SYLLABUS
Contact Information:

Time	Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (Classroom Lectures) Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (Guest Lectures)
Place	Lecture: 203 Simrall; Guest Lectures: George Eastman Auditorium (Swalm) Meetings: Simrall 206 Labs: Simrall 323
Instructor	Joseph Picone Office: 413 Simrall Office Hours: 8-9 TR (others by appt.) Email: picone@cavs.msstate.edu
Class Alias	ece_4512@cavs.msstate.edu
URL	http://www.cavs.msstate.ed./publications/courses/ece_4512
Required Textbook(s)	G. Voland, Engineering By Design, Addison-Wesley, 1999, ISBN 0-20-14985-10.
Prerequisite	Credit or registration in an ECE technical elective; approval of a project proposal by your advisor. You must also be a member of a team that has a project registered in the Project Proposal database.
Reference Textbook(s)	P. Horowitz and W. Hill, The Art of Electronics, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN: 0-521-37095-7. D.C. Hanselman and B.L. Littlefield, Mastering MATLAB: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference, 1/e,, Prentice-Hall, 1996, pp. 542, ISBN: 0-13-191594-0.

Grading Policies:

Grades are calculated using the following weights:

Advisor Evaluation	25%
Peer Review	10%
Preliminary Design Constraints	5%
Preliminary Design Review	10%
Design Review	10%
Hardware Prototype	10%
Design Document	10%
Web Site	10%
Guest Lecture Attendance	10%

Letter grades will be assigned according to the following distribution:

A	100 - 90
B	89 - 80
C	79 - 70
D	69 - 60
See you next semester	Below 60

Description:

The goal of our two semester sequence is to provide you with a realistic design experience, and teach you the tools and methodologies that can help you be successful at this endeavor. Demonstration of a fully functional prototype is requirement. Receiving a passing grade is not a guarantee that you will be allowed to proceed to Senior Design II. You must first demonstrate a fully functional prototype to your advisor and the course instructor. In the event that your prototype doesn't work at the end of the semester, you should plan on making up the work over the semester break. Without this approval, you will not be allowed to enroll in the second semester of this course.

In order that each team member be motivated to participate fully in the team, teams are allowed to vote members out of the group (we were inspired by the television series "Survivor") at the end of semester. For the member voted out, this might mean you have to retake this course, so you need to work to avoid this at all costs. Communication amongst team members and the project advisor about expectations and performance is essential. Far too often, students voted out complain that no one in the group appreciated how much work they really did.

To be considered for a passing grade in this portion of the class, your design review must convince the committee this project is ready for the fabrication stage (the following course in the two-course sequence). You also must convince the committee that you have done a sufficient amount of simulation and prototyping of your system, and that all critical design questions have been answered.

The single largest component of your grade is derived from your advisor's evaluation of role on the team, and your peer review. Remember the prime directive: "Keep your advisor happy." Team members will submit a written evaluation of their fellow team members. This will include a chance to recommend individual grades for their team members, and comment on each member's contribution to the project. All claims of mutiny, insurgency, poor performance, etc., must be documented in sufficient detail to be given consideration. Team leaders will participate in a performance review conducted by the instructor during finals week. The course instructor has the final word as to how this information is interpreted - not everyone in the team must receive the same grade. The course instructor normally consults the project advisor in cases where an individual's contribution is unclear, which explains why keeping your advisor informed of your progress and contributions is so important.

The preliminary design constraints component of your grade refers to the process of setting the critical design constraints for your project. Failure to establish a clear set of design constraints delays many aspects of the project, particularly an overall understanding of the goals of the project. You will be responsible for delivering final design constraints by the deadline shown below. We will execute one iterations before this deadline. You are encouraged to work with your instructor and your advisor to complete this phase of the project. Guidelines for design constraints will be described during the lecture portion of the class.

The preliminary design review should be a dry-run of the final presentation. It is a 15-minute presentation by one team member that reviews project. At this presentation, any deficiencies that are documented must be rectified in your final design review. At this stage of the course, you will be expected to show solid design constraints, a preliminary design, and a comprehensive simulation and testing plan.

The design review is the big enchilada. You must address all design deficiencies noted in your preliminary review, and review all aspects of the project (with technical details supporting your claims). This will be a 15-minute presentation. At the time of the design review, a project web site must be available containing all information about the project, including the documents described above and the design review presentation.

Concurrent with the design review, we will host a conference-style prototype hardware demonstration. This will be set up in a room adjacent to the presentations, and consist of a conference booth type format where each team is allocated a table at which they will demonstrate their hardware. Each team will be responsible for constructing a poster providing an overview of the project. Faculty, student, and industrial representatives will visit each project and provide a detailed evaluation of the hardware. This portion of the final design review will last about two hours and run concurrently with the design presentations.

The design document is a comprehensive description of the entire project including: requirements, test specification, design, and test certification. It presents both simulation data and hardware measurements (for the packaged version of the hardware!), demonstrating that your design has met its goals. This document should address most of the points listed on the cover page of the course web site.

The design document must clearly state which portions of the team project were executed by which members. Each member is expected to contribute a section describing their contributions. Individual grades for each member will be assigned based on the contributions described in these sections. Of the 10% allocated to this portion of the grade, 7.5% will come from your individual contribution, and 2.5% from the overall grade on the document.

The project web site will be graded according to its comprehensiveness. A good site will contain a complete archive of the project, including all documents, presentations, data, measurements, schematics in source file format, software, etc. Web sites are graded on a competitive basis so keep an eye on your competition.

The last component of your grade comes from attending the entrepreneurship lectures. To receive credit for attendance, you must attend the entire talk (this means arrival prior to the start of the talk and departure after the end of the talk - late arrivals receive no credit for that lecture). You must also sit in the first five rows of the conference room to receive credit.

Schedule:

Class	Date	Topic(s)
1	01/08	Organization and Introductions
2	01/15	The Design Cycle / Project Overviews
3	01/22	M. Mazzola, J. Casady, C. Grayson, Founders, SemiSouth
4	01/29	TBD
5	02/05	Hines Brannan, Managing Partner, Accenture
6	02/12	Project Meetings
7	02/19	Bob Mark, CFO, Rowe, Inc.
8	02/26	Preliminary Design Review
9	03/05	Wendell Dunn, Professor, Darden Graduate School
10	03/19	Vince Allen, Carstens, Yee & Cahoon, LLP
11	03/26	Randy Russell, CEO, 121 Micro
12	04/02	Tommy Dulaney, President, Structural Steel Services
13	04/09	Hari Ravishandran, CTO, Bizland
14	04/16	Project Meetings
15	04/23	Design Review
16	04/30	Project Deliverables

Deliverables:

Presentations and hardware demonstrations are due at times shown above. The preliminary design constraints deliverable is due by 8 AM on 02/12. All other deliverables, such as the design document, the web site, and the peer reviews, are due on 04/30. The course instructor will download these documents from the web site at this time and grade them. Team leader exit interviews will be scheduled from 05/01 to 05/06.

Assignment	Due Date	Item(s)
1	01/11	proposal database: update your project entry; web site: first draft of your home page; BSE: IPO announcement for your company.
2	01/18	design document: first draft of your design constraints; web site: team overview, project abstract, schedule.
3	02/04	second draft of your design constraints
4	02/12	first draft of your design document including cover page (1 page), exec summary (1 page), problem statement (2 pages), exactly 10 design constraints (1/2 page), explanations of these constraints (1 and 1/2 pages), and references (minimum of 10 published references).
5	02/19	second draft of your preliminary design review presentation

Miscellaneous:

Here are a few miscellaneous items that need your attention:

• S323 Lab Rules: "rules of engagement" for S323 developed by Professor Raymond S. Winton.