Instructor:
David Stuart, [email protected]
Office Hours: Tues 2-3 in lab, Thurs 11-1 in lab
Textbook:
Analog and Digital Electronics, by Daniel Steck.
We will use a subset of the chapters from Steck's online textbook and a custom, online lab manual.
Electronic Lab Notebook: You will need to record your lab work as you do it using an electronic logbook. This will include a record of what you are doing, including sketches of your circuit diagrams, photos of your circuit, photos of oscilloscope traces, and all the relevant measured values. You will do this using a google doc. If you are not familiar with using google docs, spend some time before the class starts getting familiar with the basics. Before the first lab, you should create a google doc that will be the "table of contents" for all your labs. Each week you will add to it a link to a new google doc that contains your work for that week. And you will include in that table of contents document a brief conclusion for each lab when you finish that lab. That conclusion should be a concise summary of what you did in the lab, i.e., somewhere between 4 and 10 lines, and it should include a copy of the key picture and plot from the lab work. (More on why this is important will be discussed later.) An example of this is shown for the first lab here.
You must email to the instructor a link to your google doc table of contents before the start of the first lab. Please use a subject line with the following format: FirstName LastName 127AL log.
Your TA will access your log during lab while helping you debug your circuits and also afterward while grading your lab work. They will check the time stamps that the document will record in real time to make sure you keep records as you do the lab. Students without a laptop to use for recording their work during lab may use one of the four installed computers in the lab.
Equipment kit: You need to obtain a kit which contains a breadboard and hook-up wire. You can obtain this from the bookstore, or your can get one from online sources, such as this breadboard or this breadboard, and a hook-up wire kit such as this one.
Before the first lab, you should learn how the breadboard works by reading an online tutorial (here or here), or by browsing YouTube for breadboard tutorials.
You should also learn how an oscilloscope works before the first lab. Even if you have already used one in previous labs, getting familiar with all the features will save you time in lab. See for example general YouTube tutorials. The specific oscilloscope that we will use is shown in this YouTube video.
Openscope: If a return of pandemic problems requires some students to quarantine temporarily, we will provide a way for students to do some of their lab work remotly during quarantine. For such remote work, students will have two options. They could borrow an "Openscope MZ" or an AnalogDiscovery2. These are both computer controlled devices combining the functions of oscilloscope, function generator, and power supply. These "USB scopes" can be checked out from the TA two weeks at a time. You will need to return them after two weeks, with the possibility of another check out period. (For recent instructions on setting up the openscope see this video guide made by a former 127AL student.)
Students who are not in quarantine, may also check out a USB scope to do additional remote work, such as their extra credit project.
Course structure: The course is structured with two weekly lectures and a weekly laboratory project. The material will be introduced with textbook reading assignments, which the lectures will expand upon. In the laboratory, you will build and test circuits that use the concepts you're learning. This lab work is an essential part of understanding.
Grades: Your course grade will be based on the following components: Lab notebooks 40%, Homework 15%, Quizzes 15%, Final exam 30%. Also see below for possible extra credit. Course grades will be calculated from these items with letter grade cutoffs no higher than the following: 90% = A-, 80% = B-, 70% = C-, 60% = D-.
Your lab logging should be complete. You should record in it what you are doing while you are working through the exercises, not afterward. Draw and label a circuit schematic for each circuit you work on; labels should include component values, voltages, currents, etc. Include enough explanation that the logbook can be understood without the lab manual, e.g., write the question and answer, not just the answer. Indeed, you should have enough information included that a reader can reproduce what you did. It is OK to have mistakes in your notebook, in fact they are expected in a properly complete, real-time record. Don't delete information about the mistakes after you decide that it is wrong. Instead, note that it is a mistake and add an explanation for why you think it is, i.e., include the tests of your circuits, as well as how you figured out that there were mistakes. You might be mistaken about it being a mistake, or you might want to refer back to the mistake later to remind yourself of something anomalous you saw with the mistaken circuit setup. So keep all records in the logbook.
Details on how to prepare your lab notebook, and how it will be graded, are here.
The logbooks must be completed before the start time of your next week's lab, or the following day in case of a holiday. Some students typically need more time to complete some of the labs than a single 5 hour section. If you need more time, you can try to use equipment in the lab during other lab sections. The equipment is available for such additional use on a first-come-first-served basis, except that students enrolled in a section are always guaranteed access to a lab station in that section.
The TAs will grade your electronic logbooks and enter comments online; so make sure to give them and the instructor read and write access to your google doc for each lab.
Attendance at the beginning of your assigned lab section time is MANDATORY as this will be when announcements will be made and information relevant to the lab disseminated. If you want to switch lab sections, you need permission from the instructor beforehand.
Homework will be posted on gauchospace and is due on the due dates specified. See the course policies for information about lab homeworks and late labs.
There will be no midterm exam, but there will be three short quizzes given at the end of class throughout the quarter.
How to do well: This course is different from many other physics courses that you have taken. New material builds on old, and you're likely to do poorly if you miss class or lab, or don't keep up in the textbook. Don't fall behind!
Read the textbook before coming to class. The lectures cannot cover all the material. They will focus on some of the bigger concepts without spending time on things that are simple, but detailed, which you can learn easily by reading the textbook.
Read the lab manual before coming to lab, otherwise you will waste time in lab. And note that you will have a pre-lab assignment to complete before lab.
Log what you are doing as you do it. It is tempting to debug problems without writing anything down, thinking that you will "summarize when you get it working". However, it is important to write what you do and what you find quantitatively as you are doing it. For example, you should write something like:
3:15 PM Will replace capacitor C1 and remeasure the current. Measure Iin = 16.5 mA.
When you ask your TA for help debugging, s/he will ask what you have done already, and you should be able to use your logbook to show, not just tell, what you have done.
Be patient during debugging. It is easy to get frustrated trying to "just get the stupid thing to work!!!" But, it is more productive to embrace the process of debugging as an important learning aspect in this course. You can figure out why a circuit is misbehaving the same way that (rational) humans figure out anything in life, by using the scientific method. Every problematic circuit is an opportunity to think through your theory of how the circuit is supposed to work to make postulates about what might be set up incorrectly to cause the observed misbehavior. Then you can develop ways to test that theory. (A good scientist will develop and carry out such tests even when things are working the way they are "supposed to".) This is great practice for developing your thought processes as a scientist, and it is a good way to learn more about the circuit elements.
Extra credit: You can receive up to 5% extra credit by designing and building your own circuit project. This is intended for exceptional students who want to challenge and distinguish themselves with a creative independent project. Particularly well done projects will be posted on the web and can be helpful in job or graduate school applications. I'm happy to discuss your ideas during office hours or lab periods. As the course proceeds you will see more and more components that open up new possibilities, so you can take your time developing an idea. Note, however, that trying to use this extra credit to make up for poor performance on the main requirements won't work because a sufficiently expansive and independent project will require mastery of the core material.
The schedule below will help you know what to read in advance of the lectures.
Slides and zoom recordings will be posted after each class, with links to them added below.
Links to the instructions for each lab will appear in the table below at least 4 days before the start of the lab.
| Date | Topic | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Tues. 3/29 |
1). Intro, Kirchoff's laws, Thevenin equivalents, Load resistance
slides, recording |
Steck 1.1-1.4, 1.6
Lab 1 instructions: Intro to equipment |
| Thurs. 3/31 |
2). Norton equivalents, Current sources, AC signals, decibels
slides, recording |
Steck 2.1-2.2 |
| Tues. 4/5 |
3). Capacitors, hi/low pass filters, complex impedance
slides, recording, Phasors |
Steck 2.3-2.6
Lab 2 instructions: AC signals, capacitors, inductors, and frequency dependence of filters |
| Thurs. 4/7 |
4). Transformers and diodes
slides, recording |
Steck 3.1-3.6 |
| Tues. 4/12 |
5). Diodes
slides, recording Example of battery backup |
Steck 3.1-3.6
Lab 3 instructions: diodes |
| Thurs. 4/14 |
6). Transistors: amplifiers
slides, recording |
Steck 4.1-4.8 |
| Tues. 4/19 |
7). Transistors: current source, Ebers-Moll
slides, recording |
Steck 4.1-4.9, 4.11
Lab 4 instructions: transistors |
| Thurs. 4/21 |
8). Transistors: Differential amplifier
slides, recording |
Steck 4.10 |
| Tues. 4/26 |
9). Field effect transistors
slides, recording |
Steck 5.1-5.4
Lab 5 instructions: amplifier circuits, FETs |
| Thurs. 4/28 |
10). Operational amplifiers
slides, recording |
Steck 7.1-7.3 |
| Tues. 5/3 |
11). Operational amplifiers
slides, recording |
Steck 7.1-7.3
Lab 6 instructions: op-amps |
| Thurs. 5/5 |
12). Comparators, Schmitt trigger, Oscillators
slides, recording |
Steck 7.9-7.10 |
| Tues. 5/10 |
13). More oscillators
slides, recording |
Steck 7.10
Lab 7 instructions: burglar alarm |
| Thurs. 5/12 |
14). AM radio
slides, recording |
|
| Thurs. 5/19 |
15). Non-ideal properties of op-amps
slides, recording |
Steck 7.6
Lab 8 instructions: AM Radio |
| Tues. 5/24 |
16). Active filters
slides, recording |
|
| Thurs. 5/26 |
17). Voltage regulators
slides, recording |
Lab 9 instructions: Circuit design options |
| Tues. 5/31 |
18). Noise sources & PCB design
slides, recording |
|
| Thurs. 6/2 |
19). Overview of example experiment's electronics stages
slides, recording, Example of a SiPM for photon detection |
No required lab this week.
Time available for extra credit lab work. |
| Thursday 6/9 |
Final exam
8-11 AM |