Improving the freshman electrical and computer engineering lab

This thesis covers the challenges of creating and maintaining an introductory engineering laboratory. The history of the University of Illinois Electrical and Computer Engineering department’s introductory course, ECE 110, is recounted. The current state of the course, as of Fall 2008, is discussed along with current challenges arising from the use of a hand-wired prototyping board with logic gates. A plan for overcoming these issues using a new microcontroller-based board with a pseudo hardware description language is discussed. The new microcontroller based system implementation is extensively detailed along with its new accompanying description language. This new system was tried in several sections of the Fall 2008 semester alongside the old system; the students’ final performances with the two different approaches are compared in terms of design, performance, complexity, and enjoyment. The system in its first run shows great promise, increasing the students’ enjoyment, and improving the performance of their designs.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2010

Author dc:creator

• Eisenhower, William R., Jr.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Franke, Patricia M.

• education
• ECE 110 (course)
• teaching
• Microcontroller
• Hardware Description Language (HDL)
• embedded systems

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 William R. Eisenhower, Jr.

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16978

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/16978