SYLLABUS

Contact Information:

Time Tuesday: 3:30 PM - 4:50 PM (Classroom Lectures)
Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (Entrepreneurship Lectures)
Tuesday: 2:00 PM - 4:50 PM (Laboratory)
Place Lecture: 100 Simrall (Auditorium)
Entrepreneurship Lectures: 001 Swalm (First Floor 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 Assistants Jordan Goulder (Documentation)
Office: 302 Simrall
Office Hours: 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM TR (others by appt.)
Email: jwg10@msstate.edu
Phone: 662-325-8111
Class Alias ece_4542@cavs.msstate.edu
URL http://www.cavs.msstate.ed./publications/courses/ece_4542
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 Grade of C or better in ECE 4512.

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:
  Weekly Deliverables 25%
  Design Document 15%
  Preliminary Design Review 15%
  Design Review 15%
  Hardware (Packaged) 10%
  Advisor Evaluation 10%
  Web Site 5%
  Business Plan 5%

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. To be considered for a passing grade in this portion of the class, your design review must convince the committee this project was finished. You must demonstrate a functional project at your design review, and that your hardware design meets your design requirements and simulation results.

The single largest component of your grade will be your weekly asignments. These will include a mixture of assignments designed to help you make incremental progress on your project. We now use a popular project planning tool, Microsoft Project, in this course. This will help you plan your projects on a daily basis. Every Monday morning, you will be responsible for making a deliverable available on your web site. There will be approximately 13 deliverables over the course of the semester, each worth about 2% of your grade. These will be described in detail in class and via email. A schedule is provided below. Team leaders will be responsible for managing the project document. This will be explained in more detail in class.

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. Templates for this document are available on-line.

Technical writing is a very important part of the overall course goals in senior design. Because you are supplied with a detailed Microsoft Word template for the design document, grading of the design document will be strict. Documents will first be graded based on their technical content. Next, for each infraction of the formatting guidelines, you will have one letter grade deducted from the overall grade for your document. A failing grade on the design document will be counted more heavily - a team cannot receive a grade higher than a C in this course if they fail the design document component of the course.

A large component of your grade is derived from your advisor's evaluation of your role on the team. 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 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. The emphasis in the second semester of the course is on creation and testing of the packaged version of the project. At this stage of the course, you will be expected to show the first version of your packaged hardware, along with a comprehensive 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 packaged 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 three hours and run concurrently with the design presentations.

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.

We will attend four entrepreneurship lectures this semester in coordination with GE 3011. 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.

You will also write a simple business plan for your project. We will describe the details of this assignment in subsequent lectures. Teams are encouraged to enter the business plan competition and compete for the generous prizes offered by the College. Tools for guiding you through the development of your business plan are available on-line.

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
Time
   Topic(s)
1
01/13
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Organization and Introductions
2
01/20
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Laboratory Skill Development
3
01/27
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Career Fair
4
02/03
2:00 - 3:15 PM
   Entrepreneurship Lecture No. 1
5
02/10
3:30 - 4:50 PM
  Business Plans
6
02/17
2:00 - 4:50 PM
   Project Meetings
7
02/24
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Entrepreneurship Lecture No. 2
8
03/02 - 03/04
2:00 - 4:50 PM
   Preliminary Design Review
9
03/09
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Business Plans
10
03/23
2:00 - 3:15 PM
   Entrepreneurship Lecture No. 3
11
03/30
3:30 - 4:50 PM
   Documentation Review
12
04/06
2:00 - 3:15 PM
   Exit Interviews
13
04/13
2:00 - 4:50 PM
   Project Meetings
14
04/20
2:00 - 3:15 PM
   Entrepreneurship Lecture No. 4
15
04/27 - 04/29
2:00 - 4:50 PM
   Design Reviews


Deliverables:

Presentations and hardware demonstrations are due on the days shown above. The weekly deliverables will be due on 5 PM on the days shown below, and should be loaded into your Microsoft Project documents. All other deliverables, such as the final design document, the web site, peer reviews, etc., are due on 04/27 at 5 PM. The course instruction team will download these documents from the web site at this time and grade them.

Assignment
Due Date
 Item(s)
1
01/20
 MS Project document (update);
updated product specification.
2
01/27
 MS Project document (update);
updated design constraints.
3
02/03
 MS Project document (update);
updated test specifications.
4
02/10
 MS Project document (update).
5
02/17
 MS Project document (update).
6
02/24
 MS Project document (update);
revised test specifications;
mid-term presentation review.
7
03/09
 MS Project document (update).
8
03/23
 MS Project document (update);
business plan assignment no. 1.
9
03/30
 MS Project document (update);
business plan assignment no. 2;
updated executive summary.
10
04/06
 MS Project document (update);
business plan assignment no. 3;
design document checkpoint.
11
04/13
 MS Project document (update);
business plan assignment no. 4;
web site checkpoint.
12
04/20
 MS Project document (update).
13
04/27
 MS Project document (update).


Miscellaneous:

Here are a few miscellaneous items that need your attention: