Meeting with Your TA

Description

By the Thursday of the third week, you must have a project approved, and should be ready to get working! At this time, you'll need to log into PACE and submit your schedule for the semester. Please be sure to make this as accurate as possible because once it's submitted, it can only be changed manually. Making a block of your schedule red means that you are unavailable during that time.

Once each person on your team has submitted their schedule, your TA will be able to easily check for available times to schedule a weekly meeting. Your TA should contact you, usually by the fourth week, via email, to set up a weekly meeting schedule at mutual convenience. During the first weekly meeting, your TA will assign your team a locker and a lab kit.

Weekly meetings with your TA are required and will be held throughout the entire semester until demonstrations are completed. Your TA is your project manager. The "homework" of the course consists of preparing for the weekly meetings. Your TA will evaluate your lab notebook each week, provide feedback, and recommend improvements. At each meeting you will be expected to present your progress since your last meeting, plans for the coming week, and any technical or administrative questions you need to discuss with your TA. You are expected to arrive on time and prepared to make good use of your time with your TA. Your TA may require that each team member to fill out the Progress Report Template and submit it to them prior to each weekly meeting.

Requirements and Grading

Attendance and participation in weekly meetings is required and will affect Teamwork and Lab Notebook scores. If you can't make it to a particular weekly meeting, it is your responsibility to inform your TA prior to the meeting time and set up an alternate time.

Submission and Deadlines

Your schedule must be submitted by the end of the third week of class and you will receive an email from your TA shortly after. Your first meeting with your TA should be during the fourth week of the semester.

RFI Detector

Jamie Brunskill, Tyler Shaw, Kyle Stevens

RFI Detector

Featured Project

Problem Statement:

Radio frequency interference from cell phones disrupts measurements at the radio observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Many visitors do not comply when asked to turn their phones off or put them in airplane mode.

Description:

We are planning to design a handheld device that will be able to detect radio frequency interference from cell phones from approximately one meter away. This will allow someone to determine if a phone has been turned off or is in airplane mode.

The device will feature an RF front end consisting of antennas, filters, and matching networks. Multiple receiver chains may be used for different bands if necessary. They will feed into a detection circuit that will determine if the power within a given band is above a certain threshold. This information will be sent to a microcontroller that will provide visual/audible user feedback.

Project Videos