Enhancing PowerPoint presentation of digital logic circuit

• Main Author: Chu, Alvin Kok Weng
• Other Authors: Jong Ching Chuen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Computer hardware, software and systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63845
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As technology advances, Microsoft PowerPoint has become an essential tool in teaching and learning. Research has shown that visual learning is superior to auditory learning. One tends to remember animated scenes easier compared to listening or reading just plain text on screen. This finding, together with technology advances shifted textbook based teaching into PowerPoint. Microsoft PowerPoint consists of many features. Animation is one of the key functions which help to enhance the presentation. However, its animation is limited and could not be used for certain specific requirements. One such example is the animation of digital logic circuits. It is tedious, cumbersome and error-prone to create animations for the presentation of digital logic circuits. As such, the teaching and presentation of digital circuits cannot be enhanced with the animations provided by PowerPoint, hindering the students’ understanding of the concepts of digital logics. To provide the convenience for creating animation of digital circuits, a software program based on the Visual Basics Applications (VBA) platform is developed to make the creation of customized animation for digital circuits easier and more straightforward. The program allows the user to specify the logic function of a logic circuit. It provides inputs and outputs for the logic in the form of push buttons. The input buttons can be toggled between the logic values of 0 and 1. The program computes the output of the logic function and displays the output values on the output button, animating the push buttons and output LED displays of a real circuit. Therefore, it enhances the presentation of logic circuits and allows the viewers to understand the concepts of logic circuit more easily. The program also provides functions to display both intermediate and final outputs of a circuit. All the values of these outputs will change accordingly whenever any input value is changed. As such, the animation of logic circuits can be easily created to make the learning of logic circuits fun and more effectively. This report documents the development of the software program for enhancing the animation of digital logic circuits. It details the design, the features, the coding and the testing of the software program.