Practical EngineeringI hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do

and I understand. - Confucius

Ashwith Jerome Regoashwith@ieee.orghttp://ashwith.wordpress.com

What is it?

• College lab experiments - not the way you're doing it now.

• Smaller experiments - because the labs cannot cover everything.

• Projects - That's why you're here today.

• Exploring beyond the syllabus

• Teaching is the best way to learn

Why should you care?

• Improves your Résumé (That's what everyone really cares about isn't it? ;-))

• Get a feel of how R&D works.

• What did Confucius say again?

• Strengthens understanding - Interviews will be a piece of cake!

• Bragging rights! :-)

• Syllabus becomes more interesting.

• Marks aren't everything. Projects really show what you know.

• That's how things get discovered or invented

• The most important reason - It's fun!

What's important?

• Know the theory first - know it well.

• Try to create something small from what you've just learned.

• Build up from here.

• DO NOT COPY! Work hard, struggle, design it yourself. It feels great in the end!

• Share what you create. Teaching is the best way to learn.

• Keep it Simple. Have Fun.

The Fun part: Projects

• Do your homework. Study the required material. Do a thorough literature survey.

• Plan a schedule (with your mentor). Set deadlines and stick to them.

• Document your work from the beginning.

• Work hard. "Pick a formula and substitute" doesn't always work. Get your hands dirty. That's how we had fun as kids :-)

• Be independent. If you don't get it right do everything you can to figure it out yourself. Your mentor should be your last resort.

• Regular updates - Keep your mentor informed.

Where do I start?

• If you want to build circuits, learn to solder. It's easy, takes a few minutes to learn and only a day or two to master.

• If you're going to code, learn to do it right.

• Your college lab. Don't complain. It's much better than you think.

• Simulation tools.

• Cheap boards and equipment.

• Contests, tech fests.

• Workshops.

Basic Equipment

• Multimeter x 2

• Soldering Iron

• Breadboards

• General Purpose PCBs

• Basic components: assorted resistors, capacitors, op-amps, transistors, wires (or any analog starter kit), sensors, motors.

• Batteries: 12V, 9V, 5V.

Basic Equipment

More Equipment

• Power supply

• Soldering station

• Oscilloscope

Embedded Systems

• Platforms: 8051, Arduino (or any other Atmel platform), MSP430, PIC.

• Software: Keil evaluation edition, Arduino IDE, CCS Studio limited edition, GCC.

• First learn to read from various sensors as well as control actuators such as motors, LCD displays and simple display LEDs.

• Start with simple projects which directly use these sensors. Thermometers, light detectors and motion sensors.

• Move to the next level: Robots, manufacturing plant controllers (remember what you've learned in Control systems).

Embedded Systems

Analog Design

• Be thorough with the theory first. Analog circuits, signals and systems, controls systems are important subjects.

• Simulation tools:o gEDA: http://www.gpleda.org/o Online Tools: https://www.circuitlab.com/

• Design on paper. Verify with simulation. Then go ahead and build.

Analog Design

Digital Design

• Platforms: Discrete ICs, PLDs, FPGAs.

• Pick either Verilog or VHDL.

• Design + Verification. Very few know the latter.

• Understand the entire workflow - from architecture specification to synthesis.

• Automation using Scripts. Perl, Shell Scripting.

• OVM, UVM and SystemVerilog, SystemC.

Digital Design

Software

• Get familiar with any *nix environment. Then slowly become an expert.

• Concentrate more on how to design and think about a program. Languages are secondary.

• Learn to write fast efficient programs (Algorithm design/selection). Not everyone has a fast multi-core CPU with a lot of RAM.

• Coding style and standards compliance is important.

• Raspberry Pi: http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Gertboard

• Android/iOS/Windows Mobile/Java.

Software

• Fedora Electronic Lab (GNU/Linux)

• Scilab, Octave

• Maxima, Sagemath

• Libraries: LAPACK, OpenCV, NumPy, SciPy

• Online Courseso edX: https://www.edx.org/o Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/o Udacity: http://www.udacity.com/

• Use the right books!

• Use the right software!

Free Resources

• Blogs and websites:o Ashwith http://ashwith.wordpress.com/o Flip flop http://msuraj.wordpress.com/o Infinity Redefined

http://msharmavikram.wordpress.com/

• Workshops

• Online Forums

• Remember: Teaching is the best way to learn! (I won't repeat that again :-))

• Résumé boost.

Sharing is caring

Rewind...

• Always start small.

• Understand why things work.

• Plan thoroughly. Break everything into manageable bits.

• Be patient. Projects are hard and it takes time. That's how the industry is as well.

• Learn because you want to and you like it.

• If it's not fun it's not worth it. Find out what really is your passion.

• Share what you learn.

• Open-hardware, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

• Protecting your work - licenses.

• Learning never stops after college!

Any questions?

Don't be shy!

Thank You!

This is the part where you clap ;-)