A Short Electrical Engineering Course for Freshmen

A twelve-hour, four-week course in electrical engineering for freshman students is described. The goals of the course are chosen so as to best help freshman engineering students to decide whether or not they should elect to enter the electrical engineering department in their sophomore year. In view of the shortness of time available in which to get this message across, a great deal of thought was put into the design of the course including the use of a live TV system that displays experimental observations, as they happen, to a large class.     

A Course in the Principles of Engineering for Freshmen

An engineering course for freshmen is described. The course begins with a discussion of the philosophy of preliminary design and then moves to certain "macroconcepts" used in the design process: These are: economics, energy, thermodynamics, information, human factors, and optimization. An important feature of the course is a weekly three-hour design laboratory in which the principles covered in lecture are applied to realistic engineering problems.     

A Computer Engineering Nucleus for Electrical Engineering Curricula

An approach is proposed for including a sequence of four computer engineering courses in required undergraduate electrical engineering curricula. Justification of the need is presented in terms of the modern electrical engineer's involvement with the digital computer. Each course is described in terms of objectives, content, prerequisites, laboratory, credit, scheduling, and possible texts. Implementation of the sequence is also considered in relation to laboratory facility needs, availability of qualified instructors, and accommodation in existing curricula. Experience with a similar arrangement at Auburn University is related.     

Motivating Engineering Freshmen through an Authentic Design Experience

As an integral part of the required course "Introduction to Engineering," every freshman engineer at Arizona State University is involved in a realistic design project. The object is to give the student a clear idea of the role of the engineer, the challenges he faces, and the skills he must acquire. In this project, each student works as a member of an "engineering firm" which develops a new design that is based on one of a number of ideas originally generated by the students themselves. This paper describes how this design competition is organized. This design experience, running through the entire semester, is paralleled by weekly lectures by prominent engineers from industry, as well as by formal conventional instruction in the elements of engineering analysis and computation.     

A Projects Laboratory for Electrical Engineering Students

This paper describes a laboratory course in electric machines and power systems that is under development at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for senior electrical engineering students. The basic premise being followed is that students learn only by doing original work in which they are genuinely interested. Therefore, the assignments consist of original projects, selected by the individual students which require making and testing some novel assembly of machines and circuits. Examples of these projects are making a mercury electric pump, making and testing various forms of reactor with alnico, solid steel, or copper sections inserted in the ac flux path, developing a novel battery charging circuit for automobiles with ac power supply and a static current regulator in place of the usual voltage regulator, and testing a self-excited alternator of novel design with a static voltage regulator.     

Retraining for Electrical Engineering Employees in Industry

The continuing education of engineers throughout General Electric has been studied to determine its effectiveness in combating technical obsolescence. Better guidance of updating programs is needed and is resulting from experience with a six-week refresher course for engineering managers and a new doctoral program. Personalized education programs are recommended which use many varieties of learning and which permit the continuous updating of large numbers of students.     

A Microprocessor Laboratory for Electrical Engineering Seniors

An approach to the laboratory instruction of electrical engineering students in the principles of microprocessor and microcomputer interfacing is presented. Instructional apparatus including the Rockwell AIM-65 microcomputer and a homemade educational interfacing unit is described. Finally, the details of each laboratory experiment are given.     

电气工程专业英语教学研究

专业英语是一门重要的课程,对于提高学生综合素质、增强学生就业力具有重要意义.针对电气工程专业英语教学中存在的一些问题进行了分析,对提高电气工程专业英语教学效果的方法进行了探讨,指出了加强学习过程中的实践环节,加强学生综合能力培养的重要性,并介绍了一些有关考核评估的有效举措.     

Computer Requirements for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Curricula

The National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a grant to support the formation of a national consortium of universities and industries. The mission of the consortium is to coordinate independent efforts of the member universities to update the engineering and applied sciences curricula for the 1980's. Shortly after its formation, the consortium recommended that industry "encourage the development of joint research projects with universities." In the spirit of the consortium, but independent of its funding, the General Electric Company (GE) designed, organized, and hosted a workshop that included professors from a number of engineering universities in the northeast and several GE educational specialists. Their objective was to define "Computer Requirements for Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Curricula." Since most university faculty are reluctant to change their legitimate area...curriculum, it is significant that the GE-hosted group arrived at a consensus. The proceedings which are presented here outline the approach used in the workshop and the results. These proceedings were reviewed by a member of the NSF consortium, who found them commendable and right on track with the spirit and effort of the consortium.     

Electrical Engineering at the Crossroads

The rapid growth of computer sciences is presenting electrical engineering with a serious problem. Should electrical engineering departments adapt their curricula to meet the special needs of computer engineers and scientists or should they leave the field to computer science departments? An argument is made in favor of establishing special programs in computer sciences within electrical engineering, and a new curriculum in electrical engineering at Berkeley, which includes such a program, is outlined.     

Situation Problems in Electrical Engineering

During the past few years, I have developed a couple dozen problems in Electrical Engineering which are somewhat unusual. The problems are written around a situation similar to case studies as employed in Business Schools. I try with some introductory comments to project the student into a "real life" situation and then lead him through a series of step-at-a-time solutions. One of the purposes of the situation problems is to heighten the student's interest and thereby increase his motivation. Additionally, the student learns to follow through a lengthy line of reasoning and related engineering design. Since the problems frequently require the full use of broad prior knowledge, the student learns to integrate together a number of subjects. In this respect, the problems help to augment his laboratory experience. The situation problems typically require a considerable amount of time both by the student in solving and by the instructor in grading. Occasionally, the problems are done in groups or as class exercises. The problem answers follow sequentially and initial errors are propagated. This is justified as being a "real life" experience and therefore valuable to the student in teaching him to work accurately The over-all student reaction has, I feel, been quite favorable. In discussing the solutions, the instructor has an opportunity to interpolate numerous comments, as appropriate, concerning analysis, approximations, and engineering design philosophy. The following situation problem on "Transistorized Low-Frequency Class C Amplifier" was recently prepared.     

建筑电气工程监理

目前,电气工程的投资占整个建筑物建设投资的比重越来越大.通过给出某工程的具体监理实例,提出了建筑电气工程设计和施工阶段监理的系统方法,希望对我国正在发展的建筑电气工程监理工作提供有益的参考.     

Power Electronics in Electrical Engineering

The area of Power Electronics consists of groups of topics which should now form part of a program in Electrical Power Engineering. Some of these topics can be introduced by modifying part of the standard curriculum in Electrical Engineering; others require the introduction of new courses. Desirable modifications are described and new courses in Thyristor Circuits are outlined. It is acknowledged that the number of courses required to give students an adequate knowledge of Power Electronics may be considered excessive for an undergraduate program in that they could result in a level of specialization which may be undesirable. In this case the main group of courses on Thyristor Circuits would be part of the graduate program with one introductory course included in the undergraduate program.