Course contents

This course is designed to introduce first year students to the principles of engineering practice. Faculty from different departments will introduce the students to complexity of engineering systems, design of form and functionality, innovations in engineering, eco sensitive engineering, bad designs and other such topics. The main goal is to communicate to the students that engineering is a lot more than solving a small problem in isolation.

For my part, I took examples of everyday electronic systems-CD player and LCD projector-and showed how turning each of them into a portable product accessible to the average consumer involved putting together a number of advanced technologies from different areas of electrical engineering and material science.

The course has two design contests to stimulate interest in students to build innovative projects. In the first one, the topics involving electronics were a bicycle speedometer and an electronic distance measurement device using a mouse. Students used a variety of approaches including a leaf switch made out of razor blades, a hacked up calculator for use as a counter, and a mouse attached to a mini drafter to make it move parallel to itself. In the second one, I asked the students to build a passive radio or a race clock. You can see a montage of the projects here. Prathap, the course co-ordinator, has put up images of all design contest projects on his website.

The full course page containing lectures, assignments, and other information can be accessed at the