The Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering had organized a Virtual Skill Development Program (SDP) on “Design & prototype of power electronic converters and controllers using Multisim software”. SDP was aimed at providing hands-on skills to the 2^nd year students in the area of design, simulation and prototype of Electrical and Electronic circuits specially focusing on analog & digital circuits, power converters and controllers using multisim software. The SDP Program was held on Microsoft teams platform from 29^th  July 2020 to 18^th August 2020 (50 Hrs).The sessions focussed on introducing the prominent features of Multisim software such as Introduction to virtual components and libraries, basics of circuit building, Simulation types, settings, analysis of circuits, Steps involved in building PCB layout and so on. All these features were demonstrated by considering examples circuits. The students downloaded evaluation version of Multisim software, performed simulation and analysis of circuits during the session. The discussions held during the sessions helped the students to understand the design in a better way. Some of the circuits simulated during the sessions were Series-parallel RLC circuits, Rectifiers, RC coupled amplifier, Colpitts oscillator, operational amplifier circuits, Full adder, Digital Counters, BCD to segmental converters, Voltage regulators, Buck-Boost converters, PI controllers using op-amps, H-bridge motor Driver circuits and so on. Few application based circuits such as flashing of LEDs, square wave generator, Motor speed control, H-Bridge driver circuit for DC motor, stop watch circuit, automatic headlight control using LDR, Battery level indicator circuits were also simulated and outputs were shown during sessions.

Students were also given an opportunity to take-up mini-projects and demonstrate the results. The titles of few mini-projects completed by students are

• Number Guessing Game by Adithya Ramesh Srinivasa
• Phase Controlled Rectifier using SCR by Pavithra S
• 555 times based Over- Current Detector by Ruchitha S U
• Door Alarm using Hall Effect Sensor by Aishwarya G P
• Infrared buzzer alarm circuit by Varsha Gowda
• Simulation of Traffic light control by S Sai Sharaj.

The SDP program was successful in training the students to acquire the knowledge on circuit simulation tools and have better understanding in the area of Design, simulation and PCB prototyping Concepts of Electrical and Electronics circuits. The response of the program was very encouraging.