This on-line textbook serves as an introduction to electrical engineering concepts and applications for non- electrical & computer engineering majors. This text was written to accompany the course ECE361 – Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This is a required course for undergraduate mechanical, biomedical, and industrial engineering majors, and students from computer science, physics, art, and other academic majors have also taken the course.

The course provides students with vocabulary and electrical/electronics analysis and design concepts in order to help them work in multi-disciplined teams designing engineered systems in their professional careers. The course also provides a practical introduction to electronics that should enable students to experiment with electronics in their own right as well as provide a foundation for further study in electronics. The underlying pedagogical construct behind this book is based on this idea: in order to design, we need to understand the theory, from the big picture down to the details; we also need practice and confidence. This book introduces a set of electrical/electronics topics theoretically and provides the usual pencil and paper problems to practice the theory. This is followed by a series of hands-on experiments designing, building and testing circuits. These circuit experiments are designed to help students reinforce, make sense of, and gain confidence in their of learning of the theory. The experiments involve circuits that blink, beep, buzz, detect the environment, spin motors, steer tiny cars, run software and interface to the external world. Learning about and building things with electronics can be, and should be, enjoyable. This text, therefore, takes an approach that is intended to make learning about electrical engineering fundamentals fun.

Students create projects that introduce them to Arduino—a small device that can be easily programmed to control and monitor a variety of external devices like LEDs and sensors. First they learn a few simple programming structures and commands to blink LEDs. Then they are given three challenges—to modify an LED blinking rate until it cannot be seen, to replicate a heartbeat pattern and to send Morse code messages. This activity prepares students to create more involved multiple-LED patterns in the Part 2 companion activity.

In the companion activity, students experimented with Arduino programming to blink a single LED. During this activity, students build on that experience as they learn about breadboards and how to hook up multiple LEDs and control them individually so that they can complete a variety of challenges to create fun patterns! To conclude, students apply the knowledge they have gained to create LED-based light sculptures.

This is a 9-day hands-on workshop about collaboration, design, and electronics prototyping. No previous experience with computer programming or electronics is required. Beginning students will be taught everything they need to know and advanced students will be challenged to learn new skills. Participants will learn about microcontroller programming using Arduino, collaborative software development using GitHub, solderless electronics prototyping, electronic sensors, rapid prototyping, and small team management.
This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

Students begin by following instructions to connect a Sunfounder Ultrasonic Sensor and an Arduino Microcontroller. Once they have them set up, students calibrate the sensor and practice using it. Students are then given an engineering design problem: to build a product that will use the ultrasonic sensors for a purpose that they all specify. Students will have to work together to design and test their product, and ultimately present it to their classmates.

This is intended as an introduction to embedded controllers for students in Electrical Engineering and Technology at the AAS and/or BS level. It begins with a discussion of the C programming language and then shifts to using the open source Arduino hardware platform. Uses both the Arduino library and more direct coding of the controller.

This is the companion lab manual for the text "Embedded Controllers Using C and Arduino 2E". It introduces embedded controller systems using the Arduino hardware platform and the C programming language. It is intended for students in Electrical Engineering and Electrical Engineering Technology programs at the Associate and Baccalaureate levels. Clicking to view this item begins a .doc download.

This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts of physical computing systems through hands-on, real-life applications. Physical computing forms the basis of smart devices, wearables like smart watches, e-textiles / fashion, IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and hardware start-up

This course teaches students to design electronic devices that interact with the physical world by building circuits and developing software algorithms that run on a microcontroller. These devices will also be connected to the internet so they can send sensor data to dashboards and be remotely operated from a computer or mobile device.

This course is designed specifically for university undergraduate students from all majors. It presumes no in-depth knowledge of physics or math nor prior experience with electronics. The only expected prerequisite knowledge is introductory experience with procedural programming (i.e. variables, functions, loops).

Students make their own design decisions about controlling the LEDs in a light-up, e-textile circuit, plush toy project that they make using LilyPad ProtoSnap components and conductive thread. They follow step-by-step instructions to assemble a product while applying their own creativity to customize it. They first learn about the switches—an on/off switch and a button—exploring these two ways of controlling the flow of electric current to LEDs and showing them the difference between closed and open circuits. Then they craft their creative light-up plush pals made from sewn and stuffed felt pieces (template provided) that include sewn electric circuits. Through this sewable electronics project, students gain a familiarity with microcontrollers, circuits, switches and LEDs—everyday items in today’s world and the components used in so many engineered devices.

Students learn how to set up pre-programmed microcontroller units like the Arduino LilyPad and use them to enhance a product’s functionality and personality. They do this by making plush toys in monster shapes (template provided) with microcontrollers and LEDs sewn into the felt fabric with conductive thread to make circuits. At activity end, each student will have created his or her own plush toy, complete with LEDs that illuminate in a specified sequence: random twinkle, blink, heartbeat and/or breathing.

MASLab (Mobile Autonomous System Laboratory), also known as 6.186, is a robotics contest. The contest takes place during MIT’s Independent Activities Period and participants earn 6 units of P/F credit and 6 Engineering Design Points. Teams of three to four students have less than a month to build and program sophisticated robots which must explore an unknown playing field and perform a series of tasks.
MASLab provides a significantly more difficult robotics problem than many other university-level robotics contests. Although students know the general size, shape, and color of the floors and walls, the students do not know the exact layout of the playing field. In addition, MASLab robots are completely autonomous, or in other words, the robots operate, calculate, and plan without human intervention. Finally, MASLab is one of the few robotics contests in the country to use a vision based robotics problem.

Students learn the functions of pre-programmed microcontroller units such as the LilyMini ProtoSnap as they use them to create light-up pennants with LED components. Students design their own felt pennants and sew on circuit components using conductive thread. This activity gives students hands-on experience with engineering technologies while making creative pennants with LED lights that can illuminate in three pre-programmed sequences: all on, breathing, and twinkle.

Students download the software needed to create Arduino programs and make sure their Arduino microcontrollers work correctly. Then, they connect an LED to the Arduino and type up and upload programs to the Arduino board to 1) make the LED blink on and off and 2) make the LED fade (brighten and then dim). Throughout, students reflect on what they've accomplished by answering questions and modifying the original programs and circuits in order to achieve new outcomes. A design challenge gives students a chance to demonstrate their understanding of actuators and Arduinos; they design a functioning system using an Arduino, at least three actuators and either a buzzer or toy motor. For their designs, students sketch, create and turn in a user's manual for the system (text description, commented program, detailed hardware diagram). Numerous worksheets and handouts are provided.

This lesson focuses on ultrasound wavelengths and how sound frequencies are used by engineers to help with detection of specific distances to or in materials. Students gain an understanding about how ultrasonic waves are reflected and refracted. Students also see how ultrasound technology is used in medical devices. The activity following this lesson allows students to test their knowledge by using the Sunfounder Ultrasonic sensor and Arduino Mega Microcontroller.

Students use conductivity meters to measure various salt and water solutions, as indicated by the number of LEDs (light emitting diodes) that illuminate on the meter. Students create calibration curves using known amounts of table salt dissolved in water and their corresponding conductivity readings. Using their calibration curves, students estimate the total equivalent amount of salt contained in Gatorade (or other sports drinks and/or unknown salt solutions). This activity reinforces electrical engineering concepts, such as the relationship between electrical potential, current and resistance, as well as the typical circuitry components that represent these phenomena. The concept of conductors is extended to ions that are dissolved in solution to illustrate why electrolytic solutions support the passage of currents.