EE 400/401 - Electrical Engineering Capstone Design

EE 400 and EE 401: Capstone Design for Electrical Engineers

The University policy about course outlines can be found in Section 23.4(2) of the University Calendar.

This portion of the syllabus is common to both EE 400 and EE 401. For more specific information regarding one of the courses, select the course from the menu, above, or follow the links at the end of this page.

Description:

These two courses form the Capstone Design Project for Electrical Engineers. Students are required to take these two courses in consecutive Fall/Winter terms in one academic year. In the courses, student groups design and build electronics projects representative of those commonly encountered in industry. Application of practical and theoretical knowledge from prior courses is required. In the laboratory environment, these skills are confirmed and extended.

A project will typically be directed to solve a specific problem and is expected to involve:

problem identification and description;
analysis of existing methods;
description of possible approaches to solving the problem;
evaluation of different approaches;
selection of the approach, specification of goals, and determination of milestones;
implementation of this plan with adaptations as required;
documenting the evolution of the project;
design and construction of PCB(s), including CAD schematic capture; and
testing, demonstrating, and presenting.

More information about projects, including suggestions, can be found by selecting the Project menu item, above.

Group Formation:

Groups of 4 students are formed for the duration of both EE400 and EE401. In the 2009-10 academic year, students are asked to make a request regarding who they would like to have in their group while observing the constraints described, below. Please note, that this is termed a 'request' since the instructor may find it necessary to adjust group membership to make better use of laboratory resources, to ensure program option requirements are met, and/or to accommodate student-initiated membership changes, outlined in the next section.

When forming your group, you are constrained by the following:

EE400 Laboratory Section: all members must be enrolled in the same lab section.
EE Program Option: all members need to be in the same EE option.
Number of Members: all groups are to have four members.

Due to the number of students in particular laboratory sections, the instructor will inform specific groups when deviation from the last two constraints, above, is permitted.

Please note that there is a likelihood that whatever friendships exist within a group will be tested by the challenging nature of the courses.

When selecting a groups' members, attempt to do so such that you have collectively demonstrated mastery in the following topics:

embedded system design and programming (perhaps via EE380);
hands-on skills, including mechanical assembly and soldering experience;
document writing and preparation;
presentation design and delivery; and
planning and coordinating.

All group members will be responsible for all topics, above, but experience has shown that groups with a varied skill-set tend to work better together, in part due to the sharing of expertise at the group level.

Group Membership Changes:

It is possible for the membership of a group to be internally adjusted in one of two manners:

Firing: this situation typically arises when a group member is negligent in fulfilling their responsibilities to the group. The group can collectively ask this person to leave the group (following the protocol outlined, below).
Quitting: this situation arises when a member of the group feels that they are "carrying" the rest of the group and desires to leave it. The individual can inform his/her group that they are leaving (once again following the protocol outlined, below).

In both cases, the departing individual is responsible for finding a new group with four or fewer individuals to accept them. The instructor, however, must approve this change in order to maintain laboratory organization and to ensure that project scope changes, if required, are possible. Failure to find a new group to join will result in marks of 0 being allocated to remaining work, which, in turn, will likely result in course failure, and the need to take the courses again.
Group membership changes are not to be considered lightly. Both sorts of membership changes require a paper trail demonstrating that concerted effort was used to rectify the situation, and the approval of the instructor who is to be kept well-informed of the conflict as it develops.
In order to change group membership, the following protocol is to be used:

If a team member is uncooperative, the group should first make concerted, traceable internal effort to rectify the situation. Conversations held between conflicting group members are encouraged but should be made traceable by following-up with a written (perhaps email) statement describing the contents of the conversation, distributed to all participating members.
In the event that there is no internal resolution, the group is asked to notify the individual, by way of a written memo copied to the instructor, that he or she is in danger of being released from the group. This memo is to describe the grievances, the manner by which the individual can remove themselves from the danger of release, and a date that the corrective action needs to be taken- or demonstrated by (a guideline is two weeks from the date the memo is issued). Upon receiving the memo, the instructor will request the written record of conflict-management, made in the last step, and will review the group work evaluations (described in the next section). The instructor will attempt to mediate the situation during a meeting with the entire group and/or the individual alone, as deemed appropriate at the time.
Within two working days of the passing of the deadline outlined in the warning memo, the cooperating group members are to submit a memo to the individual, copying the instructor, indicating whether or not the situation has been resolved. If the situation has not improved, this memo may release the individual, but only after approval by the instructor who will need to verify that release is logistically possible.
Also within two working days of the passing of the deadline outlined in the warning member, the individual whose contributions were under question is also asked to submit a memo to the instructor indicating the corrective action that has been taken. Substantiation will be requested.
In the even that the group released the individual, the memo submitted to the instructor in the last stage will be used to help the instructor determine the options that the released individual has at his or her disposal. The individual is asked to meet with the instructor.

You are encouraged to have the instructor review the memorandums prior to their transmission.

An analogous approach is used for an individual who is considering quitting a group due to lack of participation of the remainder of the group.

Please be aware that the instructor is more reluctant to approve membership changes occurring late in the project development cycle. Membership changes that have not been initiated prior to Reading Week in the current academic year are discouraged unless the situation is exceptional. It is suggested that you establish your project schedule in a manner that will test the group relationships earlier rather than later.

Evaluation of Group-oriented Work:

Much of the evaluation carried out through the design project courses is group-oriented (exceptions are noted in the course-specific syllabi). An "Autorating" method of evaluation is used to calculate marks for individual members during evaluation of group-oriented work. This method is adapted from R.W. Brown's work, Autorating: Getting individual marks from team marks and enhancing teamwork in proceedings of the 1995 Conference on Frontiers in Education, paper 3C24. Adaptations are by R.M Felder and R. Brent and presented in a seminar on Cooperative Learning, 2007. Much of what follows is extracted from these materials.
The Autorating system works as follows:

The work is evaluated by the instructor or GTA. The resulting grade is referred to as the "Group Grade".

Students are asked to rate all team members' involvement (including their own) while completing the group-evaluated work. Ratings should reflect level of participation, effort, and sense of responsibility rather than academic ability. Possible ratings are as follows:

Excellent	Consistently went above and beyond: tutored teammates, carried more than his/her fair share of the load.
Very good	Consistently did what he/she was supposed to do, very well prepared and cooperative.
Satisfactory	Usually did what he/she was supposed to do, acceptably prepared and cooperative.
Ordinary	Often did what he/she was supposed to do, minimally prepared and cooperative.
Marginal	Sometimes failed to show up or complete tasks, rarely prepared.
Deficient	Often failed to show up or complete tasks, rarely prepared
Unsatisfactory	Consistently failed to show up or complete tasks, unprepared.
Superficial	Practically no participation.
No show	No participation at all.

All ratings require a textual explanation for the rating or will be disregarded. Please see the section regarding Evaluation Comments, below, and also the section discussion the Policy for Readdressing Marked Items.

An online resource is used to help with these evaluations, performed for all group-oriented work.

These ratings are converted to values by your instructor, according to:
Rating Value
Excellent 100
Very good 87.5
Satisfactory 75
Ordinary 62.5
Marginal 50
Deficient 37.5
Unsatisfactory 25
Superficial 12.5
No show 0
An adjustment factor is determined for each individual in the group. The adjustment factor is the average rating for the individual (by all group members) divided by the team average (the average of all ratings provided by the group). The adjustment factor is limited to a maximum value of 1.05. There is no minimum limit.
The individual's grade for the work being evaluated is the Group Grade multiplied by the adjustment factor for that individual. The instructor reserves the right to disregard anomalous ratings.

Example Calculation:
The following table shows an example calculation for a group that has received a Group Grade of 80 for an evaluation item.

Name	Peer Eval 1	Peer Eval 2	Peer Eval 3	Peer Eval 4	Individual Avg	Team Average	Adjustment Factor	Individual Grade
Betty	87.5	87.5	75	87.5	84.4	82.0	1.02	82
Carlos	87.5	100	87.5	87.5	90.6	82	1.05	84
John	62.5	75	50	75	65.6	82.0	0.80	64
Angela	87.5	87.5	87.5	87.5	87.5	82.0	1.05	84

The motivation for the use of this method is to give appropriate credit where it is due.

In order to improve communication within a group, the results of all calculations and all comments that accompany a rated item will be passed on to the group member.

Please perform the auto-rating by evaluating within the context of the item being rated only. To provide a poor rating, for instance, for Item B because of the individual's poor performance on Item A is considered unprofessional and reflects poorly on the evaluator.

Group peer ratings are completed online by proceeding to the Group Evaluation Resource. Select the appropriate evaluation item. Evaluations may be entered until just prior to midnight on the due date of the evaluation item itself.

In the area for comments provided by the resource, please provide information about what all individuals (including yourself, in the appropriate location) did to complete the group item.Comments for ratings below Satisfactory are to include constructively-worded suggestions (from the rater) of how the rated group member can improve their rating.

These comments are important since they form part of the documentation required for group membership changes, and will also be reviewed when re-evaluation of the group-item is requested by an individual.

Correction of Feedback from Multiple Evaluators:

In situations where an evaluator marks an item for only a portion of the class, the mark is corrected using the approach outlined, below. An example where the need for correction arises is when multiple GTAs are asked to grade lab books, each responsible for a subset of the class, or when presentation judges/evaluators provide feedback for only, say, a quarter of the presenting groups.

The correction algorithm is a linear transformation of an individual evaluator's marks to a class-wide average and standard deviation:

the individual evaluator's average mark and standard deviation are calculated;
the 'distance' (in number of standard deviations) of a specific mark from the evaluator's average is determined;
this 'distance', along with a class-wide (predetermined) average and standard deviation, is used to calculate the 'corrected' mark.

As an example, suppose that you have received a grade of 65% from an individual evaluator who, across all items that she marked, had an average of 55% and a standard deviation of 5%. The 'distance' of this mark from the evaluator's average is (65-55)/5 = +2.0 standard deviations. Based upon an analysis of the class's performance in other items, the instructor chooses the class-wide average and standard deviation of this item to be 75% and 10%, respectively. The corrected mark you receive for this item has the same 'distance' as before, +2.0 standard deviations, although with the class-wide average applied: 75% + 2.0 * 10% = 95%.

By using this form of correction, differences in the magnitude of marks assigned by different evaluators are addressed; relative marks are emphasized, and class-wide calculations can proceed without you being rewarded or penalized for being evaluated by a specific person.

Policies for Late or Missed Work:

Late work penalties are outlined in the pages describing the particular deliverables. The degree of penalty varies according to the importance of the item in the design-build cycle of a project, as well as according to the time sensitivity of the item and the time in the year that it is submitted. For instance, the late penalties attached to items due at the end of a term, when time is at a premium, are generally the highest.

Deliverables that have no late penalty described are worth 0% if submitted late. This includes, for instance, in-class exercises and quizzes.

Your instructor is not in a position to determine the validity of reasons for missing or late work. As a result, missed work will receive a mark of 0%, and late work will receive the described penalty without exception.

Policy for Readdressing Marked Items:

If you have concerns regarding the mark assigned to submitted work, or another component of evaluation (including peer ratings), please follow these steps as soon as possible after receiving the marked item:

Describe, in a signed and dated note, what your concerns with the evaluation of the item are, and what you believe is a reasonable solution to this concern.
Prepend the note to the work in question (if applicable) and the mark sheet or rubric used to communicate the original grade. Submit the package to the course submission box outside of the ECE General Office. If the submission box is not available (after the term is completed, for instance), please deliver to the the administrative assistant in the ECE General Office and ask to have it placed in the instructor's mailbox.

Please note that the instructor reserves the right to re-evaluate (or coordinate re-evaluation of) all aspects of the entire evaluation item. This includes, for instance, the review of all peer evaluation comments when a an individual feels that the peer rating for a particular group item is not representative of the true situation. As an example, if a student takes issue with her group's ratings of her performance on a paper submission, the instructor will look at all ratings, including that of the item concerned, including the ratings provided by the student herself. If she has not provided feedback about her peers, including the appropriate comments, then the instructor will likely deem it appropriate to not over-ride the ratings as anomalous.

Changes to marks will not be considered if this protocol is not followed.

Policy for Email Communications:

Email communication from course personnel will originate from- and be sent to only University of Alberta (@ualberta.ca) or Electrical and Computer Engineering (@ece.ualberta.ca) email addresses. These email services are relatively reliable, their use is consistent with the 20.3 Electronic Communication Policy and there is no question of content ownership, as with some other third-party email providers.

Your name, as attached to the above account(s) must be correct, otherwise you risk having messages rejected or ignored.

Please be aware of the details of the user agreements under which third-party email systems operate: these details may make you reconsider their use for work- and school-related communication.

Text:

There is no text for these courses due to the varied nature of the projects. This website, however, is referred to in the lectures and is a reasonable starting-point for many tasks. Use the menu structure to navigate this site.
A hard-covered lab notebook with non-perforated pages is required for you to keep design notes, meeting minutes, and an overall record of your project activities. These books are to be submitted at the end of the terms. More information is provided in the course-specific syllabi.

Documentation:

Projects are marked primarily on execution and documentation of the various steps involved. Through documentation the details of planning and implementation will be apparent and is therefore a critical component of these projects. If a project fails to attain its objectives, but was planned, implemented, and documented well, it could be deemed a success - progress will have been made. Conversely, a project that meets objectives but is not well planned, implemented or documented could be deemed a failure. Please refer to the mark allocation and grading schemes for the specific courses for more information.

Ensure that your reports are readable and make sense to others.

Please make reports concise. Marks will be reduced for reports over the specified lengths. Conciseness is a skill that is well-received in industry.

Citations and References

Documentation should cover not only the design and development performed in the course, but also references to any background material. This sentence serves as a good citation style where sequential numbering is used [1]. The reference itself follows at the end of the document:
[1] Finkelstein, L, "Pocket Book of Technical Writing", McGraw-Hill (2000), ISBN 0-07-237080-7

Extreme caution must be used when dealing with the Internet--corporate and institutional web sites are usually quite reliable sources of information; however, other sites can be significant sources of misinformation. The project should use Internet sources only to supplement other sources. (Basing your project solely upon a schematic and program from a mysterious source on the Internet is both poor engineering and very risky - many have done this and most have met with unpleasant surprises!)

Plagiarism:

The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour (online at www.ualberta.ca/secretariat/appeals.htm) and avoid any behaviour which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

Organization of Course Personnel

Assigned GTA	Each group meets weekly with a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA or TA) assigned close to the start of the year. This TA is your primary contact for the course. Your course instructor meets with the TAs regularly and utilizes their services to pass information on to you. Picture the GTA as your immediate supervisor.
Course Technician	The course technician is responsible for maintaining lab infrastructure, manufacture of PCBs, and the ordering of parts. Although the technician's office is located in the EE Capstone Design Lab, please respect the posted office hours.
Course Instructor	The course instructor's role includes coordinating the course instruction team, communicating expectations, coordinating evaluation, and handling administrative duties. Your course instructor will also meet with your group (and Assigned GTA) approximately once per month. Once a project's scope has been established, changes need to be approved by the course instructor. Depending upon the magnitude of the change, scope changes will be coordinated through the use of an Engineering Change Order (ECO). Please contact your instructor for more information regarding ECOs.
GTAs	When not involved in group meetings, GTAs are available to provide guidance. Please, however, see the note below.

Note: course personnel are encouraged to provide guidance by suggesting methods to approach a problem, not by solving the problem itself. The onus of solving the problem is on you and your group, much as it would be in the workplace.

Course-Specific Information:

EE 400
EE 401