This page summarizes information for students enrolled in, or who are considering taking, SE 413 (Engineering Design Optimization) at UIUC during Spring 2022. This semester, SE 413 will be conducted in a hybrid (flipped) format. A detailed syllabus will be provided to students enrolled in SE 413.
Instructor: Prof. James T. Allison, jtalliso@illinois.edu, http://systemdesign.illinois.edu/
TA: Elena Fernandez (elenaf3@illinois.edu)
Classroom Location: 106B8 Engineering Hall
Catalog Description: Application of optimization techniques to engineering design problems. Emphasis on problem formulation, including applications in structural, mechanical, and other design domains. Important theoretical results and numerical optimization methods. Matlab programming assignments to develop software for solving nonlinear mathematical programming problems. 3 or 4 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: MATH 241 and MATH 415.
Course Format:
- One synchronous lecture will be held each week and one weekly discussion session will be held. The majority of these synchronous lectures will be held in person. Students will also need to view recorded asynchronous lectures based on a provided schedule.
- Both open office hours and individual/small group meetings by appointment with the instructor will be available to students.
- The TA will also hold regular office hours.
- Scheduled lecture periods: Tuesday/Thursday 3:30-4:50 pm
- These scheduled time periods will be used in two different ways: 1) synchronous in-person lectures (typically Tuesdays), 2) discussion session with the instructor (typically Thursdays).
- Adjustments will need to be made during some weeks to accommodate holidays, exams, or other events.
- The first lecture of Spring 2022 (Tuesday 1/18/2022) and weekly discussion session (Thursday 1/20/2022) will be held via Zoom in compliance with campus Covid-19 protocols. It is anticipated that synchronous lectures and discussion sessions after week 1 will be held in-person.
- Synchronous lectures: Once per week (typically Tuesdays 3:30 pm)
- Designed to be highly interactive (e.g., work through examples in breakout groups, review and discuss material from assigned asynchronous lectures)
- Except for the first day of class, students are expected to complete assigned reading and pre-recorded video lectures
- At the end of lecture, students will need to complete a short real-time quiz based on the assigned reading and pre-recorded lectures
- Interaction during synchronous lectures is highly encouraged to help prepare for quizzes at the end of lecture
- Participation in synchronous lectures will be a component of the ‘class participation’ part of the overall course grade.
- Asynchronous lectures: Students will need to watch multiple lecture videos on their own time each week.
- Please see this Google document for the public SE 413 lecture schedule
- All pre-recorded lectures will be clearly organized on the course website (see below), including links to the associated videos, and the date by which students need to have watched each set of videos.
- Some lectures will be made available publicly, including some that are currently available on the instructor’s YouTube channel.
- The remaining lectures will be available only to enrolled students.
- Semester Projects: SE 413 requires completion of a semester project that involves the formulation, implementation, solution, analysis, and iterative refinement of an engineering design optimization (EDO) problem. Two options are available:
- Standard Project: (For students registered for 3 credit hours) Group project that focuses on iterative definition, solution, and refinement of an engineering design optimization problem. Topic is to be defined by the student group. Standard projects are intended to be relatively simple (minimal modeling requirements) while providing sufficient richness for learning EDO.
- Intensive Project: (For students registered for 4 credit hours) Group or individual project that provides an opportunity for ambitious students to take a deeper dive into EDO. Such projects often require a significantly higher modeling effort, and it is recommended that students opting for an intensive project already have some experience in the modeling/simulation of an engineering application that is appropriate for EDO. Often this project is related to the research topics that graduate students are working on. While this option is geared toward graduate students, it is available to undergraduate students with appropriate background. Please speak with the instructor if you have any questions about choosing between a standard or an intensive project.
- Exams: Two midterm exams will be given. These will be a combination of standard quantitative design or analysis problems (similar to homework), as well as a significant emphasis on short-answer questions designed to assess the depth of student conceptual understanding of course topics. The semester project serves the role of integrative design assessment, and takes the place of a final exam.
Online Course Resources:
- Enrolled students will automatically be added to the Canvas site for SE 413. Students auditing can request to be added by the instructor.
- SE 413 Spring 2022 Zoom meeting (link forthcoming) (obtain password from instructor)
- This Zoom meeting will be used both for synchronous lectures and open office hours.
- SE 413 Spring 2022 Box Folder (obtain password from instructor)
- Link to top-level folder
- Link to course videos folder (non-public course videos)
- Link to course files folder (lecture slides and other files)
Textbooks:
Schedule Summary:
Week 1 (L1): Introduction to EDO, Design Automation, and Algorithmic Thinking
Week 2 (L2): Optimization Solver Introduction and Mathematical Preliminaries
Week 3 (L3): Numerical Foundations for Optimization
Week 4 (L4): EDO Problem Formulation and Analysis
Week 5 (L5): Putting EDO Into Practice
Week 6 (L6): EDO Examples/Exam 1 Review
Week 7: Exam 1
Week 8 (L7): Unconstrained Optimization Part A
Week 9 (L8): Unconstrained Optimization Part B
Week 10 (L9): Constrained Optimization Part A
Week 11 (L10): Constrained Optimization Part B
Week 12 (L11): Constrained Optimization Part C
Week 13 (L12): EDO Implementation
Week 14: Exam Review and Project Work Week
Week 15: Exam 2
Week 16: Final Project Deliverables