SYLLABUS

Contact Information:

Time Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (Classroom Lectures)
Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (Entrepreneurship Lectures)
Thursday: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM (Laboratory)
Place Lecture: 001 Swalm (George Eastman Auditorium)
Entrepreneurship Lectures: 100 Simrall (Auditorium)
Meetings: Simrall 206
Labs: Simrall 323 (other rooms by appointment)
Instructor Joseph Picone
Office: 413 Simrall
Office Hours: 8-9 TR (others by appt.)
Email: picone@cavs.msstate.edu
Phone: 662-325-3149 / Fax: 662-325-2298
Teaching Assistant Way Beng Koay
Office: 302 Simrall
Office Hours: 2 PM to 5 PM MW (others by appt.)
Email: wk4@ece.msstate.edu
Phone: 662-325-8111 / 662-325-2099
Design Consultant Bill Buchanan
Office: 246 Simrall (across from department office)
Office Hours: 2 PM to 4 PM TR (others by appt.)
Email: buchanan@ece.msstate.edu
Phone: 662-325-2048 / Fax: 662-325-2298
Class Alias ece_4521@cavs.msstate.edu
URL http://www.cavs.msstate.ed./publications/courses/ece_4521
Textbook Resources 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.

P. Horowitz and W. Hill, The Art of Electronics, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN: 0-521-37095-7.

R. Schinzinger and M.W. Martin, Introduction to Engineering Ethics, McGraw-Hill, 2000, ISBN 0-07-233959-4.

K.A. Smith, Project Management and Teamwork, McGraw-Hill, 2000, ISBN 0-07-12296-2.

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.

Grading Policies:

Grades are calculated using the following weights:

Standard:
  Advisor Evaluation 25%
  Design Document 15%
  Guest Lecture Attendance 10%
  Design Review 10%
  Final Hardware Prototype 10%
  Preliminary Design Review 10%
  Mid-Semester Hardware Prototype 10%
  Web Site 10%
Extra Credit:
  Peer Review 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 the one 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 working system by the end of the semester is a very important deliverable for this class.

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." The rationale your advisor uses to arrive at your grade is at his or her discretion. Be sure to communicate with your advisor to fully understand his or her expectations.

The next largest component of your grade is the design document. This 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. Templates for this document are available on-line.

The remaining portions of your grade are distributed evenly across a number of categories including attendance at the entrepreneurship lecture series. Developing an appreciation of global issues in engineering is very important at this stage in your career. The entrepreneurship lectures are one means by which we encourage you to start thinking about important non-technical aspects of your career. 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.

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 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.

You will also be expected to present a preliminary version of your hardware at the mid-term presentation. This will allow graders to assess your progress, and hopefully help you keep the project moving along to a successful conclusion.

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.

Your course grade will be computed using the categories and weights described above. Final grades can be adjusted by 10% (one letter grade) based on feedback collected from a peer review process. The method of application of this input is rather complicated, and arrived at using a "raise-pool" format (based on the way salary raises work in industry). Each member of the team is allowed to influence each other team member's grade by 10%. To raise one grade by an amount delta, you must reduce another team member's contribution by an equivalent amount. The sum of your adjustments must equal zero. If all team members receive the same rating, their grades remain unchanged. To increase one member's grade by the maximum of 10%, you must lower all other members grades by an equivalent amount. Feedback from each student will be collected and averaged, so the actual contribution per team member is 10/N where N is the number of members in your group. If each team member tries to assign all the credit to themselves, the net result will be that no one receives extra credit. To arrive at these evaluations, team members will submit a written evaluation of their fellow team members. All claims of mutiny, insurgency, poor performance, etc., must be documented in sufficient detail to be given consideration.

Schedule:

Please note that the dates below are fixed since they have been arranged to optimize a number of constraints. You need to adjust your schedules, including job interviews and site visits, accordingly.

Class
Date
   Topic(s)
1
08/20
   Organization and Introductions
2
08/27
   The Design Cycle / MS Project Overview
3
09/03
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 1
4
09/10
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 2
5
09/19
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 3
6
09/24
   Project Meetings
7
10/01
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 4
8
10/08
   Preliminary Design Review
9
10/15
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 5
10
10/22
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 6
11
10/29
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 7
12
11/05
   Project Meetings
13
11/14
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 8
14
11/19
   Entrepreneur Lecture No. 9
15
11/25 - 11/27
   Design Reviews
16
12/03
   Project Deliverables


Deliverables:

Presentations and hardware demonstrations are due at times shown above. Throughout the course of the semester, there will be a few other deliverables listed below (this table will be updated throughout the semester). All other deliverables, such as the final design document, the web site, peer reviews, etc., are due on 12/03. The course instruction team will download these documents from the web site at this time and grade them. Team leader exit interviews will be scheduled from 12/03 to 12/06.

Assignment
Due Date
 Item(s)
1
08/19
 proposal database: update your project entry;
2
08/26
 problem statement;
web site: first draft of your home page (team members, contact info)
3
09/03
 design requirements (first draft);
product specification.
4
09/09
 revised design requirements (second draft);
revised product specification (second draft).
5
09/16
 test specifications;
advisor assessment.
6
09/23
 revised problem statement (final draft);
revised design requirements (with explanations - final draft);
revised product specification (final draft).
7
09/30
 Microsoft Project plan (first draft);
8
10/21
 Microsoft Project plan (second draft);
9
11/04
 Microsoft Project plan (update);
10
11/11
 Executive Summary;
Microsoft Project plan (update);
11
11/18
 Microsoft Project plan (update);
12
11/25
 Microsoft Project plan (update);


Miscellaneous:

Here are a few miscellaneous items that need your attention: