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Bulletin Description

EE196 Electrical Engineering Problem Solving-3 credits-Taught Spring and Fall semesters each year. Pre-or Co-requisite: Math 163-5 credits-Integrated Calculus and Analytic Geometry.

Introduction to electrical engineering and to the use of mathematics and computers in engineering problem solving. Introduction to various electrical engineering fields and the tools used in subject areas common to most electrical engineering disciplines.

The course contains 2 to 3 weeks of materials that introduces beginning engineering students to college and campus survival skills. This is to ensure the transition into college level education runs smoothly for students from diverse backgrounds.

The purpose of this course is to introduce beginning students to the profession, and to provide them with the skills to be successful in the electrical engineering curriculum and the school. Recognizing that the personal computer has precipitated fundamental changes in the way engineers solve problems, the course places a substantial emphasis on learning to use computer aided design (CAD) software. The 3 principal CAD tools for the course are AutoCad, Matlab, and PSPice.

AutoCad is a widely used drafting tool that was selected for both electrical and mechanical engineering students. It is easy to learn, and uses familiar objects to build up various mechanical and electrical designs. The basic operations involving the control of the workspace, and the editing of work in progress, are common to many CAD packages. Once a student is familiar with AutoCad, learning a similar drafting tool is much simpler.

The second software package, Matlab, is a mathematical tool that will be used throughout the undergraduate curriculum in both electrical and mechanical engineering. Typical beginning uses are solving simultaneous algebraic equations, plotting functions and data, and finding roots of polynomials. Since Matlab is also a high level programming language, some small routines can b written as well. Later in the curriculum, some of the Matlab toolboxes will be used for engineering system modeling image processing. This tool is the most challenging package studied in EE196, but it is also the most powerful from an analytical viewpoint.

The last software package used in PSPice, which is a circuit analysis package. The uses for EE196 are limited, since students are not expected to have a formal background in circuit theory. However, experience shows that when students are provided with a circuit schematic, and given an introduction to the way in which PSPice operates, they can obtain meaningful analytical results which can be compared to actual lab results. PSPice retrieves electrical parts from libraries, allows the drawing of wires to connect the components, and then permits the user to characterize the nature of the study to be done on the completed circuit. Both tabulated and graphical output data are easily obtainable. This is always a popular tool with EE students. PSPice is used as part of a small project assigned at the end of the course. The project takes teams of students through the essentials of a typical engineering design project. Each student team then gives a written report, and participates in a final "show and tell" oral report on their project outcomes.

The newest portion of the course features an introduction to topics needed by students for a successful college career.

  1. Campus computing services (CITS) and e-mail (jewel)
  2. Engineering and Technology computer network center (CNC)
  3. A structured visit to the campus Library
  4. Web-based tools for research and design assistance
  5. Campus UEC counseling/mentoring programs; Freshman and EE counseling programs.
  6. Study skills, time and stress management methods.
  7. Tutoring assistance on campus and in EE.
  8. Student organization, especially the EE student society, IEEE.

Textbooks for EE196, available in the campus bookstore:

  1. A Tutorial Guide to AutoCad Release 14, by Shawna D. Lockhart, Addison-Wesley, 1998.
  2. EE and ME 196: Engineering Problem Solving Notes, by M.E. Rizkalla, C.F. Yokomoto, and N. Lamm.
  3. Introduction to Matlab for Engineers, by William J. Palm, McGraw Hill, 1998.

Ultimate Objectives

After completion of the AutoCAD portion of this class students should be able to use AutoCAD Release 14 to:
  1. Recognize the icons, menus, and commands and used in AutoCAD Release 14.
  2. Be able to edit drawings, use the Help menu in AutoCAD, add text to drawings, and export drawings for inclusion in Word documents.
  3. Duplicate a two-dimensional drawing of a mechanical part, showing front, top, side or cross sectional views, and including dimensioning and appropriate layers.

After completion of the MATLAB portion of this class, students should be able to use MATLAB 5.1 to:
  1. Evaluate algebraic expressions.
  2. Perform complex number arithmetic and find the magnitude and angle of complex numbers.
  3. Create a vector of evenly spaced values using either the colon operator or linspace function.
  4. Form matrices from individual elements, vectors, and other matrices.
  5. Reference individual elements or groups of elements in a matrix.
  6. Perform element by element operations when appropriate in solving a problem.
  7. Perform matrix operations when appropriate in solving a problem.
  8. Perform polynomial addition, multiplication and division.
  9. Find roots of polynomials.
  10. Evaluate polynomials at given points.
  11. Write, save and execute M-files.
  12. Write files to accommodate user input entered from the keyboard.
  13. Write outputs in desired format using the disp and fprintf commands.
  14. Make tables of values, with appropriate labels.
  15. Plot equations or experimental data on rectilinear, semilog, or log-log graphs, with title and axis labels, making use of different linetypes, data markers, legends and text labels as appropriate.
  16. Fit experimental data to a polynomial of any degree and then plot the polynomial function along with the experimental data points on a rectilinear graph, labeled appropriately.
  17. Make bar, stem, and stairs plots, labeled appropriately.
  18. Make 3-D surface and contour plots, labeled appropriately.
  19. Use MATLAB's built-in functions to analyze data and perform mathematical calculations.
  20. Write user-defined functions.
  21. Solve simultaneous equations

After completion of the PSpice/project portion of the course, students should be able to:
  1. Use the Schematic Capture Editor in PSpice to obtain electrical parts from the library and draw the connecting wires to complete a circuit schematic.
  2. Perform a simple DC and AC analysis on a given schematic.
  3. Breadboard a simple circuit and perform electrical measurements on it.
  4. Working with a team, write a small report using Microsoft Word which compares the analytic data from PSpice with the test data taken in the EE measurements lab.
  5. Participate in a team oral report on the project.

After completion of the Introduction to Campus portion of the course, students should be able to:
  1. Send e-mail using their assigned account from the university.
  2. Use the CNC network computers for completing student work.
  3. Use the library to find information on a given topic.
  4. Know the sources of student help at the university and the school levels.
  5. Be able to layout a workable schedule of academic studies, work hours, and study time.
  6. Demonstrate understanding of the procedures for pre-registration, adding, or dropping courses, and where to obtain information and help with academic matters.
 

 

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This page was last modified August 12, 1998
Please contact John Schild (jhs@engr.iupui.edu) concerning this site.