Innovative course modules for introducing ECE to engineering freshmen

Abstract

The curriculum for all Engineering majors in our institute includes an inter-disciplinary course that exposes all freshman students to the different areas of engineering, including Mechanical, Industrial, Manufacturing, Electrical and Computer Engineering. The course is co-taught by multiple instructors, from all the different disciplines. It is made up of short lecture sections and longer laboratory activities. The main goal is to introduce the students to the basic principles, applications, and practical tools commonly used in the different fields. This paper presents an innovative course development for the ECE component of this inter-disciplinary course. The course offers effective, hands-on and practical activities to enhance the students' learning experiences. Another important feature of this course is that the students are presented with challenges to exercise their creative thinking skills and come up with innovative applications to the basic concepts covered in the class. The main focus topics of the ECE component of the course include electrical/electronic components & circuits, PCBs, microcontrollers and programming, sensors and actuators, and robotics. Low-cost, open-source, and easily accessible hardware and software tools are developed for the course. A pilot offering is currently underway, and a survey tool is developed to gauge the effectiveness of the curriculum. Even though results of the assessment are not yet available for this conference, the paper presents and discusses this survey tool at the end. The authors are grateful to the support of the Kern Family Foundation for the course development through the institute's KEEN Internal Topical Grant program.