Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2010/11 |
EE10142: Electronic laboratory techniques & professional engineering practice I |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Certificate |
| Period: | This unit is available in... |
| Semester 1 |
| Assessment:
| CW 50%, EX 50% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| |
| Description:
| Aims: The unit aims to provide students with skills in the areas of practical electrical and electronic laboratory work, the influence of finite tolerances in measurements and components, the proper presentation of data and the ability to manipulate and derive other information from this. It further aims to provide students with an introduction to the Engineer's role in society and some of the aspects involved in running Engineering Businesses. Learning Outcomes: After completing this Unit, a student should be able to demonstrate the proper techniques for performing a range of measurements in an electrical laboratory environment and be able to manipulate the measured data to derive supplementary information, for example error estimations or derived parameters. Following practical work students should be able to report their findings in a succinct manner. Students should also show a basic understanding of how an Engineering Business operates, satisfying commercial, legal and professional requirements. Skills: The required skills, in terms of a proper approach to measurement techniques, estimating and processing errors, and reporting etc, will be taught, facilitated and tested through a combination of lectures, tutorial exercises, a comprehensive series of practical measurement exercises. Students should also be able to interpret simple accounts, and develop simple management plans taking into account legal and professional requirements. Content: Lectured content: * Dimensional analysis, unit multipliers (f, p, n, μ, m, k, M, G, T). * Function & curve sketching - poles, zeroes & asymptotes * Log-linear & log-log plots, decibel notation. * Errors - random & systematic * Accuracy and precision in measurements * Errors in voltage and current measurements * Plotting error bars and extracting derived error bounds * The market, Finance, Project and risk management, Quality Assurance, sustainable design and manufacture, Waste management, Health and Safety, Professional & Product Liability, Code of Conduct, Ethics Laboratory Work: Measurement of circuit variables, translation to linear relationships, plotting of graphs including estimate of errors, derivation of slope/intercept values including error bounds. "Black box" investigations to establish internal circuit structure and values of components. |