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When Alex Viray, an account manager at Tektronix, planned a visit to his alma mater, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he had a feeling that a particular student group might really benefit from the Tektronix 2 Series Mixed Signal Oscilloscope.

Alex was on campus to help run an educational workshop for engineering students and he was really hoping the students that make up the Cal Poly Racing Team would stop by.

Finally, toward the end of his time at the school, Alex was in the middle of a presentation when he turned around and saw a large group of students – it was the racing team.

The students were extremely interested in the Tektronix 2 Series Mixed Signal Oscilliscope because of its small size and unique portability. Alex decided to loan the team his personal 2 Series and Tektronix later made a donation of a 2 Series MSO to the team.

“Whenever we used to have problems in the boards or anything in the wiring, we’d have to take the car back to our shop and do the diagnostics there. Now, because Tektronix has provided us with a battery-powered scope, it’s allowed us to take the diagnosing capabilities to the track,” said Nick Deskins, Team Lead. “It’s really saved us a lot of time, made solving issues a lot quicker and easier, and allowed us to get more run time, which results in a better car.”

The students appreciate the portability of the scope, and also the accuracy.

“We use the scope to do all of our hardware debugging, software debugging, because it makes it really easy for us to identify different digital and analog signals within the car,” said Michael Yuen, circuit boards lead. “And the scope itself is really easy to use because it’s almost like and iPad and a lot of us grew up on iPads.”

Tektronix is proud to be a Cal Poly Racing team sponsor. At Tektronix, building excitement in future engineers is always on the agenda.