Manipulating objects on screen and viewing the results on screen can often seem like "magic" particularly to introductory students. There are real educational benefits to be had when a student builds and studies an experiment with real-time signals in real 'hands-on' hardware. The directness of 'hands-on' adjustment of signals gives a solid and tangible understanding of the system being studied to the student. The results observed attain real meaning which is often not attained with 'on-screen' simulations.
In order to appreciate simulation a student needs to have pre-requisite knowledge of sampling theorem and Fourier analysis. Once these fundamentals have been understood, simulations can become a useful adjunct alongside learning with a TIMS system.
Simulation can be useful as pre-lab learning. See our page on TutorTIMS on our website.
