If All I Had Were A Hammer: On The Use Of Labview In Teaching Differential Equations

Abstract

The standard computer tool that is used in teaching differential equations is Derive ™, Maple™, Mathematica® or even MATLAB®. However, when I was asked to teach Differential Equations (Diff. Eq.), my immediate choice for demonstrations did not employ one of these standard packages, but LabVIEW, which I use in my Digital Signal Processing and Communications Systems courses1-3. The first part of this paper will provide an explanation as to why I chose this particular package for my demonstrations in Diff. Eq. with specific reference to the aesthetic aspect of the choice4. The second part of the paper will describe the toolkit I developed in LabVIEW for the Diff. Eq. class. Examples of in-class demonstrations will be provided including a demonstration of "statistical exponential decay" with discussion on the most appropriate statistical analysis of the data generated through this demonstration.