Engineering Now 2009
 
 

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)

The “dungeon” moniker no longer applies

Using the engineering fee funds, “We took two labs that looked like dungeons in the past and now they look like work environments for the industry,” said Jaime de la Ree, assistant department head of undergraduate studies and a professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE). The drop ceiling with florescent lighting replaces a high ceiling where pipes were visible and lights bland. “We have students working on benches that look very similar to what they have in the industry. So when students learn there [in the lab], they are training for what they will use after they graduate.”

The funds are providing the students in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with   new equipment that can help further their education and prepare them for the present-day commercial market. They also have newly renovated labs on the second floor of Whittemore Hall with better lighting and seats to make the process of learning more comfortable.

In two labs, some windows have been added so people in the hallways can peer inside and see students working in a lab environment. De la Ree said the purpose wasn't solely aesthetic. “I like it when other students and faculty and possible sponsors walk by the window and they can see the room buzzing with students.”

The technology on those classroom lab benches allows students to test circuits they build with computer precision and deeper analysis. Transistors, oscilloscopes, meters, circuit boards, network analyzers, desktop function generators, and a host of other equipment have been replaced. Before, students had to test and record by hand and draw out curves and graphs. Now, that data and printouts all are produced by computer. Curve tracers, which allow for testing of a circuit over a short period of time, soon will be replaced with money from the engineering fee.

Students in a senior level electronic lab, where studies focus on energy efficiency, have seen new equipment trickle into their lab thus far. But next year that will change as money from the engineering fee flows in. At the top of the list to be replaced are motors used to power experiments. The motors are 25 years old and constantly break down, thus hampering classroom time. The new motors, along with additional lab equipment, will complement new, high-tech smart grid equipment recently donated by Dominion Virginia Power. The equipment is able to monitor the operations and power flows on the transmission grid, as well as detect and locate system faults. The donated equipment and other instruments and tools purchased with funds from the engineering fee will help students train to fill the void of jobs within the energy power industry, de la Ree said.

“It's been a real godsend to us” because the students like the lab environments better, said Dennis Newman, the technical support director for ECE who oversees the labs.

The fee also has funded the purchase of 110 USB oscilloscopes — at $150 each — for Kathleen Meehan's 3074 electrical engineering lab. The new devices have a frequency range of 1 megahertz, far better than what the lab was using — a free software oscilloscope package that topped out at 10 kilohertz. “That's a huge difference,” Meehan said. The new USB devices also are more user-friendly for students, and will result in newly expanded lab experiments in class because of the higher range.

New curve tracers also are being purchased for the ECE labs, replacing older models purchased in the 1980s that have aged, Meehan, an ECE assistant professor, said. The new curve tracers also will have better ranges — in this case, down to 1 microamp. The current devices cannot measure that low.