05/08/07

EDSGN 497E Sensor and Controller System Integration (3 credits)

EDSGN 497F Sensor and Controller System Practicum (1 credit)

The three credit "Sensor and Controller System Integration" course is an intensive "hands-on" project based course that covers interfacing computers of various form factors to a wide array of sensors, transducers and sub-systems. The course covers some of the fundamental engineering concepts of instrumentation, control, signal conditioning, operating systems, etc. Interlinking of various programming languages and application programs shall also be covered. During the first seven weeks of the course, the students will learn some essential engineering concepts and programming in the LabVIEW graphical development environment. This material will be covered during the hands-on lectures and labs. There will be about 2 individual assignments & 2 Team assignments during this period. During the second half of the course, the students will work on Team Labs and the course project

The one credit "Sensor and Controller System Practicum" is a companion seminar series course to the "Sensor and Controller Systems Integration" course (EDSGN 497XX) that includes a practicum series of lectures and hands-on workshops on entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, innovative thinking, intellectual property and patenting, venture funding and related issues.

This course encourages students to critically analyze existing systems by identifying problems and suboptimal implementations; students are then challenged to devise ways to improve the system(s). Exploring avenues of improving the state-of-the-art is a central course philosophy; it encourages creative thinking rather than being limited to conventional problem-solving techniques.

The students will be made aware of the resources available for entrepreneurial endeavors through the entrepreneurship minor at Penn State. The teams will be provided with the basic know-how required to advance their proof-of-concept systems towards commercialization.