ECE 110 Lab Syllabus

Section: ABB/BBB (Tuesday 5:10PM-8:00PM)

Location: Room 1001, ECE Building
Teaching Assistants: Michael Jo and Anmol Kumaar

Lab Protocol
During the first 8 labs you will be following the procedures set out in the lab section of this book. Read
through the entire lab BEFORE coming to your lab class. Things go much smoother if you know what to
expect and have questions ready for your TA. To make sure that you start thinking about some of the
issues you will encounter, each lab (except the first one) has an associated prelab assignment.
Prelab - Before the upcoming lab each week, you must answer all the prelab questions. You
must turn in your TA your completed prelab and have them initial it. During the discussion time
at the beginning of lab you may enter the correct answers in your lab notebook while the TA is
going over the prelab questions with everyone (~15 minutes).
Lab - During the lab period you will be following the lab procedures in this manual. Read the
directions and answer the questions using full, understandable sentences giving the answer AND
an explanation of why you gave your answer, all in the space provided. You will turn in your
filled out procedures at the end of class.

Grading

Lab Experiments - There are 8 guided labs that teach you how to use the lab equipment,
conduct engineering analysis of circuits and teach you the skills necessary for the end of
semester design challenge. Each experiment is worth 12 points that are divided between the
prelab (worth 2 points) and the main lab (worth 10 points).
Final Design - During the final weeks of the class you will complete an engineering design
challenge and submit documentation in the form of a project proposal, a first draft of your
report and a final draft. The final design challenge is not intended to be a do or die challenge.
Students who produce excellent documentation and demonstrate an understanding of the
design process can still receive high marks even if the design fails to work as desired.
Participation - Most importantly, participation points, to be assigned by your TA, are used to
assess the level of involvement of each student during the labs and design challenge.
Participation includes (but is not limited to) coming to lab on time, cleaning up your station after
each lab, not hoarding lab equipment/parts, and simply putting in effort to learn something
from each lab.

Laboratory Grade Breakdown

Assignment Type

Assignment

Value

7 Prelabs

2 points each

8 Experiments

10 points each

Maximum Points

Lab Experiments

96*

Proposal

12

Report (1st Draft)

12

Final Report

40

Demonstration

20

Final Design

Participation

84

Daily attendance, 20
participation, effort

20
Total

200

* since the first experiment has NO prelab the additional 2 points are given to the first lab experiment.

Academic Integrity
Collaboration between students on all lab assignments (including prelabs) is encouraged and in many
cases, required. While this means that the answers you provide in your lab experiments should be
similar to your partner, they should not be exact copies. All answers should be put into your own
words and work must be shown for any problems involving calculations.
Plagiarism carries serious penalties, ranging from a grade of zero on the assignment to failure for the
course. In all cases of plagiarism, a letter will be filed with the Dean of the students college. If you
are unsure if your work too closely resembles that of another student, ask your TA about it before
turning it in. For further information about academic integrity please see Article 1, Part 4 of the
University of Illinois student code (http://studentcode.illinois.edu/).

Lab Partnering
In addition to the strictly academic goals of this lab, you will also learn other valuable, less tangible skills,
one of which is how to work constructively with other people. Most of you will be working closely with
one (sometimes two) other people. Often students pair up at the beginning of the semester and
maintain this relationship until the end. However, there are also partnerships that are dysfunctional and
cause problems which get worse towards the end. So a word of caution - if you are initially paired with
someone who is not a good match for you, find another group as early in the semester as possible - after
lab 5 it is very difficult to change without falling seriously behind. You can talk to Prof. Franke or your TA
about partnering issues without negative consequences. We will try to accommodate your needs even if
this means allowing you to change sections.

Locker Policy
Each group in ECE 110 lab will be assigned a locker for storing Sparkfun kits or lab equipment assigned to
the group. Lockers will be assigned near the end of Experiment 1. Students are NOT ALLOWED to keep
shared lab items in their lockers. Shared lab items include BNC/banana plug cables, alligator clips, test
boxes and any other item that from the lab that you have not been given express permission to store in

your locker. Lockers will be checked regularly by the TAs and any violation of the above rule will be
recorded and penalized by taking off participation points.

Absence Policy
Missing a single lab experiment is equivalent to missing an entire week of class. In cases where the
absence is caused by a simple illness that requires missing a single lab you must contact your TA
before class. Missing lab without communicating with your TA ahead of time will generally result in an
unexcused absence. Lab experiments can be made up by either attending the open lab hours on
Saturday or finding another section to attend during the week. If you wish to make up a lab during
another section, you must contact the TAs in charge of that section ahead of time. Make up labs must
be completed within two weeks of the absence in order to receive credit unless otherwise indicated by
the instructor.
Excused absences that have been made up will not result in direct adverse effects on the students
grade. One unexcused absence may be made up with a 2 point deduction on the assignment. Additional
unexcused absences will result in a zero on missed assignments, deductions from participation grade or
deductions from the final project grade.
NOTE: All of the information that you need for contacting other TAs is posted on Compass2g or the
course website names and emails of the TA assigned to each section. For other more complicated
cases we will work with you as best we can. Unfortunately, if more than a couple of labs are missed, it is
difficult to catch back up. If the absence occurs during the final design phase, you AND your lab partner
must make arrangements together to make up what you missed.

Food and Drink

Food or drink is generally prohibited in the lab, with the exception of bottles or containers with tightfitting screw-top lids. Beverages such as pop and sugary drinks can result in a sticky mess that ruins the
furniture while posing an added danger to the (rather expensive) lab equipment, and should never be
opened in the lab. Food should NEVER enter the lab.
Any exceptions to the food and drink policy must be explicitly granted by one of your Lab Instructors.
Violations to this policy may result in deductions from your participation points or in more severe cases,
you may be asked to leave for the day and receive a zero on that weeks experiment.

Accommodation Policy:
If you feel that you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, feel free to contact
me privately to discuss your specific needs. You are all guaranteed an equal opportunity in the class and
no student is denied educational access, regardless of disability. If you need assistance or ever feel
uncomfortable please see me right away. For more information please visit:
http://www.disability.illinois.edu/

Disclaimer
All policies and assignments outlined in this syllabus are tentative. Changes to them may be made over
the course of the semester as necessary.