ECE 415 - With Lab. Principles of engineering design process. Consideration of the ethical and social implications of technology as well as basic concepts of business. Small groups of students design small electronic systems to faculty specifications. Preliminary paper design followed by hardware or software prototype. Students must complete project in ECE 416.

Credits: 2

Prerequisites: ECE 323, ECE 313, ECE 222 or 353. For EE and CSE majors only.

After successfully completing this course, a student should be able to:

C. V. Hollot, Professor and Associate Department Head

KEB 209E, hollot@ecs.umass.edu

T. Baird Soules, Lecturer and Undergraduate Program Director

210 Marcus Hall, soules@ecs.umass.edu

Francis Caron, 9B Marcus Hall, fkcaron@ecs.umass.edu,

Hours: 7:30 A.M. - 3:30 P.M., Mon - Fri

In order to facilitate team organization and communication each team will have one member who is designated at the project manager. Each advisor, after having solicited private input from each team member, will assign one team member to be the project manager. It is reasonable for those students with a specific interest in this role to make that known to the advisor. The advisor will inform the SDP course coordinators and team members of his or her choice during the week of 15 Sept 03.

All course participants will meet together four times this semester:

Each project team will have a weekly team meeting with their project advisor. The purpose of each meeting is to have each team member report on progress that has been made, barriers that have been identified and clarification of short- and long-term goals. It is the project manager's responsibility to set up these meetings with the project advisor.

The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing; Leslie C. Perelman, James Paradis, Edward Barrett. (Available on ECS PCs in hypertext form.)

This is the same text that is used in ENGL 351, Technical Writing.

Besides the weekly team meetings and advisor meetings, the schedule includes the following milestones:

The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) will occur during the week of 14 October 03. The twofold purpose of the PDR is for the team to present their preliminary design and receive feedback from their advisor on that design. At the PDR each team will turn in a written report and deliver a Powerpoint presentation to their team advisor. Each team member will participate in the preparation of the report as well as the preparation and delivery of the Powerpoint presentation. The report and presentation will include project specifications, project background, at least one preliminary design as well as the team's proposed MDR prototype specifications. The advisor will modify the MDR prototype specifications at the PDR. The MDR prototype specifications should be substantial and complete enough to demonstrate that the team has successfully tackled one or more of the core technical design challenges of the overall project. The MDR prototype specifications will be included in the team presentation to the class on 20 Oct 03 and 27 Oct 03. The MDR prototype specifications will be sent to the SDP course coordinators by the project manager.

It is the project manager's responsibility to schedule the PDR in an ECE conference room. Reservations should be made during the weeks prior to PDR week. A sample PDR report and Powerpoint presentation will be made available.

The Mid-course Design Review (MDR) will take place before the SDP Review Board and the team advisor during week of 08 Dec 03. The twofold purpose of the MDR is for the team to present a prototype (and it's associated design) and to receive feedback from the SDP Review Board and the team advisor on that design. The hardware and/or software prototype presented should demonstrate that the chosen design path is likely to lead to a completed project in April which meets or exceeds the project specifications.

The role of the SDP Review Board is to provide independent feedback to the advisors and team members. The review board will consist of ECE faculty members and will participate in all MDRs.

Each team will turn in a written report and deliver a Powerpoint presentation at the MDR. Each team member will participate in the preparation of the report as well as the preparation and delivery of the Powerpoint presentation. The MDR report and presentation will include project specifications, project background, and an explanation and demonstration of the design goals that were met this semester.

It is the project manager's responsibility to schedule the MDR in an ECE conference room. Reservations should be made during the weeks prior to MDR week. A sample MDR report and Powerpoint presentation will be made available.

Team members will be graded individually by their SDP project advisors. After the Mid-course Design Review, the Design Review Board will recommend semester grades

for each team member based on the report and oral presentation. The project advisors will take this feedback into account when assigning the semester grade.

The team members may receive different letter grades. Your performance on your portion of the project, contributions towards progress reports and your participation level in the weekly meetings will impact your final grade. The importance of each member's preparedness and participation in the weekly meetings is crucial to the success of the projects.

The PDR and MDR reports will conform to the Progress Report format described in section 2.4.5 of the Mayfield Handbook. It is required that each team member contribute to these reports. Individual contributions should be noted in the reports. A recommended format for a brief weekly progress report will be provided.

Any form of academic dishonesty (see definition in the Undergraduate Rights and Responsibilities booklet) will not be tolerated. Academic dishonesty will lead to a failure in the assignment in question, failure in the course, and/or further disciplinary action at the university level. Cases of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Department Head, the Asst. Dean and the University Academic Honesty Board.

The ECE undergraduate program as a whole has ten educational program outcomes. This course contributes towards meeting those outcomes. The table below shows how the five course objectives above relate to the program outcomes.