Equipment for Undergraduate Instruction: "Engineering Uncovered" This project will outfit an exploratory laboratory in a freshman electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS) course begun in Fall 1991. It is believed that these freshmen can learn much and be motivated by studying equipment and devices that have been "opened up" for viewing and testing. The lab presently contains pieces of state-of-the-art communications, computing, and measuring equipment, such as: telephones; radio and television receivers; VCR and CD players; an ultrasonic focusing system designed for an instant camera; and fiber optic communication links. Inexpensive commercial multi-experiment electronic kits are also available. This grant provides the equipment needed to study the performance of these systems, together with several specialized one-of-a-kind setups. The course of which the lab is a part was constructed in a modular fashion to permit its being used in EECS by other instructors and at other schools, and, with changes, in other fields of engineering. In particular, it is expected that the course will be tested in all eight schools of the NSF coalition ("Synthesis: The NSF Engineering Education Coalition") -- Cal (Berkeley), Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo), Cornell, Hampton, Iowa State, Southern University, Stanford, and Tuskegee Institute.
