Syllabus

Note: This is a new course, and is still experimental.

This syllabus is subject to change as-needed, and we ask that you are forgiving of any rough edges.

This class aims to be reasonably self-contained. The primary responsibilities are to

Come to lectures ready to engage in the material.
Come to the lab prepared and ready to hack.

We will also have a few small homework assignments throughout the quarter. These are intended to be more fun and educational about the extant infrastructure in the world around you than a large amount of work. In lieu of a final exam, this course will feature a final design assignment.

Course Staff

Pat Pannuto is the instructor and their office is CSE 3202 (right in the corner). Their email is ppannuto@ucsd.edu; please remember to include WES 269 in the subject line for class issues.

What should you call me?

For folks in the MAS program, "Pat" is fine.

What should I call you?

I should call you by your preferred name, with the correct pronunciation and any honorific or pronouns you choose. Please correct me (in the chat if there is one, out loud in class or in Zoom, or via email/Piazza/etc after the fact – however you are most comfortable) if I ever make a mistake.

TA & Office Hours

Aashish Bhole (abhole@ucsd.edu) is the TA.

Office Hours: <TBA>

Textbook & Other Resources

There is no textbook for this course.

For background and more depth in embedded system design and operation, we recommend Lee & Seshia's Introduction to Embedded Systems.

For debugging and lab support, stack overflow, electronics stack exchange, and vendor forums (e.g. Nordic DevZone) are good resources.

For specific topics, additional resources are linked in the course slides.

Grading

A quick reminder: Effective learning comes from active engagement and re-enforcement. Activities, assignments, and grading are designed to help with this.

You get out of class what you put into it.

10%: Mini-Quizzes

Lecture (after the first meeting) will begin with a "mini-quiz." These will be (very) short and will cover material from the prior lecture, or possibly pre-lab, lab, post-lab, homework, or other assignment. You should not need to study or worry about these – if you were there and paying attention, you'll be prepared.

Correct quizzes earn 4%/ea, incorrect quizzes earn 2%/ea, and missing quizzes are 0%. Excluding the first day of class, and considering holidays, there are 4 lectures. Anything earned over 10% counts as half.

45%: Labs

Lab activities make up the bulk of the work for this course. Labs are where you will apply the concepts learned in lecture.

There are five total labs in this course. The first lab is slightly shorter.

( 5%): Lab 1 – Wireshark
(10%): Lab 2 – Bluetooth
(10%): Lab 3 – 802.15.4
(10%): Lab 4 – WiFi
(10%): Lab 5 – LoRa

Pre-Labs

Pre-labs are absolutely essential to your success during the lab session. You must have completed your pre-lab before the start of the lab session to make good use of the lab time.

For this reason, your pre-labs are due by the start of lab. There are no exceptions, and there is no late/makeup policy for pre-labs. If you have not completed the pre-lab by the start of the lab session you will receive no credit for that pre-lab (even though you will probably have to do the pre-lab work, during lab..., before you can actually start on the lab).

Post-Lab Reports

You will need to complete a post-lab report for each of the labs.

The report is a mixture of documentation of your in-lab activity as well as post-lab analysis questions or extra experimentation you may have to perform.

Lab reports are generally due at 9:00 US/Pacific (9 AM) two weeks after the lab (i.e. before the next class meeting).

15%: Homework

There are only two homework assignments in this course, one at the beginning of the term (before the first lab) and one towards the end of the term.

Generally, lab reports include homework-like questions and activities. These homeworks cover topics that do not have associated labs.

( 5%): HW1 – Background & Refresher
(10%): HW2 – Cell

30% Final Exam (Design Assignment)

Take-home 'final', this is an end-to-end pencil-and-paper design task.

Loosely, this will be an exercise of: "You're an engineer at startup X, who's building Y, with requirements 1,2,3,4. What do you design and why."

Late Assignments

Late assignments will lose 10% every 24 hours, down to a floor of 50% off. After 5 days, any assignment submitted before the end of the term will be eligible for at-most 50% of the original score. Late assignments will be graded on at-best timeframe and are not eligible for regrade requests.

Final Grades

I believe in mastery learning. My goal is to teach you the material and for everyone to learn it. I am most successful if everyone in class earns an A. This class will not be curved.

A+ >96.7, A [93,96.7), A- [90,93), B+ [86.7,90), B [83.3,86.7), B- [80,83.3), C+ [76.7,80), C [73.3,76.7), C- [70,73.3), D [60,70), F [0,60).

Range notation [90,93) means 90 is included and 93 is not