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Session 3220

Modification of a Sophomore Linear Systems Course to Reflect Modern Computing Strategies

Raymond G. Jacquot, Jerry C. Hamann, John E. McInroy Electrical Engineering Department, University of Wyoming

Abstract This paper reports on an effort currently underway to integrate modern computing strategies into a sophomore course in linear systems. The course material includes Laplace transforms, system modeling and simulation, Fourier series and Fourier transforms. The course has a laboratory which meets biweekly. The effort reported here is one to incorporate the use of two software packages across the lecture and laboratory portions of the course.

Introduction Getting Electrical Engineering students started in their curriculum with up-to-date attitudes toward the role of computing in the engineering problem solving process is extremely important. This attitude should not be one that automated computing is a course of last resort for problems that cannot be solved by hand, but rather that computing is something that the practitioner does in practice to increase productivity and to make the workload more bearable. In addition, computing should not be done in a setting where the engineer does not understand the process being implemented. That is, a full understanding of the process is still very important so that the engineer can know when computed results make no sense.

Freshman students in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming are first introduced to computing in the Introduction to Engineering Computing course wherein they are exposed to tkSolver and Excel in an engineering problem solving atmosphere addressing problems of material balance, engineering economics, electric circuits, and statistics and data presentation.

In the past, the introduction of computing tools appropriate to electrical engineering (namely Spice, MATLAB and an additional simulation tool) was done on a hit-and-miss basis and it was never clear what computing skills upper division students had. Reported here is an effort to remedy this situation and provide a unified approach such that all students have a set of known basic modern computational skills.

Course Setting In the second semester of the sophomore year electrical engineering students are required to take a first course in linear systems which is preceded by a circuit analysis course the previous semester. Also they should have taken or be taking concurrently an ordinary differential equations course in the mathematics department. The linear systems course is a prerequisite for further study in electrical networks, network synthesis, controls and discrete signals and systems.

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McInroy, J. E., & Hamann, J., & Jacquot, R. (1997, June), Modification Of A Sophomore Linear Systems Course To Reflect Modern Computing Strategies Paper presented at 1997 Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10.18260/1-2--6691