I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I
understand. - Confucius Ashwith Jerome Rego ashwith@ieee.org http://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 Rsum (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 Courses o 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 :-)) Rsum 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 ;-)