Syllabus

33-228

Electronics I

Spring 2009

Instructors:	Curtis A. Meyer	Brian Quinn
	Wean Hall 8414	Wean Hall 8412
	Phone: 412-268-2745	Phone: 412-268-3523
	E-mail: cmeyer@cmu.edu	E-mail: bquinn@cmu.edu

Text:	Basic Electronics by Curtis A. Meyer

Goals and motivations:

This course introduces you to electric circuit components, design, applications, and construction. We also cover the analysis techniques relevant to the linear systems (i.e., linear circuits) you will build in the lab. While you have seen material on electrical conduction, capacitors, and inductors, and associated circuit analysis, we will take a practical view of applying this knowledge and expanding it to include a broader variety of circuit components including transistors, and analog and digital integrated circuits.

In the laboratory, the emphasis will be on developing your ability to construct and understand various types of electronic circuitry. You are expected to develop skills of observation and measurement while learning the more prosaic skill of making an electronic circuit work. We will combine circuit-theoretical analysis with a more intuitive approached based on knowledge of device properties; both of these approaches are necessary for a working knowledge of electronics.

A working knowledge of electronics is necessary for almost any type of laboratory work. While many instruments are available off-the-shelf, an understanding of how such instruments work is a prerequisite to intelligent (and accurate) use. Furthermore, interfacing an experiment to an instrument frequently requires the design of an interface circuit to adjust signal levels, impedances and such. To interface a measurement to a computer usually requires the conversion of analog signals to a digital form and the analog signal needs to be properly conditioned. Finally, there are many occasions when the right instrument simply is not available off-the-shelf. A primary goal of the course is for you to become sufficiently comfortable with basic electronics to be able to move into advanced topics on your own and to apply what you know to real-world situations.

Finally, if you understand electrical circuit theory, you have an analog or analogy for many systems in the physical world. Conversely, when you study physical mechanics, condensed matter physics, Fourier series, and many other topics, you will have seen a system which exhibits many analogous properties. This analogy emerges from the fact that linear electronic circuits can be described by a second order linear differential equation much like the form of Newton's second law -- you just have to re-interpret the symbols!
 
 

Procedures:

There will be two lecture classes per week (Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30 - 10:20 in Hamerschlag B103). Here, we will discuss materials pertinent to the following week's laboratory work and introduce the more formal aspects of circuit theory. Occasional quizzes may be given, in part to give you feedback on your ability to use the theory. The two tests (see below) will also be held during this hour.

There are two lab sections, one on Monday and Wednesday (Sec A) (1:30 - 4:20, Doherty Hall A324), the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Sec B) (same time and place). We will, as necessary, take time at the beginning of lab periods to introduce new material and/or discuss details of procedure.

You should purchase five bound laboratory notebooks (not spiral, but bound -- these are available in the book or art store). (Bound means that to remove a page, you need to tear it out). When you complete a lab, you will turn in the notebook containing all the work for that lab. Bring the relevant notebook to each lab period to record all information, circuit diagrams and data. Your notebook should be sufficiently detailed that you or another person could use only the notebook to repeat your work (Note: it is not uncommon to find that you doubt your own measurements when you look back at them -- and it is amazing how fast the small details of how you did something can leak out of the brain; hence, a good notebook is essential. Furthermore, out there in the cold, cruel world, someone else may doubt your work and want to check it -- to have your work accepted, it must be repeatable and to be repeatable, one has to know what to repeat!). In the laboratory, you will typically share the work with one lab partner, but you should be sure to understand all details of what the two of you are doing and why.  Your instructors will give feedback on the notebooks during lab periods. The notebooks will not be graded on neatness per se (but legibility is a must), but will be treated as an additional means of evaluating your effort and understanding of laboratory procedures and your laboratory skills.

One of the labs (or sections thereof) will be written up as a formal lab report. This will be graded for quality of presentation and correctness of procedure, results, and understanding. A sample of one of these is available on the course web page. The subject matter of the reports will be announced during the semester.Unlike most of the work in this course, the formal report is not a collaborative project. Each student must turn in their own, individual and unique report. No two students should turn in the same material.

Homework assignments will allow you to develop a quantitative ability with circuit theory and will expose you to circuits which we do not have time to build and test in the lab.

Grading:

For more details on grading, please see the grade web page. It gives break downs on letter grades as well as historical grade distributions.

Exams:

There will be two in-class exams during the course. For more details and sample exams, see the exam page. The exams will be held on Thursday February 19 and Thursday April 23.

Policies:

Obviously, collaborative work is allowed and encouraged in the lab. Discussing procedures, from how to take data most efficiently to why the circuit works the way it does, is a significant part of gaining a complete understanding.

On homework assignments, it is permissible to discuss problems with other students (and with the instructors), but the work you hand in should be your own. This also applies to the writing of lab reports. Neither your lab book nor the formal report should be a carbon copy of your lab partners.

Clearly, all work on the tests must be done independently.

Web site:

The course web site is located at http://www-meg.phys.cmu.edu/physics_33228/.

Copies of lab procedures, homework assignments, etc will be posted here so that you can download them when needed.

Laboratory Schedule

See also the updated page giving day-by-bay activities. You can also download copies of all of the lab assignments and any needed component specification sheeet from the laboratory page.