Mechanical, electrical, and mechatronics departments know the problem: 12 to 16 rigs, 100 or more students, timetabling that is a patchwork of shifts and rotations. The result is uneven contact hours across a cohort sitting the same exam and the same job market. A browser-based simulator removes the constraint entirely.
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The problem
An industrial training rig runs into five figures USD once you add a programming terminal, guarding, and power distribution. Procurement, approval, and delivery commonly takes 12 to 24 months at most institutions. The students who motivated the purchase may have graduated before a single rung is written on the new equipment.
Studio 5000, TIA Portal, and GX Works are priced for industrial customers. Per-seat industrial pricing applied to a 100-student module is not viable. Version management across a heterogeneous lab adds further overhead that falls on academic staff rather than IT.
Distance learners, students on work-integrated learning placements, and postgraduate researchers cannot access physical lab equipment on demand. A web-based platform removes this barrier without requiring VPN access or remote desktop infrastructure.
When research projects and undergraduate teaching compete for the same physical rigs, one loses. Separating teaching onto a browser-based platform frees physical rigs for research use without scheduling conflicts.
The solution
Every student in a 100-person module can log in simultaneously. There is no queue, no shift allocation, and no seat limit on concurrent sessions. Contact hours become a scheduling choice, not a resource constraint.
IEC 61131-3 for standards literacy, Allen-Bradley for mining and manufacturing exposure, Siemens for process industry contexts — all in one platform. Mechatronics graduates who can navigate multiple vendor environments are more employable; the curriculum can reflect that without additional licences.
Fault diagnosis by logical elimination — not visual inspection — is a skill that is almost impossible to teach reliably on shared physical hardware where physical state is visible. The fault-injection module hides the fault source and requires students to diagnose through logic analysis alone.
Six structured interview preparation tracks give final-year students practice under timed conditions before they enter the job market. Graduate outcome reporting gains a differentiator beyond pass rates.
The /team admin console gives demonstrators and academic staff a view of who has completed what, before due dates rather than after. Learning paths can be structured to gate advanced scenarios behind foundational completions.
Postgraduate students investigating fault-tolerant sequencing, redundant logic, or multi-axis coordination can use sandbox mode without occupying a physical rig. Sandbox sessions are unconstrained in length and complexity.
Early adopters
Case study coming Q3 2026. A South African engineering faculty using the platform for a 90-student third-year Control Systems module.
Case study coming Q3 2026. A mechatronics postgraduate programme using the platform to supplement physical hardware access for dissertation research students.
Pricing
| Cohort size | Annual cost (USD) | vs individual Pro ($249/seat) |
|---|---|---|
| 30 seats | $5,970 / yr | Save $1,500 vs individual |
| 60 seats | $11,940 / yr | Save $3,000 vs individual |
| 120 seats | $23,880 / yr | Save $6,000 vs individual |
Teams seats at $199/yr vs $249/yr individual Pro — approximately 20% discount. See full pricing →
What's included
Create a free team account and invite your module cohort. No procurement cycle. No installation. Every student on day one.