For many of us work has gone digital, meetings virtual, and Zoom is the way du jour. Yet, with schools and universities transitioning to distance learning, some classes are tricky to convert.



Hands-on experiences are essential for fostering critical observation skills in budding scientists, for example, which means science departments are particularly hard pressed to figure out how to offer lab courses during the pandemic.



UC Santa Barbara’s physics department has devised an ingenious solution for one of its intermediate lab courses: remote control. The department has configured experimental setups to be operated entirely through an online portal. Students can run the exact same experiments they would in person, but from their own homes.