Boole-WebLab-FPGA: Creating an Integrated Digital Electronics Learning Workflow Through a Hybrid Laboratory and an Educational Electronics Design Tool

During the last years the presence of remote laboratories has been growing. However, many labs focus on providing a very specific experience, intended to prove a specific point or to carry out a specific practice, rather than to help the student acquire a wider range of skills through several different uses of the lab. This paper describes the creation of Boole-WebLab-FPGA, a system which integrates Boole-Deusto –an educational electronics design tool– and WebLab-Deusto-FPGA. The latter is a hybrid remote laboratory which lets users program a real FPGA board remotely. This real, physical board has been given the capability to interact with not only real hardware (LEDs), but also with virtual simulations of more complicated models, such as a watertank. The integration of these tools in a single system provides an attractive workflow for teachers and students. Students can design a combinational circuit easily through Boole-Deusto and immediately (in the same lecture session, if they so wish) try it on real hardware. Because additionally that real hardware can also be interacting with a virtual simulation, a wide range of experiments can be proposed and the replay potential of the laboratory is increased.