Conference Session

Project-Based Learning in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Saeed Khan, Kansas State University-Salina; Greory Spaulding, Kansas State University-Salina

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

destructively interfere with one another.In designing the first section of the large antenna, we followed the design guidelines ofthe standard cantenna2. With the exception of the first section (smallest of sections), allother sections carry multiple modes and the number of modes in any section isproportional to the diameter. The large number of modes in the last section allows a fielddistribution that permits highly directive radiation patterns. Our version consists of sixdifferent cylindrical sections connected together by six 3-inch 34˚ flared or conical Page 13.270.3sections (Figure 2). Flared sections were used to minimize reflections at the junctions.The

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., most of the time this is done by just throwing students in teams in an ad hoc manner or just letting students form their own teams, resulting in very bad teamwork experiences, especially for the more talented students.To enable students to experience teamwork in a more favorable setting, this paper proposes asystem whereby students are trained to be effective members of a team as well as being effectiveleaders. There are very few activities geared towards similar goal. Notably, Chesney’s [2] workon “students’ reflection on group work” is one such activity. In [2], four 30-minute discussions,Chesney’s so-called “vignettes”, are given in a semester. Similar to the proposal described hereinis the inclusion of a teamwork

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education III

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sheng-Jen Hsieh, Texas A&M University; Yuan-Teng Cheng, Texas A&M University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

tool.Student ratings were positive for all items. In general, students felt that the tool was interactive,relevant, and easy to use and understand. Figure 8 shows a summary of results for all fourattribute continuums from the Index of Learning Styles for the students in this study. These datasuggest that the students tended to be more visual than verbal and more active than reflective aslearners. Ladder Logic Debugging Tool The practice questions helped me to learn the material. 5.1

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Golanbari, University of the Pacific; Rick Garlikov, Garlikov.Com

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

intellectual skills and traits of mind Page 13.486.2such as intellectual acuity, intellectual honesty, intellectual humility, intellectualperseverance, intellectual autonomy, intellectual empathy, intellectual integrity andintellectual responsibility. These skills and traits plant the seeds to help prepare studentsto: (a) become practicing professionals who are fair-minded, who have confidence inreason and who are undaunted when faced with the need to master new technologies; (b)become scholars undertaking advanced study; (c) take ownership of new ideas andmodes of reflective thinking and reasoning; and (d) be prepared and motivated to developinto life-long

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

identified two components of life-long learning: motivation and ability.Motivation was divided into “won’t do” and “will do” practices. Ability practices were labeledas “can do” and “can’t do.” A successful life-long learner then is one who “will do” and onewho “can do.” Litzinger, et al. also cite Candy11 whose paper on self-directed learningsummarized the characteristics of the self-directed learner into two areas: personal attributes andskills. “Will do” Attributes: curious/motivated, methodical/disciplined, logical/analytical, reflective/self-aware, flexible, interdependent/interpersonally competent, persistent/responsible, venturesome/creative, confident, independent/self-sufficient. “Can do” Skills: have highly

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Fred Cady, (Retired) Montana State University; John McLellan, Freescale Semiconductor

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

are given an activity assignment that includes the followingsections: • A clear, inspiring and communicative title. • A "why" section to put the activity into context for the student. • A list of prerequisites. • Two or three clear and concise statements of learning objectives. • The information, or model, that the students are to explore to be able to meet the objectives. • Key exploration and concept invention/formation questions. • Skill exercises. • Problems or applications requiring higher-level thinking skills. • A closure including self-assessment and reflection on learning.The POGIL technique has been successfully implemented in the teaching of general

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

Figure 3 cover traditional domains in ECE, but students are required to take courses in only two of theses areas, reflecting our belief that the field of ECE is far too large to expect all students to follow exactly the same paths through

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wookwon Lee, Gannon University; Fong Mak, Gannon University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

such that the application of appropriate new knowledge from thegraduate course is the main focus in order to successfully carry out the project. For first-yeargraduate students with an engineering degree from an ABET-accredited higher educationalinstitution, this would not be an issue although student’s competency may slightly vary. In mostengineering graduate schools, however, there is a large population of international students. Thissituation is particularly true in our Electrical and Computer engineering (ECE) with a recentlarge influx of international students from Asia. We learned from the recent experience ineducating them that their undergraduate curriculum reflected on their transcripts is not muchdifferent from that of an ABET

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Freudenthal, University of Texas at El Paso; Brian Carter, University of Texas at El Paso; Frederick Kautz, University of Texas at El Paso; Alexandria Ogrey, University of Texas at El Paso; Robert Preston, University of Texas at El Paso; Arthur Walton, University of Texas at El Paso

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

the synthesis level.After the adoption of Java as the principal teaching language at UTEP, procedural languageswith explicit memory management were principally relegated to a language survey course thatcompare abstractions provided by various languages. C permits explicit pointer arithmetic andthus has semantics reflecting the behavior of the underlying memory system that appears arcaneand inordinately complex when viewed through the lens of formal language abstractions.Despite Java’s syntactic similarity to C, faculty teaching upper-division systems-oriented coursesand potential employers of our graduates observed that students primarily trained to program inJava have increased difficulty understanding and composing programs in C. Faculty at

Conference Session

Embedded System Design

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daren Wilcox, Southern Polytechnic State University; Steve Wilson, Southern Polytechnic State University; Gerd Wöstenkühler

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

. Embedded Design ExamplesPresented are two embedded designs which reflect common student projects. The first is an “automatedbeverage server”. In this project, two sophomore students modified a toy remote controlled car to servebeverages about a room. The beverage server is shown in Figure 5. The remote controlled car platformserved as the system to be controlled. Toys are very inexpensive platforms to build embedded controlsystems around. All of the mechanical aspects are already in place. Some of the electronics such aspower transistors are also available. The student can reverse engineer the digital control lines to the Hbridge transistor arrays. By monitoring the voltage levels on the lines as the vehicle is signaled to goforward, reverse, left

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Kim, Howard University; Mohamed Chouikha, Howard University; Veronica Thomas, Howard University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

average retention rate of 5%. At the bottom of the chart, the "practice by doing" and "teachothers/immediate use" methods achieve an average retention rate of 75% and 90%, respectively.The Mobile Studio improves the knowledge retention rate by instant experience of theory andexperimentation of the theory.The experience of "learning by doing" of Mobile Studio also makes possible to practice experientialleaning, a process by which students reflect on what they learned and, from the reflection, newlearning emerges4. Starting from the abstract concept of theory and model presented, studentsdevelop experiments gain concrete experience of the theory by the measurement and observation ofthe experiment. Analysis of the result and discussion with other

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yakov Cherner, ATeL, LLC; Amin Karim, DeVry University; Ahmed Khan, DeVry University; Victor Rubanchik, Southern Federal University (Russia); Gary Mullett, Springfield Technical Community College

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

. B A C DFigure 7 Simulations designed for virtual exploration of signal reflection and distortion effects.Using the drag and drop option on simulations A and C in Figure 7, a student is able to movethe car around a parking lot and see how the different reflections from surrounding buildingsaffect the signal shape, phases, and amplitudes. S/he can choose between one or two pulsesignals and vary signal frequency, pulse duration, and delay between pulses. Simulations Band D help the student understand the Huggens-Fresnel principle and the impact of variousparameters on the structure of Fresnel’s zones, as well as what sources of secondary

Conference Session

Project-Based Learning in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Albert Liddicoat, California Polytechnic State University; Jianbiao Pan, California Polytechnic State University; James Harris, California Polytechnic State University; Lynne Slivovsky, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

measurements • select external components and interface to embedded system using product datasheets • exercise communication skills through preparing a proposal, writing final design reports, and presenting in class.In the laboratory students get an opportunity to design five embedded systems that meet aspecific set of system requirements. They first design a digital clock using the VHDL hardwaredescription language to implement a hardware-based design. Then they use a soft-core processorwith a hardware timer and a general purpose input/output peripheral module to design aninterrupt driven microcontroller implementation of the same digital clock system. The studentsare asked to reflect on the design process and analyze the hardware

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Meyer, Purdue University; Mark Johnson, Purdue University School of ECE; Cordelia Brown, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

readily understandable to one “skilled in the art” – if 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X1 course staff can’t understand, it isn’t clear. Appropriateness of content – lab notebook should not be a “blog” (i.e., not be a log of time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X1 spent in class or what you ate at a meeting, etc.) Update record – daily entries should be made as work is done (not days “after the fact”), and 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X2 should reflect steady, consistent progress Weekly summaries – weekly entries should be a concise summary of the major accomplishments 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X1 for the preceding Sunday – Saturday period Formatting – must use global style-sheet and prescribed page layout; also, use links

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

L. Brent Jenkins

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

insists that the terminal voltage of the "We refuse tocircuit is 2V, while the right source insists that compromise."the same voltage is 3V. In Figure 2b, the upper (a) (b)source insists that the branch current is 10 mA, Page 13.293.2while the lower source insists that the same Figure 2: Impossible Source Combinationscurrent is 15 mA. Since ideal sources lack the ability to compromise, such cases either reflect atheoretical stalemate, or a situation in which at least one of the sources has to either becomenon-ideal or non-functional.The

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

accommodate changes in the hardware and tools used. The creative portion can be changed every semester to insure that students are exposed to new projects. • Extend the use of the educational development tool Altera Debug Client) to continue challenging students, and delay introduction of more advanced tools (Nios II IDE) until later in the course after ISRs have been introduced.Table 2 reflects the proposed modifications to the Microprocessor lab.Table 2: Microprocessors Lab 2008 Outline Week Topics/Assignment 1 Familiarization with DE2, Nios II, and Debug Client (simplified tutorial) 2 Introduction to memory. (assignment: bubble sort routine) 3 Exploration of address

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education III

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Soonghwan Ro, Kongju University, Rep. of Korea

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

questions, a question reading “Was it helpful for understanding the lecturesto use the DigiCom in the class?” was evaluated in 2007. The mark was 4.35/5 which was higherthan the other questions. However, comparative evaluation was not possible since the questionwas given in 2007 for the first time.5.2. Comparative analysis of the examination papersOf the exam questions given in the 2007 term, the types of the questions which can beconsidered to reflect the effectiveness of the practice, by comparing with those in the previousterms, are as follows. The exam questions below are similar types, but the same questions werenot always given.Table 9. Questions for exam used for analysis Number Question type

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Khalid Al-Olimat, Ohio Northern University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

PrimaryAs shown in figure 1, any given transformer can be reflected to the primary side or to thesecondary side. Also, the student has the choice of analyzing a given transformer based on theexact model as well as the approximate model. If the approximate model is selected, the studentneeds to specify one model from the list of the approximate models. The list consists of thefollowing approximate models: 1. Shunt branch moved to primary side. 2. Shunt branch moved to secondary side. 3. Shunt branch neglected 4. Both Shunt branch and resistance neglected.The parameters of the given transformer in this module must be inserted as an input values. Inaddition, the load voltage, the turn ratio of the transformer, the rated load in KVA and

Conference Session

Project-Based Learning in ECE Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arif Uluagac; Douglas Williams, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

complicated hardware and software based modules could be built withLabVIEW. In this section, we explain which modules we have built using LabVIEW 8.2 and itstool DSP Module 2. Specifically, we have developed 13 NI-Speedy-33 modules, 2 NXT modules,and 4 software-based modules. We elaborate more on the hardware-based ones utilizing the NI-Speedy-33 to reflect the real-time examples as much as possible. However, most aspects ofsignal processing and DSP classes could be implemented with software-based modules, but theywould be based on non-real-time data.When building hardware-based modules, some of the signal processing concepts such as signalgeneration, FFT, convolution, and filtering can be implemented directly by the students with thefunctions and

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sandra Yost, University of Detroit Mercy; Mohan Krishnan, University of Detroit Mercy; Mark Paulik, University of Detroit Mercy

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

this course,” 37% ofthose who responded either agreed or strongly agreed.We believe that these disappointing results reflect some resistance from the students to engage inthe kind of independent enquiry-based learning that the instructor expected from them throughoutthe course. After discussion, it was suggested that in the second offering of the course, theinstructor provide a little more structure and guidance early on to gradually build up the students’confidence in their ability to seek the relevant information needed to solve novel problems.4.1.4 EE355: Advanced Electronic SystemsTo the statement: “I find the design projects interesting and effective in connecting theory withpractice,” 83% of those who responded either agreed or

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Dworzecki; Syed Masud Mahmud

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Microchip MPLAB ICD2 DV1640052 Microchip CAN-LIN3 DM1630152 Grayhill 4x4 Matrix Keypad With Cable 96BB2-006-R2 Hantronix LCD Character Display 4x40 (Grey, Reflective) HDM40416H-5-S00S2 Sullins Electronics .1" 52 Position Male Header PEC26DFCN (Break Into 2x9, 2x9, 2x8)2 Sullins Electronics .1" 18 Position Female Receptacle PPPC092LFBN-RC2 Sullins Electronics .1" 30 Position Female Receptacle PPPC152LFBN-RC2 Sullins Electronics .1" 40