This system provides an extraordinarily flexible environment in which students can construct and test different circuits. The modularity of the VISIR hardware permits for some flexibility level concerning the resources (circuit components and lab equipment’s) students have at their disposal to construct and test circuits. Beyond this, the VISIR platform is remarkable in the interactivity it presents to students.

Electronic circuits can be built and tested by students with a degree of freedom normally associated with a traditional, hands-on electronics laboratory, without taking care of burning components and hurting them self.

The VISIR platform offers an online workbench where users can perform electronics experiments. Students can wire a desired circuit and use different laboratory equipment to test that circuit. The experiments performed with VISIR are highly interactive and allow a real time control of the equipment. One of the most interesting aspects of the platform is that it features an expandable relay switching matrix where lab instructors can attach several components as well as whole circuits depending on the experiments to be performed. With the help of a virtual breadboard implemented as a VISIR client module the students can assemble several different circuits with different component sets available and pre-configured by the laboratory administrator/instructor. The tasks of the lab instructors are to add components to the library, update the components list that specifies where the components are connected at the relay switching matrix and update the maxlists. The possible connections are specified in the components list.