In the last few years, spreadsheets have become a popular computational tool and a powerful platform for performing engineering calculations. The simplicity of spreadsheet programming in addition to their plotting capabilities, and other provided utilities, make them a powerful didactic tool. This paper describes the development of interactive tools based on Excel spreadsheets for basic control education. The motivation for developing these tools was to give students special learning modules focused on transmitting the essence of dynamics of systems to achieve an accurate mental model as well as helping them understand how feedback works. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 18: 166–174, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20221

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