Electrical Engineering

Overview

Electrical Engineering is a branch of engineering that exploits properties of electricity, magnetism, and electromagnetism to create useful products. It is a broad field that touches on power distribution, electronics, telecommunications, automatic control, and other areas. In this class we learn about a few of these areas to give students an idea of what electrical engineering is all about.

This year we will cover electronics, magnetism, and computer control.

Lessons

Date
Lesson
Lab
9/26/09 Fundamental Electrical Concepts Electronic Canary Project
10/3/09 Circuit Concepts
Electronic Canary (cont.)
10/10/09 Circuit Components
Finish Electronic Canary
10/17/09 Boolean Algebra Automatic Night Light Project
10/24/09
Boolean Algebra (repeat)
Automatic Night Light (cont.)
10/31/09 How the Automatic Night Light Works
Circuit Diagram Exercise
11/7/09
Digital Logic Digital Logic Exercises
11/21/09
Review
Quiz Game Response Light Project (updated 12/6)
12/5/09
Sequential Logic
Quiz Game Response Light (cont.)
12/12/09
Quiz Quiz Game Response Light (cont.)
1/23/10
Practice Electronics Quiz Quiz Game Response Lignt (cont.)
1/30/10
Quiz
Quiz Game Respons Light (finish)

Note (11/21): The Quiz Game Response Light Project handout has been updated to include the additions noted in class.

Assignments

Due 10/3/09: Read Circuit Concepts.
Due 10/10/09: Read Circuit Components
Due 10/17/09: Lab Report for Electronic Canary Project
Due 10/24/09: Read Boolean Algebra
Due 11/7/09: Read Digital Logic
Due 11/21/09: Hand in Digital Logic Exercises (Do on a separate piece of paper). Check the Resource Page for supplemental material to help complete the exercise.

Lab Reports

You should keep notes on the labs that you do and hand in a lab report after you’ve completed the lab. Below is a lab report template and a sample report.

Lab Report Template
Sample Lab Report

Handouts

The following presentations augment the materials given out in class:

SI Units and Prefixes (Presentation)
Scientific Notation (Presentation)

See the Resources page for additional handouts.

Quizzes

10/10/09: 5 minute quiz on SI Units and Prefixes and Scientific Notation. This example quiz has the answers on the second page. Use it to prepare for the actual quiz.
10/31/09: Graded exercise to draw a circuit diagram from a built circuit. You will work in pairs.
1/30/10: Electronics quiz similar to the practice quiz done on 1/23/10