Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering Laboratory

Lab Zero: Ordering the laboratory kit, opening the box and installing the software. Most electrical engineering systems combine hardware and software systems, and this kit follows that approach. Instruments are implemented in software to run on your computer while the circuits and software perform information processing. Because of delivery of the parts take time, this "lab" lasts for several weeks even though it is quite simple.

Lab One: Simple DC Circuits. Using a DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) to measure voltage, current, and resistance; an oscilloscope to display time-varying voltages; a power supply to produce constant (DC) voltages; and a function generator to produce time varying (AC) voltages.

Lab Two: AC Measurements. Characterization and measurement of waveforms using an oscilloscope. Grounding issues. Electro-acoustics—conversion of sound to voltage and back—and opto-electronics—conversion of light to voltage and back.

Lab Three: Signal Processing I: Amplifiers. Using the op-amp in various modes for creating amplifiers.

Lab Four: Signal Processing II: Filters. Building passive and active filters and measuring their transfer functions.

Lab Five: Signals and Systems I. Time-domain and frequency-domain characterization of signals, especially speech.

Lab Six: Signals and Systems II. A/D  and D/A conversion. 

Lab Seven: Digital Signal Processing I. Implementing digital filters.

Lab Eight: Digital Signal Processing II. Advanced digital filtering. Generating signals digitally. "Fancy" signal processing: speech scramblers, digital music.

Lab Nine: Final Project. A combined optical communication/pulse monitor system.

• Don Johnson