Yao, J., & Reed, B. W. (2016, June), Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26881

\bibitem{asee_peer_26881}
  Yao, J., \& Reed, B. W. (2016, June), \emph{Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.26881

Jason Yao and Brent Walter Reed.  "Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/26881 Internet.  23 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_26881}
  Jason Yao and Brent Walter Reed.
  "Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/26881 Internet.  23 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_26881
author = "Jason Yao and Brent Walter Reed"
title = "Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/26881}
number = {10.18260/p.26881}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - In our general engineering program, an electrical concentration Electronics course does not have dedicated laboratory components.  In the past years, pSPICE simulation projects were utilized to reinforce electronic circuit (mostly transistor-based) analysis and design.  These software-based hands-off projects were not received well by the students due to technical difficulties associated with the software and the lack of physically tangible excitement.

Two hands-on projects, one consisting of a light-controlled LED and the other involving two alternatively fading LEDs, were recently introduced to the course.  On the first day of the class, both projects were demonstrated to the students to stimulate their interests.  Early in the semester, the students were asked to build the circuit in the first project and show its function.  Later in the semester, as bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) were introduced, the alternatively fading LED project was assigned.  The students were asked to build and troubleshoot the circuit to make it work and write a comprehensive report describing various parts of the circuit, which includes a triangle waveform generator, the DC biasing and AC changing of two complementary driving circuits that further consist of current sources and NPN and PNP BJT drivers.  Based-upon the hands-on experience, the students were challenged to design circuits to meet different load needs and alternating frequencies.  

Many evidences from the semester have clearly shown that these hands-on projects successfully served as a vehicle to motivate student interests, facilitate classroom interaction, and improve learning outcomes.  This paper presents the learning theory that supports hands-on experience, the basic structure of the course, the implantation and logistics of the projects, and assessment applied to evaluate outcomes as a result of this hands-on addition. 

AU  - Jason Yao
AU  - Brent Walter Reed
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Facilitating Student Learning with Hands-On Projects in an Electronics Course in a General Engineering Curriculum
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26881
DO  - 10.18260/p.26881
ER  -