by Brian Evans and Gary Hallock
with comments from Gustavo de Veciana
This appendix summarizes the on-going discussion about updating the list of topics to broaden the introduction to ECE and to be more appropriate for training the students for later courses that depend on EE302. Section F.2 gives the list of topics for EE302 in the 1998-2000 catalog. Section F.3 provides the syllabus for EE302 for the Spring 2000 semester. Section F.4 summarizes the development of EE302 over the years. Section F.5 presents ideas for modifying the content EE302. Section F.6 suggests a list of topics for the 2002-2004 catalog and a syllabus.
302. Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Introduction to the scope and nature of professional activities for electrical and computer engineers including: problem solving techniques, analysis and design methods, engineering professional ethics, and the various fields of study. The course will emphasize the study of digital system design and basic electric circuit theory. Prerequisite: Credit or registration for Mathematics 408C. Three lecture hours and two laboratory hours a week for one semester.
The following courses list EE302 as a pre-requisite:
The courses that have EE302 as a pre-requisite depend on the following material to be covered in EE302:
| 1/19 | Course overview, syllabus, ECE curriculum |
| 1/21 | Engineering design and problem solving |
| 1/24 | LRC Resources: The Internet |
| 1/26 | HTML Programming: Putting you on the WWW! |
| 1/28 | Engineering Ethics: Intellectual property |
| 1/31 | Intro to computer systems; processor subsystems |
| 2/2 | Digital information, decimal, and binary numbers |
| 2/4 | Boolean algebra, logic operations, gates, symbols |
| 2/7 | Algebraic simplification |
| 2/9 | Karnaugh maps for logic minimization |
| 2/11 | Logic problems |
| 2/14 | Ripple-carry adder |
| 2/21 | Physical basis of circuit theory: energy, charge |
| 2/23 | Potential energy and electrostatic potential |
| 2/25 | Kirchoff's voltage and current laws |
| 2/28 | Conductance, resistance, and independent sources |
| 3/1 | Energy flow in electrical circuits, power |
| 3/3 | Series and parallel resistance |
| 3/6 | Voltage and current dividers |
| 3/20 | Superposition |
| 3/22 | Thevenin equivalent circuits |
| 3/24 | Thevenin equivalent circuits (continued) |
| 3/27 | Norton equivalent circuits |
| 3/29 | Node-voltage analysis |
| 3/31 | Node-voltage analysis |
| 4/3 | Loop-current analysis |
| 4/5 | Loop-current analysis (continued) |
| 4/7 | Maximum power transfer |
| 4/10 | Linear circuits problems |
| 4/17 | Magnetic behavior and inductors |
| 4/19 | Inductive circuits |
| 4/21 | RL circuit analysis |
| 4/24 | Charge redistribution, concept of capacitance |
| 4/26 | Capacitive circuits |
| 4/28 | RC circuit analysis |
| 5/1 | Energy storage |
| 5/3 | Series and parallel capacitors |
Another original goal for EE 302 was to show the importance of basic science courses (math, physics, chemistry, etc.) to an engineer. We do this by using Coulomb's law and energy concepts to develop voltage, discussing chemical reactions in a battery, and some simple calculus near the end of the course (RC circuits).
We need to keep the above ideas in mind, and not add topics to EE 302 just because other courses are too packed or we want other courses to be able to be taught earlier.
With the introduction of EE306 Introduction to Computing and the requirement that all ECE students (including transfer students) take EE302, the following material in EE302 may be removed from EE302 because it is covered elsewhere in the basic sequence:
Regardless of what is added to EE302, it is important that the material in EE302 be suitable for incoming freshmen. We have tried and dropped many topics over the years. EE 302 content should be introductory and meaningful to the students. The material should allow the students to work clear, concrete problems with well defined results. The material should be amenable to freshmen level labs.
For example, during the last curriculum meeting Chuck Roth mentioned twice during his EE 316 presentation that the abstract parts of the course were the most difficult for the students. Introducing abstract concepts in EE 302 before the students have the foundation to appreciate them would not work well. Students need to know why abstraction is important (bottom up approach). The material must be freshman level yet allow real, interesting problem solving with well defined results.
It has been suggested that Matlab be an important part of the overall EE curriculum. I think EE 302 [lab] is a good place for this. Students can get started doing Matlab almost immediately; the basics are a lot like learning to program your first programmable calculator. We have developed several Matlab labs over the years. We could make Matlab more of a theme for the course.
One suggestion for a theme for EE302 is the processing of analog and digital information. This would expand the scope of EE302 from an analog/digital circuits course to an analog/digital circuits and systems course. This change would be possible by adding notions of signals, systems, and finite state machines into EE302 in the context of examples that are familiar to an EE302 student:
The teaching of information processing to freshmen by using signals, systems, and finite state machines is being carried out at UC Berkeley by Profs. Edward Lee and Pravin Varaiya in their course EECS20 Structure and Interpretation of Signals and Systems. This course has a laboratory component to it based on Matlab. The instructors have written a draft of a book for the course. By integrating the first four chapters of the book into EE302 with the existing professional and circuits material, EE302 could become a course that introduces students to the processing of analog and digital information. This could motivate students to stay within electrical engineering to pursue studies in circuits and systems.
302. Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Scope and nature of activities of electrical and computer engineers; World Wide Web; ethics; voltage, current, and resistance; Thevenin/Norton equivalent and mesh/nodal analysis of resistive circuits; representation of signals and systems; information processing; state machines. Prerequisite: Credit or registration for Mathematics 408C. Three lecture hours and two laboratory hours a week for one semester.
A possible syllabus for these topics follows. It retains the units on The Professional Engineer, Basic Circuit Theory, and The Analysis of DC Circuits, which amount to nine weeks of material. The new topics of signals, systems, and information processing would occupy roughly six weeks of the semester. Essentially, the six weeks of new material would be the first four weeks of lecture and labs from the freshman UC Berkeley course EECS20 Structure and Interpretation of Signals and Systems.
| Lecture 1.1 | Course overview, syllabus, ECE curriculum |
| Lecture 1.2 | Engineering design and problem solving |
| Lecture 1.3 | LRC Resources: The Internet |
| Lecture 1.4 | HTML Programming: Putting you on the WWW! |
| Lecture 1.5 | Engineering Ethics: Intellectual property |
| Lecture 2.1 | Physical basis of circuit theory: energy, charge |
| Lecture 2.2 | Potential energy and electrostatic potential |
| Lecture 2.3 | Kirchoff's voltage and current laws |
| Lecture 2.4 | Conductance, resistance, and independent sources |
| Lecture 2.5 | Energy flow in electrical circuits, power |
| Lecture 2.6 | Series and parallel resistance |
| Lecture 2.7 | Voltage and current dividers |
| Lecture 3.1 | Superposition |
| Lecture 3.2 | Thevenin equivalent circuits |
| Lecture 3.3 | Thevenin equivalent circuits (continued) |
| Lecture 3.4 | Norton equivalent circuits |
| Lecture 3.5 | Node-voltage analysis |
| Lecture 3.6 | Node-voltage analysis |
| Lecture 3.7 | Loop-current analysis |
| Lecture 3.8 | Loop-current analysis (continued) |
| Lecture 3.9 | Maximum power transfer |
| Lecture 3.10 | Linear circuits problems |
| Lecture 4.1 | Continuous-time and discrete-time audio signals |
| Lecture 4.2 | Signals as functions (examples: audio, images, and radio) |
| Lecture 4.3 | Functions of time and sequences |
| Lecture 4.4 | Functions and function spaces (example: video) |
| Lecture 4.5 | Systems as functions |
| Lecture 4.6 | Telephony systems (examples: DTMF signaling and modems) |
| Lecture 4.7 | Composition, block diagrams, and modeling |
| Lecture 4.8 | Discrete events (examples: telephone and wireless networks) |
| Lecture 5.1 | Control logic, state, sets, and functions |
| Lecture 5.2 | State machines (example: parking meter) |
| Lecture 5.3 | State transition diagrams, memory (examples: answering machines) |
| Lecture 5.4 | Nondeterministic state machines |
| Lecture 5.5 | Abstraction, simulation, and deterministic (example: parking meter) |
| Lecture 5.6 | Input/output behavior in state machines (example: safety-critical system) |
| Lecture 5.7 | Synchronous state machines, cascade connections |
| Lecture 5.8 | Parallel connections (example: answering machine) |
| Lecture 5.9 | Feedback and delay |
Last updated 02/29/00. Mail comments about this page to bevans@ece.utexas.edu.