Using Miniature Setups and Partial Streams for Scalable Remote Labs

Remote labs allow students from anywhere in the world to access and conduct experiments without the need to physically be present in a lab at anytime. This is extremely important for students with little to no access to proper science labs because of a lack of infrastructure or a pandemic. There is a potential for scaling up the process so that queue delay can be removed and people are able to access dedicated experiment setups. This paper proposes a way for cost-effective scaling of Remote Labs by miniaturization of setups, image processing techniques, and partial streaming (using single camera to stream multiple experiments). For this, a use-case of the Vanishing Glass Rods experiment is considered. An end-to-end remote lab is created, including hardware setups and a dashboard to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach in comparison to the existing approach of using lab-scale setups and one camera per experiment.