Portfolio 1

• Background Qualifications
• Skills Audit (at beginning of semester)
• Peer Logbook Review
   

Time Planning

Typical week

Notes for above:
Travel takes approx 25-35 mins depending on traffic.
Light work could vary from working on university website, to background reading, to tutorial questions I know are quite easy.

Individual Subject Reflection - Year 1 Semester 1

XE100 - Mathematics for Engineers A

This is where all the required mathematic skills are acquired for the other subject areas in the degree.
However, having completed an A-Level in applied Mathematics already, the only new areas in this subject are complex (j & polar) notation and the cross product in vector analysis.
It is on the other hand a very good refresh, as for a lot of the calculus (differentiation / integration) in the A-Level, I found difficult to understand.

Lecture / Notes review

XE103 - Measurements

From the offset, the title of this course appeared to sound like a 'waste of time.' However it became obvious from the first lecture that it would be a valuable experience, for both use in conjunction with EO108 (Eng Apps A) and any further career in the future.
In this course the skills of using the lab instruments (CROs, bench multi-function instruments etc.) and good measurement technique are taught. This includes the underlying factor that any measurement, no matter how it may seem exact (especially with digital read-outs), that the instruments always have a tolerance therefore meaning the measured value is an approximation within the instrument's specification.
From these lectures / lab sessions I have learnt more about how to appreciate the error factors that come into measurement procedures.

EO105 - Digital Electronics and Microprocessors

The first section of this course teaches the fundamental theorems of digital systems, including binary algebra. The second section looks at the μ-processor fundamentals.
Having completed an A-Level in electronics (grade A), many of the 'fundamentals' of logical operation lectures were not worthwhile to attend. I did however attend lectures for the areas I felt I was a little weak on (synchronous counters being one), which was worthwhile, as at A-Level I had only studied D-Type flip-flops and this EO105 module concentrates on the J-K flip-flop.

EO106 - Electronic Engineering Practice

The function of these lectures is to develop the fundamental skills for a good (electronic) engineer. Although I found many of the exercises quite trivial at times, I could see the point in doing them and the benefits.
There has so far only been one assignment for this module, which is to 'research into all aspects of a weather station' as a group. For many people it was the first time for working as a group, although having done this type of thing before, I took the role of the group leader. I was not elected for the position as 'group leader', but seeing as the spot needed filling it seemed like a good idea to try and organise things (e.g. keeping track of who has done what research and assigning different people to each other to do peer reviews.
Due to the report body for the weather station having to be only two pages, it involved a lot of condensing of information (2 pages + title page + appendices). My write up can be found here.
I have only so far received one of the two peer reviews (as of 11/01/05). It can be viewed here.

EO108 - Engineering Applications A

The entirely lab-based course.
This is where the 'prototyping' skills are acquired. The two projects in this semester are a power supply unit (PSU) and a speaker cross-over network (as a group).
The PSU requires the construction and testing of a pre-designed variable DC power supply. This was a fairly easy project for myself, having already learnt basic soldering techniques elsewhere, although it was still a very valuable experience, for getting used to lab equipment and my own tool kit. The report for this project is here.
The cross over (X-over for short) network is being completed as a group. This group splits down into 2 sets of 2 people - active high & low pass filters, and passive high & low pass filters. The plan it the moment is for each set of 2 within our group to get their individual filter to work, and the combine back as a group so that everyone knows exactly how each filter works (i.e. not just the one they designed). So far everything appears to be be running smoothly for this project, with both active filters working, and the passive filters under test (at 12/01/05).

EO110 - Analogue Electronics

From the offset, I felt these lectures were going to be similar for me, to the digital lectures, having completed an A-Level in electronics. However it was clear from the first lecture that it was now going to be that easy!
The first part of the course focuses on circuit analysis (path analysis, mesh analysis, Ohm's lam, Kirchoff's voltage law, Thévin's theorem, Norton's theorem) and the use of j notation for capacitive and inductive impedances. The second part of the module moves onto looking at operational amplifier circuits (which obviously will contain all the fundamentals that the first portion of the module taught). The theory of this module links in very closely with the EO108 X-over project, as to design a filter, one must first understand how it works.
This module has been a very worthwhile experience for myself, as in the A-Level, circuit theory was by no means near as complicated as the examples used in this EO110 module.

Lecture / Notes review

EO116 - CAE for Electronic Engineers

This is a module to introduce students to the electronic workbench software, Multisim, used by the university. Being able to simulate electronic circuits on a PC is a vital part of designing any circuit in the modern-day industry as it is far more cost-effective to find out that the circuit being designed does not work within a simulator, rather than building it with real components and finding it does not operate as expected.
It would seem that the newly upgraded software that the University as invested in, has many bugs. However once I found out how Multisim expects the operator to use it, the process of simulating circuits, or at least creating circuit schematics, became quite easy. One of the main problems that kept re-appearing in the simulation crashes, was that components were not being used in the circuit as Multisim expected them to be. For example a pin on a logic gate is expected to be held 'high' or 'low' via a coupling resistor, and a digital ground must be at the 0V potential. Once the problems were brought into consideration, Multisim appears to be a highly powerful tool in the design of circuits. This software was particularly useful in the design of the X-Over network in the EO108 module, with the ability to plot frequency responses for then design, and in theory, translate the schematic onto a PCB layout, although this feature was not working at the time.

Gantt Chart for Power Supply Project

Gantt Chart for Cross Over Network Project

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© 2005 Michael Curry
Last revised 08 February 2005