Measurement of thermocouple time constants using LabVIEW as part of an engineering recruiting weekend for high school seniors

Sixty-three highly qualified high school seniors with and interest in engineering were invited to the Mercer Campus to compete for scholarships. To help them gain an appreciation for engineering, the students were given a pre-laboratory exercise to complete at home and an on campus laboratory experience. Temperature measuring systems using thermocouples and LabVIEW software were used to introduce them to first-order system responses. They were all able to determine the time constants of two systems from the temperature versus time recording as captured with LabVIEW. Results from an exiting student exam showed that they left with an increase awareness of what engineering is and what engineers do. They also seemed to enjoy the experience.