{"546131":{"#nid":"546131","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The Magicians Behind the Curtain at ECE","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn the Blake R. Van Leer building, electrical and computer engineering students toil away, tasked with seemingly unsolvable problems in instructional labs. These labs make up a core element of the curriculum at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), the largest producer of such graduates in the country. Without it, the lecture-based classes on concepts fundamental to the degree \u2013 such as signal processing, circuit analysis, and hardware and software system programming \u2013 would be nearly impossible to grasp in practical terms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOr, as one graduate teaching assistant put it: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing all these equations and wondering, \u2018Where\u2019s the benefit in that?\u2019\u201dJamell Morell works in an electrical and electronic circuits laboratory as a graduate teaching assistant. He says such labs \u201cbridge the theoretical to the experimental\u201d in a way that gives his students a deeper comprehension of the lessons learned in a classroom.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut if electrical and computer engineering students truly are the \u201ctinkerers, creators, and magic makers,\u201d then the five men who help keep the school\u2019s 22 labs running are the magicians behind the curtain.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETom Brewer oversees ECE labs\u2019 management or, as he affectionately explains, \u201cif something goes wrong they\u2019ll blame me.\u201d But his devotion to the school is clear \u2014 if not through the creativity and humor he applies to his teaching, then through the sheer longevity of his tenure, nearly half a century long.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBrewer, who can be found listening to the Russian philharmonic orchestra in his office when not teaching, says the value of learning that takes place in ECE labs can ultimately be quantifiable come time for students\u2019 graduation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe primary focus for most ECE students is getting a job and getting a career going,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been told that many of them, when they go out for interviews, are asked practical questions that they learned in the lab.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELab focuses range from digital design, where students combine analog and digital hardware programming skills, to senior design projects, in which students are asked to create something and make it work. That could mean a rocket-launching system, a robotic bartender, a sensor that controls the volume on a television by reading brain waves, and everything else in between.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBrewer is joined by four other staff members who help keep these labs operational. Kevin Pham and James Steinberg work in senior design labs, Allen Robinson in audio engineering, and Kevin Johnson in digital design. For them, running their labs means purchasing equipment, helping with budget proposals, and, importantly, solving engineering problems that students and teaching assistants come across.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProblem-solving is arguably the most crucial component of the learning that takes place in ECE\u2019s instructional labs. Johnson calls this \u201cthe debugging process\u201d in his digital design lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJohnson explains that in lecture classes, there generally isn\u2019t much of an iterative problem-solving process: A student is given a problem; they answer it, are told whether or not they were correct; and are then told the answer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSo there isn\u2019t the sort of \u2018what did I do wrong, where did that occur, and how do I fix it?\u2019 process that really is a huge part of engineering,\u201d Johnson says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen students first start a lab class, they often don\u2019t know where to begin when the inevitable first problem arises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are so many things that can go wrong. When you\u2019re building this complicated system\u2026 and you\u2019re writing software for it, and it\u2019s interfacing with peripherals like switches and push-buttons, trying to figure out where something is going wrong can be a pretty daunting task,\u201d says Johnson, who spends a fair amount of time repairing robots that break during final projects.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis kind of practical experience teaches students to solve problems by breaking them down into smaller parts of the whole. With the support of teaching assistants and staff members like Johnson, students learn to eliminate areas that are properly working and how best to find where exactly the breakdown lies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou actually use the equipment, and through measuring these circuits that we learn about in class and by looking at them on the oscilloscope [an instrument with which one can observe varying signal voltages], we\u2019re able to see, \u2018OK, this is a high-pass filter\u2026 this is a square wave,\u2019\u201d says Morell.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents\u2019 exposure to high-powered lab equipment is set to increase dramatically. A new maker space, made possible by a Texas Instruments gift, will provide them with access to cutting-edge technologies and an exciting place to interact with equipment outside of class.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESai Sathiesh Rajan, a third-year ECE student, says the maker space will be \u201ca way to get practical skills, like soldering, and exposure to components, like oscilloscopes, before their third year [of ECE classes].\u201d Such skills are highly sought after, and useful earlier on in ECE studies than the current curriculum generally offers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe senior design course is one reason that greater hands-on experience is valuable. Between the two, Steinberg and Pham oversee the senior design projects of roughly 250 students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESteinberg says their responsibilities run the gamut: helping undergraduates, professors, graduate and doctorate students to build circuits and inductors, populate printed circuit boards, and with research projects and proposals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting job \u2014 fun! \u2014 but it keeps you busy,\u201d Steinberg says. \u201cYou have no downtime, you can be sure of that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut for all their responsibilities, the staff expressed an admiration for working with the students and watching their projects evolve.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen asked about his favorite part of the job, James Steinberg laughed. \u201cI learn more from the students than I did in school,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoy seeing them succeed; I like to see them grow.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESteinberg and his colleagues\u2019 support is integral to ECE students\u2019 growth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese students are just very, very creative,\u201d says Bonnie Ferri, associate chair for undergraduate affairs in the school.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we want to do is take that imagination and their ideas, and give them the skills, and the equipment, and the space for them to fly with that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Five managers keep 22 labs running in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering."}],"uid":"28075","created_gmt":"2016-06-20 13:54:23","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:21:57","author":"Lyndsey Lewis","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-06-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-06-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"546091":{"id":"546091","type":"image","title":"ECE labs Brewer","body":null,"created":"1466445600","gmt_created":"2016-06-20 18:00:00","changed":"1475895338","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:38","alt":"ECE labs Brewer","file":{"fid":"91809","name":"ecelabbrewer.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabbrewer.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabbrewer.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2230247,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ecelabbrewer.jpg?itok=OKjeAGyJ"}},"546101":{"id":"546101","type":"image","title":"ECE labs students","body":null,"created":"1466445600","gmt_created":"2016-06-20 18:00:00","changed":"1475895338","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:38","alt":"ECE labs students","file":{"fid":"91810","name":"ecelabstudents.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabstudents.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabstudents.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1478828,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ecelabstudents.jpg?itok=UuHhzQC7"}},"546111":{"id":"546111","type":"image","title":"ECE labs Power Electronics","body":null,"created":"1466445600","gmt_created":"2016-06-20 18:00:00","changed":"1475895338","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:38","alt":"ECE labs Power Electronics","file":{"fid":"91811","name":"ecelabpowerelectronics.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabpowerelectronics.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabpowerelectronics.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2337314,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ecelabpowerelectronics.jpg?itok=UVerriQV"}},"546121":{"id":"546121","type":"image","title":"ECE labs space","body":null,"created":"1466445600","gmt_created":"2016-06-20 18:00:00","changed":"1475895338","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:38","alt":"ECE labs space","file":{"fid":"91812","name":"ecelabspace.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabspace.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ecelabspace.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2237562,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ecelabspace.jpg?itok=RwXwsZW-"}}},"media_ids":["546091","546101","546111","546121"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/magazine.coe.gatech.edu\/story\/lab-life","title":"The Lab Life"}],"groups":[{"id":"1237","name":"College of Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"107031","name":"College of Engineering; School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"id":"4864","name":"Labs"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELyndsey Lewis\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lyndseylewis@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}