> not practical. Adds siggnificantly to the cost, and too many connectors
> that would need to be accessible.
>   
A half way house between bare board and complete enclosure is to mount 
the PCB on a base, the bottom of the board is likely to be placed on all 
sorts of surfaces and likely to rub over them. The top being upwards 
when in use and having tall components sticking out above most 
electrical stuff is at much less risk IMO. Also giving the students some 
kind of box to store the device in is probablly a good idea.

here in the EEE departement at the university of manchester they mount 
the student microcontroller and IO boards on PVC bases (the IO board 
also has a metal cover but that board doesn't have any ICs on anyway) 
and give the user a bacon box to store it in and they don't seem to have 
too many problems.


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