This paper proposes a new methodology, Power Block Geometry (PBG), for the presentation of power electronics topologies that process ac voltage. PBG's strategy uses formal methods based on a geometrical representation with particular rules and defines a universe with axioms and conjectures to establish a formation law. It allows power…

Digital signal processing (DSP) has been an integral part of most electrical, electronic, and computer engineering curricula. The applications of DSP in multimedia (audio, image, video) storage, transmission, and analysis are also widely taught at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels, as digital multimedia can be encountered in most…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate-level robotics course offers students the chance to integrate their engineering knowledge learned throughout their college years by building a robotic system. Robotics is thus a core course in system and control-related engineering education. This paper summarizes the experience of developing robotics courses…

This paper introduces the use of a flexible and affordable educational robot specifically developed for the practical experimentation inherent to technological disciplines. The robot has been designed to be reconfigurable and extendible, serving as an experimental platform across several undergraduate courses. As most students have a mobile cell…

This paper describes the experiences of using an advanced, low-cost robot in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. It presents three innovations: It is a powerful, cheap, robust, and small advanced personal robot; it forms the foundation of a problem-based learning curriculum; and it enables a novel multi-robot…

Educational robotics proposes the use of robots as a teaching resource that enables inexperienced students to approach topics in fields unrelated to robotics. In recent years, these activities have grown substantially in elementary and secondary school classrooms and also in outreach experiences to interest students in science, technology,…

For a basic foundation in computer engineering, universities traditionally teach synchronous sequential circuit design, using discrete gates or field programmable gate arrays, and a microcomputers course that includes basic I/O processing. These courses, though critical, expose students to only a small subset of tools. At co-op schools like…

This paper presents low-cost experiments for a control systems laboratory module that is worth one and a third credits. The experiments are organized around the microcontroller-based control of a permanent magnet dc motor. The experimental setups were built in-house. Except for the operating system, the software used is primarily freeware or free…

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very…

The topics of computer architecture are always taught using an Assembly dialect as an example. The most commonly used textbooks in this field use the MIPS64 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) to help students in learning the fundamentals of computer architecture because of its orthogonality and its suitability for real-world applications. This…

This paper presents the benefits and costs of providing students with unlimited access to programmable boards in digital design education, allowing hands-on experiences outside traditional laboratory settings. Studies were conducted at three universities in two different countries--Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN; Washington…

The rapid evolution of System-on-Chip (SoC) challenges academic curricula to keep pace with multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary system thinking. This paper presents a curricular prototype that cuts across artificial course boundaries and provides a meaningful exploration of diverse facets of SoC design. Specifically, experimental contents of a…

Early exposure to embedded computing systems is crucial for students to be prepared for the embedded computing demands of today's world. However, exposure to systems knowledge often comes too late in the curriculum to stimulate students' interests and to provide a meaningful difference in how they direct their choice of electives for future…

This paper describes the authors' experience of teaching agile software development to students of computer science, software engineering, and other related disciplines, and comments on the implications of this and the lessons learned. It is based on the authors' eight years of experience in teaching agile software methodologies to various groups…

In this paper, an educational methodology based on collaborative and competitive learning is proposed. The suggested approach has been successfully applied to an undergraduate communication networks course, which is part of the core curriculum of the three-year degree in telecommunications engineering at the University of Valladolid in Spain. This…