(Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, 2005-10-24) Jonathan, Enock.
An optics laboratory plays a critical role in optics education. A major challenge for optics
educators in Africa is the shortage or non-availability of laboratory teaching equipment.
Optics teaching equipment is beyond the budget of most universities in the developing
world such as the new National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe.
The paper details a successful strategy - local fabrication/assembling of optics laboratory
teaching aids - adopted by the Applied Physics Department at Zimbabwe's National
University of Science and Technology. Students and technical staff under the guidance
of an academic member of staff do equipment fabrication and assembling.
The paper describes some of the project-type set-ups for performing experiments on (1)
laser light scattering and impurity determination; (2) industrial imaging inspection (3) light
transmission and reflection and (4) refractive index measurement