Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bruce Krogh, Carnegie Mellon University; Tsuhan Chen, Carnegie Mellon University; Tuviah Schlesinger, Carnegie Mellon University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

thanthe binary classification of EE vs. CE. We present a new ECE core curriculum that eliminatesthe outdated EE/CE distinction and describe how this core better prepares ECE students topursue advanced courses and careers in all sub disciplines of ECE.IntroductionDespite the large number of “electrical and computer engineering” and similarly nameddepartments at US universities, there are currently only 14 universities offering accredited BSdegrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering.1 Most universities continue to have separateBS degree programs in Electrical Engineering (268) and Computer Engineering or ComputerSystems Engineering (165).1 Our university introduced the BS in ECE as a single degree over15 years ago.2 This curriculum, which we

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gisele Ragusa, University of Southern California; Michael Khoo, University of Southern California; Ellis Meng, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Career outcomes. This paper reports both on baseline access, retention, andcareer data and a logic model associated with a comprehensive curricular reform resulting fromthe access, retention and career baseline data. As a result of this baseline data, the ERCeducational team has found innovative ways to infuse inductively based, situated curriculum andinstruction in addition to a student-centric outcome metrics into all aspects of the BMEcurriculum and associated laboratory experiences. These assessment measures build on theprinciples established in educational psychology and include pre and posttest BME conceptinventories, rubric-based laboratory assessments, BME efficacy measures and employersatisfaction measures. A comprehensive assessment

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Baker, Texas Tech University; Brian Nutter, Texas Tech University; Mohammed Saed, Texas Tech University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2008-1459: DEVELOPMENT OF A FRESHMAN AND PRE-FRESHMANRESEARCH AND DESIGN PROGRAM IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERINGMary Baker, Texas Tech UniversityBrian Nutter, Texas Tech UniversityMohammed Saed, Texas Tech University Page 13.406.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Development of a Freshman and Pre-Freshman Research and Design Program in Electrical EngineeringAbstractIt is well-known that involving students in activities and courses within their major earlyin their academic careers has a positive impact on student retention. We have developedseveral programs targeted at involving freshmen and pre-freshmen students in Electricaland Computer Engineering

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alyssa Magleby, University of Utah; Cynthia Furse, University of Utah

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

for Growth. Dr. Furse received her B.S. in electrical engineering with a mathematics minor in 1985, M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1988, and her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Utah in 1994. Dr. Furse has taught electromagnetics, wireless communication, computational electromagnetics, microwave engineering, antenna design, and introductory electrical engineering. Dr. Furse works to interest young students, particularly women and minorities in engineering and routinely volunteers in Utah's K-12 schools as an engineering mentor, science educator, and engineering career guidance counselor and is active with the Society of Women Engineers, Junior Engineering

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Friauf, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Stephen Williams, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Steven Reyer, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Owe Petersen, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

thereare numerous other writing tasks as well, all intended to parallel business and industryrequirements. They focus on providing evidence of individual contributions and range fromengineering notebook entries to bi-weekly “elevator” style reports – very short succinct reportsthat demonstrate the progress made in the latest time interval. Finally, in conjunction with our“trade-show”-style Senior Design Show in May of each year, each team must create a posterwith a primary pictorial emphasis to highlight their design. This is part of a poster competitionthat takes place the same day.BackgroundMuch has been written about the essentials of writing requirements in various curricula settingsand career preparations.1-3 Surveys repeatedly have

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marc McComb, Microchip Technology, Inc.

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2008-2183: ONLINE, INTRODUCTORY MICROCONTROLLER LABS ANDEXERCISES FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTSMarc McComb, Microchip Technology, Inc. As Technical Training Engineer with Microchip’s Security, Microcontroller & Technology Development Division, Marc McComb develops educational materials for customers on Microchip’s 8-bit PIC® Microcontrollers (MCUs). These materials take the form of Regional Training Center (RTC) classes, Web seminars and lab exercises for the Company’s Academic Program. Prior to this position, Marc worked for 13 years as a paramedic in Ontario, Canada until a back injury forced a career change. He returned to school and graduated from St. Lawrence College’s Electronics

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bill Yang, Western Carolina University; Yeqin Huang, Western Carolina University; Robert Adams, Western Carolina University; James Zhang, Western Carolina University; Kenneth Burbank, Western Carolina University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

communicationsystems underlying the now ubiquitous Internet communications, photonics and opticalcommunication professionals are and will continue to be in high demand. Becauseelectromagnetic (E&M) theory is the foundation of photonics and optical communications,mastery of E&M theory is essential for those electrical engineering (EE) students who want todevelop a career in this field.Traditionally, rigorous analytic skills in advanced mathematics especially in subjects such aspartial differential equations (PDE) and linear algebra are a must to the understanding andapplications of E&M theory, as well as photonic device and waveguide designs. However, aspractical designs grow in complexity, even the most sophisticated and advanced

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Frank Kragh; Jeffrey Reed; Carl Dietrich; Donna Miller

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

implementation is financially practical in a universitylaboratory setting. In summary, the study of SDR design prepares students for careers involvingSDR design and careers involving typical complex, interdisciplinary design.B. Background on SDR Engineers argue about the definition of a software defined radio, mostly regarding the degree ofsoftware-provided reconfigurability required. We will take, as a reasonable working definition,the one from Reed2. He defines a software defined radio as “a radio that is substantially definedin software and whose physical layer behavior can be significantly altered through changes to itssoftware.” A strong analogy can be made between SDRs and computers. A computer can be aword processor, a financial tool, or an

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dorian Yeager, Grove City College

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

the operating systems class, a class which is normally notencountered until fairly late in a student’s academic career. This paper argues that students needexposure to concurrency much earlier and that those topics should be covered in the core coursesso that students obtain early, positive experience with threaded applications. A particular designfor a set of assignments is presented, using Mandelbrot iteration1 because it is a compute-boundapplication for which students can see remarkable speedup and because the end result is anattractive, highly motivating piece of software that students can get excited about.MotivationMany courses taught in Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) on theundergraduate level must deal with issues

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jin-Hwan Lee, University of Cincinnati; Ali Asgar Bhagat, University of Cincinnati; Karen Davis, University of Cincinnati; Ian Papautsky, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

others. These skills are crucial for future faculty or a career in the industry. One ofthe graduate student mentors in this project was enrolled in a Preparing Future Faculty (PFF)program at the University of Cincinnati.10 Senior projects allowed the graduate student to applythe concepts learned in the PFF courses and experience more teaching activities with students atvarious educational levels. As graduate student mentors, we learned how to gradually introducethe material, rather than overwhelming the undergraduates. It was also critical to identify theneeds and previous educational experiences of the individual students in order to outline acustomized work plan. The work plan included both short-term and long-term goals as well asthe

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christopher Anderson, U.S. Naval Academy; Richard Buehrer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

equipmentfailures.Although it is too early to assess the impact of the research experience on these students’ careers,the experience appears to have been a success. All four students reported a greater depth ofunderstanding of the concepts taught in electromagnetics and communications courses.Additionally, students gained valuable experience in developing and carrying out fieldexperiments—sometimes in less than ideal conditions—and as a result of this experience, somestudents expressed a desire to pursue a graduate degree. Designing this research project alsoprovided several valuable lessons to the instructors which will aid in the further development ofhands-on learning activities for electromagnetics and communications courses. Page

Conference Session

Laboratory Development in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ed Doering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Sam Shearman, National Instruments; Erik Luther, National Instruments

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Manager, works closely with professors, lead users, and authors to improve the quality of Engineering education utilizing National Instruments technology. During his last 5 years at National Instruments, Luther has held positions as an academic resource engineer, academic field engineer, an applications engineer, and applications engineering intern. Throughout his career, Luther, has focused on improving education at all levels including volunteering weekly to teach 4th graders to enjoy science, math, and engineering by building Lego Mindstorm robots. In his current position he manages the NI Textbook program and has had the opportunity to collaborate on numerous textbooks

Conference Session

Laboratory Development in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Peter Mark Jansson, Rowan University; Ulrich Schwabe, Rowan University; Andrew Hak, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2008-2705: MEDIUM VOLTAGE SWITCHGEAR, TRANSFORMER ANDINTERCONNECTION SPECIFICATION IN AN ECE CLINICPeter Mark Jansson, Rowan UniversityUlrich Schwabe, Rowan University Ulrich K.W. Schwabe has received his Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rowan University in 2007 and is currently enrolled in their Master’s program.Andrew Hak, Rowan University Andrew Hak is a Senior electrical and computer engineering major at Rowan University, NJ. He is expected to graduate in May of 2008 and start a career as a power engineer working in the electric utility field. Page 13.882.1© American Society

Conference Session

Laboratory Development in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arlen Planting, Boise State University; Sin Ming Loo, Boise State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

students are likely toencounter in their careers. Figure 1. Altera DE2 Development and Education BoardThe DE2 comes furnished with many attached devices and also has two expansion headers foralmost unlimited add-ons, allowing a large range of future new devices to be attached. Theinterface logic to connect these devices can be improved or modified for instructional purposes.Therefore, choosing a development board is not a long-term commitment to a particular set ofdevices. This setup is unlikely to become obsolete quickly because it has device support forUSB, audio, VGA, Ethernet, UART, PS2, secure digital, and expansion headers.Soft-core ProcessorA soft-core processor is a microprocessor core that can be wholly implemented

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Suk Kim Chin, Australian Catholic University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

teamwork environment, these high achievers feel that the poorer studentswaste their time. Also, the less talented students can be encouraged to participate strongly in theproject, thus eliminating a significant number of “passengers”.1. Introduction“We need to work to support ourselves and we want a life, therefore time for study is scarce”depicts the typical full-time student characteristics in ACU, Australia. Part-time students, withages varying between 25 and 50, have one or more of the following responsibilities: • a demanding job; • family; and • the need to improve their career potential.The scarcity of time for study is witnessed by the aforementioned student characterization and assuch, it is desirable to design courses which

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cordelia Brown, Purdue University; Yung-Hsiang Lu, Purdue University; David Meyer, Purdue University; Mark C Johnson, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Lu is an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Purdue University and (by courtesy) the Department of Computer Science. In 2004, he obtained an NSF Career Award for studying energy conservation by operating systems. He obtained Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 2002.David Meyer, Purdue University David G. Meyer has been very active in curriculum development, learning outcome assessment, design education, and use of instructional technology. He is currently responsible for creating, maintaining, and teaching the core ECE digital systems course sequence. He has written numerous papers on innovative uses of