Application and Assessment of Probability and Statistics Concepts with a Permanent Magnet DC Machine Experiment

Probability and statistics concepts are an integral part of engineering education. Most engineering curricula have courses on probability and statistics. This topical coverage is valuable to practicing engineers and offered, in part, to satisfy requirements set forth by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Specifically, for electrical engineering programs, ABET requires that both probability and statistics concepts, including applications within the discipline, be covered in the curriculum. This requirement is often met with a single course in probability and statistics without hands on engineering or laboratory experiences. This paper provides an overview of probability and statistics topical coverage within the electrical engineering curriculum at the United States Military Academy and, in particular, provides details of an experimental application of these concepts with permanent magnet DC (PMDC) machine. This experiment provides students the experience of using probability and statistics concepts to a real world application with real data acquired during the experiment. Additionally, details on how the PMDC machine experiment and reporting are used for student outcome assessment is included. While this work presents this process for a specific experiment, it is generalizable to variety of experiments.