- Modelling
- PID Basics
- PID Design
- PID LoopShaping
- PID Windup
- Dead-time compensators
- Interaction
- Feedforward design
Interactivity
The term interactivity is becoming common in teaching and specially in engineering studies. Interactivity is associated with a set of graphical representations, elements, and parameters interconnecting each others, in such way that if some element is modified, the rest are updated immediately and only spending a short interval of time. Interactivity provides new possibilities in researching and teaching, making it possible to study problems at different complexity levels and using a new interactive philosophy relatively difficult some years ago.
Traditionally, all the information was presented as static text and formulas. In this way, the students' motivation was difficult to enhance, being necessary turning to exercises or general questions in order to keep the students' attention. Based on a traditional saying which expresses an image is worth a thousand words, the information presentation has been improved along the years, first with the use of slides, and after that using digital slides. These new elements are a great support to traditional education, being possible to improve by means of visualization; that is, the way of acting with explicit attention to potential specific representations in order to explain abstract concepts. This capability is currently well developed in the Computer Science field, where high quality 3D objects can be represented in a computer reaching a very good reality approximation. However, when one looks at some elements or graphics, it is usual to think: what can i do with it?, or how could this element be changed? That is, people look for some interaction with the graphic elements. A cause-effect relation is required where visual information is not enough, but also the available actions to be done are required. This feature of providing interaction to the elements is known as Interactivity. In this way, the previous traditional saying could be changed by Interactivity is worth a thousand images. Interactive tools are considered a great stimulus for developing the students intuition. They attempt to demystify abstract mathematical concepts through visualization for specifically chosen examples.
The power of the interactive tools sometimes induces the user to play around with different dynamic objets while forgetting the real meaning of such graphical elements. Thus, users must understand that interactive tools are abstractions of theoretical concepts, and the full learning must be completed as a mixture of both. For this reason, interactive tools are recommended as support to consolidated theoretical books or lessons looking for this combination between theory and practice.