A laboratory course on information display technologies for remote learning

Conducting remote laboratory‐based courses in electronics is a major challenge primarily because of the hardware requirements. This paper describes a laboratory course on information display technologies specially designed and implemented for remote learning. The course was successfully offered during the COVID‐19 lockdown and has an online instruction component to introduce the concepts, as well as a laboratory part involving hands‐on work. The course covers experiments on fundamental concepts related to perception and color, liquid crystal displays (LCD), light‐emitting diodes (LEDs), and a final project where a mechanical display is designed and built. Course assessment based on an anonymous survey shows the hands‐on work enhanced the student learning and improved course understanding from an average of 2.5/5 measured at the start of the course to 4/5 at the end. A remote course on information displays was created at Columbia University. This work documents the design and implementation of this course with students from across the world. Student surveys and instructions are available to those looking to recreate this course.