Awakening the tinkerer within: Re-introducing first year students to hardware for motivation

The age of the Heathkit has passed. Previously, electrical engineering educators were able to rely on tinkering experiences outside the classroom to motivate the subject matter in first and second year courses, especially physics, circuit theory, and circuit design. In contrast, today's typical first year student has had little experience with tinkering due to high levels of circuit integration and complexity in consumer electronics. In an effort to recover some of that tinkerer motivation in an introductory ECE course, I designed a three-week module to develop students' abilities to analyze systems and devices in terms of input, processing, and output stages. As part of this module, each student assembled a do-it-yourself kit for an electrical device and wrote a brief analysis of the device in terms of its stages. This year, I chose a siren kit for the range of components involved (resistors, diodes, capacitors, transistors, switches, and ICs) and the level of expertise required to assemble it. Students became acquainted with a laboratory environment, learned the resistor color code, and acquired soldering skills. Hopefully, students also formed lasting connections between electrical symbols on paper and physical devices that will motivate them in subsequent electrical engineering courses. This poster describes the complete 3-week module design and execution, including associated assignments, student evaluations, pitfalls, and successes.