls, Contributing Editor -- Design News, October 30, 2008
LabCam, an online 24/7 video learning tool provided by Nu Horizons Electronics, offers electronics engineers concise and practical information about a host of topics available from the distributor's technology rich manufacturers. Prominently located on the company's home page at www.nuhorizons.com, the up to ten-minute long video tutorials explain and demonstrate integral aspects of complex engineering processes and procedures in straightforward, easy-to-understand teaching methods by experienced and knowledgable practitioners.
The web site feature is designed to address the practical realities that today's engineers face. While the pressures of time to market, innovation at lower cost, and global competition remain ever present, engineering personnel have precious few real world training and ongoing educational opportunities. With trade show technical sessions and workshops, professional organizations memberships and networking, and company travel budgets dwindling, on the job training and mentoring by experienced engineers has reached stop gap levels. Yet, technology advancement that demands creative application of fundamental engineering skills, challenges the limits of traditional learning resources.
Inspired by an ongoing quest for engaging educational experiences, engineers and designers are turning to the web for information exchange. LabCam's approach attempts to fill in knowledge gaps by offering practical, virtual hands on video demonstrations that include insights on products, evaluation kit overviews, end-user applications, and much more (see SIDEBAR listing below). As the video library grows, future web visitors may quickly download how-to setups for new products, review technical tips, and take step-by-step process tours - all saving training time on new equipment and process introductions at OEM and EMS manufacturing facilities.
"Today's engineers have more and more demands on their time," says Rita Megling, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Nu Horizons. "Advanced learning opportunities need to be delivered in a way that recognizes these time constraints. With Nu Horizons' LabCam program, we bring information to engineers faster, in an engaging format."
The LabCam program expands the role of this electronics distributor and emphasizes synergies between its suppliers and customer's engineers within the larger industry. As engineering workers become increasingly mobile, the need to support performance at the point of need is accelerating interest in web-enabled learning and technical-support tools, interactive checklists, podcasts, and video on demand products. By making practical information freely available, LabCam attempts to deliver engineering information that meets the speed of technical innovation.
New content suggestions to LabCam
The video tutorial library at Nu Horizons continues to grow. For updates, monitor the company website at www.nuhorizons.com/labcam. At press time, the LED lighting applications list is available for download. A secondary list catalogs upcoming video tutorials.
LED lighting applications
• LEDs in action - home applications - OSRAM Opto Semiconductor
• LED Light Engine product overview - OptoElectronix
• OSTAR LED Module Engineering Evaluation Kit - OSRAM Opto Semiconductor
• LEDs in action - infrared, the future of invisible light - OSRAM Opto Semiconductor
Upcoming LabCam tutorial topics
• Introduction to a new generation of point-of-load DC/DC regulators - Linear Technology
• How to benefit from the use of high-performance microcontrollers with on-chip direct-drive capability to create products that show animation on TFT-LCD panels - Renesas Technology
• The Latest in Capacitive Touch Technology - Atmel
• The next generation in Atmel's AVR product family - XMEGA - Atmel
• Integrated, low-power 8bit MCUs optimized for LCDs, up to 1536 segments (64x24) with 12- and 24-bit on-chip ADCs - Oki Semiconductor
