This would be a good article to share with UNM, CNM, and the tech-oriented charter and high schools.

http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4396825/The-Joys-of-Tinkering

The joys of tinkering

Robert J. Bowman, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology - September 21, 2012

My parents survived my curiosity regarding all things electrical. Our home was littered with the dismembered remains of my exploratory projects – toasters, radios, turntables, batteries. A career in electrical engineering seemed inevitable. As an undergraduate electrical engineering student, I studied how a transistor worked at the atomic level. I could describe minority carrier injection but didn’t know what a transistor looked like. At my first job I was embarrassed that I couldn’t identify the leads on a transistor using an ohmmeter. That provided the inspiration to teach myself applied electronics.

When thinking about how we can inspire future analog design engineers, I always come back to my early years of tinkering. Hands-on experience is the single best way to motivate engineering students to study core analytical subjects in math and science, the foundation for ultimately become working, designing engineers.

With tinkering and observation comes design instinct and applied knowledge that’s hard to get any other way. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with what we’ve achieved at RIT in the decade since introducing “tinkering labs” into the curriculum. The influence of this program as well as other college initiatives have improved retention of first year electrical engineering students between 2001 and 2010 from below 70 percent to over 83 percent. There’s also been an unexpected bonus: Female students feel empowered when they get a chance to play on their own.

The typical two-year campus “engineering boot camp” of math and science doesn’t exactly inspire new recruits to the field. “Where’s the engineering?” moan the second-year students.
When I joined the Rochester Institute of Technology as department head in electrical engineering, I wanted to break the undergrad logjam. We started with “Freshman Practicum,” a first year, single-credit lab-based course. No previous electronic experience required and no exams. Students get acquainted with simple circuits, discover how something works, and gain the empirical knowledge that inspires the study of formal analysis.

We know that many of our best students grow up tinkering but many more arrive at college lacking practical know-how. But put a soldering iron in their hands and the magic begins. In freshman practicum, students solder small elements to a printed circuit board to build, say, an AM radio receiver or audio oscillator. We’ve found the female students to be more dexterous and get the soldering job done faster than their male counterparts. Suddenly the women feel like they belong to the “club.” It’s fun to see their confidence build. Once students get a taste of electrical engineering, they have a reason to study core subjects like circuits, calculus, and physics.

And then it’s back to more tinkering. In “Sophomore Practicum” students play with infrared LEDs and IR photodiodes, examine a serial data interface, build an infrared optical communications data link, and connect two computers together with the IR optical data link. They learn how to transmit their favorite mp3 music over an IR light beam between computers. They interrupt the light beam to stop the music. Now that’s something to text home about.

Two years ago, we created a new design class to help students better prepare for their capstone senior design project – a staple of engineering colleges everywhere. At RIT, the senior project usually involves a team of six or seven students across engineering departments all solving one large multi-disciplinary project. However, far too many students arrived at their capstone project unprepared to design a solution for typical project needs. Partly because of accreditation requirements, many of the capstone projects had become too process-oriented. As a result, the projects were not always focused on engineering design. In addition, on larger teams some students were left out of the design process.

Those issues led to “Individual Design Experience,” a fourth-year, 3-credit course focused on individual experiential learning which follows the engineering design cycle including specification, analysis and design, build, test, troubleshoot, and documentation. The student selects one of several technology platforms common to many projects in “Senior Design Projects,” thus preparing the student with specific skill sets they can apply to that class. The individual design project definition is scoped for an 8-week design cycle. The demonstration and report are due at the end of the course. Every student personally goes through the engineering design cycle.

But one big obstacle remains at RIT and other engineering campuses.

Each of those lab courses requires students to have ready access to a fully equipped electronic laboratory. I’ve often thought, “If we could only provide a way to let them tinker more on their own.” We actually tried placing small labs in dormitory common areas but found them impossible to maintain. There’s no oscilloscope in each dorm room.

However, I am now evaluating a small electronic module about the size of a deck of cards that could significantly impact the way we deliver practical lab-based content. The Analog Discovery module from Digilent Inc. and Analog Devices Inc. is intended to substitute for the typical $5,000 instrument cluster of oscilloscope, signal generator, and power supply in university labs and provide users with their own "electronic sandbox" to tinker and observe (see Figure 1). The Discovery Module could also enable the offering of online electronic courses with each student having their own lab.
I’m currently developing RIT’s first fully integrated electronics course to be offered completely online. This is part of a certificate program offered for electronic technicians, scientists, or practically anyone interested in learning about electronics. But it needs to have an online lab component.

Figure 1: Standing in for an oscilloscope, signal generator, and power supply, the Analog Discovery module from Digilent Inc. and Analog Devices Inc. provides users with their own "electronic sandbox" to tinker and observe. (see picture at the end)

Some of my colleagues are rightfully concerned about the teaching effectiveness of this new online delivery method. However, the reality is that most of the world’s prospective engineering students are still waiting for the opportunity to gain access to engineering courses. It’s sad that only the privileged few have a chance to attend top-flight engineering schools. Why shouldn’t all creative minds in the world benefit? It’s going to happen. I choose to participate.

I am also hopeful that novel devices like the Discovery module will encourage more female students and help them overcome the “cockpit problem,” wherein the girls often rely on the boys to operate the more complicated instruments. The opportunities for personal exploration are there. The module is quite small (½” x 3 ½” x 2 ½”) and its rubber-sheath covering can stand up to some abuse. It’s also cheaper than a textbook. Together with a laptop, prototyping board, and electronic parts kit you have what I call a “backpack lab.”

I tell my students that what you design has the potential to change the world. If you cast yourself as a world changer in college then your educational objectives become professionally rewarding and socially redeeming. A report published by the National Academy of Engineering in 2000 defined the 20 most significant engineering achievements of the 20th century. The domains of electrical engineering permeate 17 of 20 achievements. So what does report this really say? Electrical engineering lets you see the future before anyone else because you create it.

The most innovative ideas come from the mind of a single very bright person. We need to create more environments for single creative minds to blossom. Personal discovery can enable that. The Analog Discovery module can enable that. Experiential learning and personal exploration fuel the desire to push the boundaries of knowledge. Energetic young minds will create and discover things we’ve only dreamed about. I don’t want to lose anyone in the world because they don’t get a chance to participate. Everybody who wants in is in. Talk about changing the world.

About the Author

Robert Bowman has spent many years in industry and academia, the last five years as Lab Director of The Analog Devices Integrated Microsystems Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology and before that head of RIT’s electrical engineering department. Previously, Bowman was director of analog and mixed-signal design for LSI Logic Inc.

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one_armed_bandit

Dr Bowman:

The kind of environment you describe matches the "hackerspace" or "makersace" movement. You have one in Rochester: http://interlockroc.org/ (a pretty complete list may be found at http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces)

I am a member of Quelab.net in Albuquerque, and we teach kids and folks of all ages. I especially appreciate your comments of watching the effects of people learning to solder, and the observation about women finding a skill they can do better than the guys. This kind of thing is critical in getting more women into the tech field. One of the core skills we teach is soldering - this is actually pretty universal at most hackerspaces. We often use kits from Adafruit or Jameco, etc.

Kits have several advantages: they first teach soldering, component layout, project organization, etc. They also come with schematics, so someone can learn how the thing the built actually works, ie start digging into the theory and usage of various components like transistors, fets, LEDs, current-limiting resistors., etc. A kit is a good starting point for lesson plans and tutorials.

I am quite interested in your Discovery box. What would it take to buy one? A hackerspace named DangerousPrototypes (http://dangerousprototypes.com/) has something called the Bus Pirate (http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bus-pirate-v3-assembled-p-609.html?cPath=61_68) for $28:
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Bus Pirate v3 is a universal bus interface that talks to electronics from a PC serial terminal. Get to know a chip without writing code. Eliminates a ton of early prototyping effort with new or unknown chips. A laser cut acrylic case for Bus Pirate v3.6 is also available. Supports many bus protocols.
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They are also a great place for kits.

It looks like we have the same goals, just approaching them from different starting points.

Your comments are spot-on. Thank you for the article!

bandit (at) cruzio (dot) com

9.27.2012 4:44 PM EDT

SingMai

Kudos Professor Bowman. I totally agree with your approach. Too many graduates who pick up a soldering iron and wonder why their hand is getting warm.

First get the interest and the theory will come naturally because they will want to dig deeper. And that will give us design engineers who can start with a blank sheet of paper, not blindly copy a manufacturer's application note.

The greatest skill and engineer can have is to be able to debug their designs. And that comes from making lots of mistakes. Real ones like the shock of a reverse polarity tantalum going up in flames, not just some computer program highlighting a code error.

9.25.2012 7:27 PM EDT

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Auditron

Attending Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, way back in the late 1950s, the hands-on approach was the way we really got to understand how things worked. In the lab, changing values of components, making voltage and waveform measurements and keeping notes was all part of the learning process. Indeed, the joys of tinkering have stayed with me all these years.

Along with what Jerry said above, I was spending a summer in an electronics lab as an engineering technician. One day, a UCLA graduate electronic engineer came by my bench with a quarter-inch drill bit and asked me if it was a half-inch drill bit. I couldn't believe my ears. He honestly didn't know the difference! What a shame. I sure hope things have changed at UCLA.

As my dear dad, an accomplished acrhitect, explained Ohms Law to me, it takes one volt of pressure to push one amp of current through one ohm of resistance. I have never forgotten that. I think that is a great way to comprehend the concept.

9.25.2012 2:17 AM EDT

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CCarpenter

The RPI program sounds great, but I'd like to offer a slightly different point of view.

I'm inclined to think that young people that aren't predisposed by nature to tinker don't really belong in an engineering curriculum. I'm not sure they'll be happy on the journey down the career path that an engineering education enables.

If that's true, then perhaps the conventional university curriculum is still pretty much "on target" -- but could stand to be augmented by more opportunities (not requirements) to tinker.

So what can be done to create those opportunities -- without eroding the already massive amount of "foundational" material that needs to be covered in four short years -- and without driving the poor students deeper into debt? It sounds like RPI is doing some interesting things to work this problem -- and I wish you well going forward!

9.24.2012 2:58 PM EDT

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David.Eaton

I think you are on to something, but at the same time, I see a problem. When I was a kid, we did a lot of tinkering, and that was what set us on the path to science and engineering. My own kids and their peers are often so captivated by computers that they miss some of the tinkering in the physical world. Yet not all of them want to be computer science majors. The spark is there, but underdeveloped because of essentially a surplus of tech at hand that does not require using a soldering iron or hammer. (I have my high schooler taking metal shop, though. It has been a revelation to him.)

I would also question whether girls have the same encouragement that boys might. I work with a lot of women in engineering and chemistry. Many have stories of having an influential brother, father or uncle who brought them into the 'club'.

So the instinct that it is the kid, male or female, who digs getting into things and seeing how they work, who will be the best and happiest in engineering, seems sound to me. I just think that there are some who never found this out when younger that will benefit greatly by this approach.

9.26.2012 4:06 PM EDT

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Jerry.Brittingham

An excellent concept. I remember a professors comment "we are turning out fine theorists who don't know which end of a soldering iron to hold". In 52 years (10 teaching) as an EE I have observed this many times. It seems that many are strong on differential equations and writing "C" code but not simple things like V = I * R.

9.24.2012 12:58 PM EDT

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