Discussion:

There are several limitations to the experiments done here:
However, these limitations do not obscure the learning outcomes of the experiment.  For the first time at our university we can teach the basics of nuclear and particle physics simultaneously to 40 students. 
Importantly for the design of our course as a whole, we have built reconfigurable op-amp amplifiers with performance far exceeding a similar circuit built on a proto-board.  We also have 20 of the STEMlab instruments which have been used for experiments probing the quantized conductance in gold wires\cite{Tolley_2013}, teaching LabVIEW by using a silicon diode as a thermometer, and in several projects in the latter part of our courses.  We wanted to simplify the transition from set experiments to open-ended projects by giving students access to cheap, powerful and flexible instrumentation during the early part of the lab course.  The first iteration of this course was a success, and we intend to extend this still more with subsequent deliveries.