Course Overview :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Course Overview

Welcome to ECE 445/ME470 Senior Design ZJUI Spring 2023!

Welcome to the class! If you've looked at the course Calendar, you've probably already noticed that this class is quite different from most other classes in the department. The class only meets as a whole for the first four weeks of the semester. During these lectures, you will meet the Course Staff, learn about specific requirements, resources, and project choices for the course, and have a chance to meet other students. These are some of the most important weeks for the class since the decisions you make during this time will determine what you'll get out of this class and, in many ways, how much you'll enjoy it.

In this course, you will form teams and propose projects that solve an engineering problem in a unique way. The projects generally involve a device that you will design, build, and demonstrate. We are excited to see what projects you create this semester! In the midst of an ever-changing learning environment, we want to encourage you to think, create, design, and build exemplary projects. We want to ensure that your experience in 445 demonstrates your potential as an engineer graduating from the University of Illinois.

This course is taught hybrid for ME and ECE students, and some projects are mentored by ZJUI faculty. Here are a few items that you will need to consider as we enter this semester.

Expectations and Requirements

We have high expectations for students participating in ECE/ME Senior Design. You are soon to be an alumnus of one of the top engineering schools in the world. Our alumni hold themselves to high technical and professional standards of conduct. In general, projects are expected to be safe, ethical, and have a level of design complexity commensurate with the rigour of the ECE/ME Illinois curriculum. Requirements for specific assignments due throughout the semester can be found by looking through the Grading Scheme for the course. Please read through this documentation well before each assignment is due. Specific due dates can be found on the course Calendar.

Below are a few words of wisdom to keep in mind throughout the semester to increase your enjoyment and success in the course:

 

LED Cube

Featured Project

LED technology is more advanced and much more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs and as such our team decided we wanted to build a device related to LEDs. An LED cube is inherently aesthetically pleasing and ours will be capable of displaying 3D animations and lighting patterns with much increased complexity compared to any 2D display of comparable resolution. Environmental interaction will also be able to control the various lighting effects on the cube. Although our plan is for a visually pleasing cube, our implementation can easily be adapted for more practical applications such as displaying 3D models.