ECE: Electronics Track Overview

The first course teaches basic electrical and math concepts to students with no previous background in the subject. This is extended in later courses to include digital logic design and later embedded system and IoT design concepts. The courses include:

Electronics 1: Introduction to Electronics and Computers

Topics covered include basic electricity, common electronic components, basic circuit analysis, number theory and an introduction to computing (hardware and software systems).
Status: Course Design 50% complete.

Electronics 2: Digital Logic Design

Digital electronics are at the heart of almost everything we use today. This course introduces basic digital theory and design. Numbering systems, boolean algebra, boolean functions and conventions and reductions are covered followed by sequential circuit design. Theory work is paired with digital circuit design and build projects using discrete TTL logic.
Status: Course design in progress

Electronics 3: Embedded Systems and IoT

This course introduces micro-controllers, or small programmable computers, into circuit design. We use the Arduino Uno controller for our classes due to it’s ease of use, low cost and availability. Concepts learned in this course can be applied to most other common controllers available today. The specific layout of the course is still under development. It will include micro-controller basics, A/D and D/A converters, programming environments (Arduino), library usage and how to connect student designed logic and analogue circuits.
Status: Course design in progress

Notes:

  • this course requires Programming 2 as a prerequisite
  • the amount of material covered in this course may require breaking it into two separate courses
  • if broken into 2 courses coverage of ESP32 and similar controllers would be desirable.

PCB Theory and Design: KiCad

This course is still on the drawing board. The intention is to teach the basics of good printed circuit board design using KiCad. This is followed by practical issues involved with debugging and submitting designs to PCB factories.
Status: Under consideration