Mississippi State University, Mississippi
March 9, 2025
March 9, 2025
March 11, 2025
Professional Papers
10
https://peer.asee.org/54182
5
Dr. Mazzaro earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Boston University in 2004, a Master of Science from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 2006, and a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2009. From 2009 to 2013, he worked as an Electronics Engineer for the United States Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland. For his technical research, Dr. Mazzaro studies the unintended behaviors of radio frequency electronics illuminated by electromagnetic waves and he develops radars for the remote detection and characterization of those electronics. In the Fall of 2013, Dr. Mazzaro joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The Citadel. There, he is the primary instructor for Electromagnetic Fields, Interference Control in Electronics, Antennas & Propagation, and Electrical Laboratory courses.
The science upon which all designs for electrical and electronic devices are based is electromagnetic theory. For this reason, most electrical-engineering undergraduates are required to pass a one-semester course in Electromagnetic Fields. A single-semester EM Fields course introduces Maxwell’s Equations and generally focuses on static electric and magnetic fields; it is usually taken during the junior year. Aspiring engineers who intend to work with radio or optical frequencies will typically complete follow-on courses which focus on dynamic fields with applications to high-frequency circuits, free-space waves, antennas, waveguides, or electromagnetic interference/compatibility; these advanced courses are usually taken as senior-year electives.
Many concepts central to EM Fields are counter-intuitive: wires carrying current in the same direction attract each other; magnets moved across a conductor induce a voltage difference from one end of that conductor to the other; field oscillations moving through each other can either cancel or reinforce each other. To mitigate the confusion produced by EM physics, the author designed three “mini-lab” exercises and recently included them as part of his required undergraduate EM Fields course. Each exercise can be performed using equipment that is part of a standard undergraduate electronics lab, and each exercise can be completed by an undergraduate student in under an hour. This paper will present all three exercises (“Assemble an Electric Field Sensor”, “Build an Electro-magnet”, “Harvest Radio-Frequency Energy”) -- objectives, equipment required, procedures, sample data, grading rubrics, students’ scores and feedback -- and the paper will suggest additional activities which can be developed to further enhance an EM Fields course.
Mazzaro, G. J. (2025, March), Mini-Laboratory Activities for Observing Electromagnetic Fields in a Required Undergraduate Course for Electrical Engineers Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference , Mississippi State University, Mississippi. https://peer.asee.org/54182
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2025 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015