Wanted: Capstone Project Suggestions

[[email protected]]

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Thanx,
Ed

 

[martin griffith]

On 12 Sep 2006 14:22:01 -0700, in sci.electronics.design

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Duh, how about reading it?
Or are you asking something more profound?

Never heard of malvino anyway cos I'm ancient


martin

 

[Rich Grise]

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Start with a crystal set, then add a transistor, then add another
transistor and a speaker. Then, on another breadboard, build
an oscillator, a modulator, and an output stage, and talk to
your receiver.

For extra credit, build in 80 db noise immunity, or build it
for VHF. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[John Larkin]

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Thanx,
Ed

What's a capstone?

John

 

[Tim Auton]

On 12 Sep 2006 14:22:01 -0700, in sci.electronics.design

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters: [snip]
By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Duh, how about reading it?

A device for reading a project idea which does not yet exist would be a
truly wonderous thing. But I suspect it's beyond a basic electronics
course.

Does anybody know exactly what 'Voltage Amplifiers' encompasses (and
excludes)? It's not a familiar technical term to me, though of course
its literal meaning is clear enough.


Tim

 

[BobG]

What's a capstone?

=============================
I thought the thread was about Capstone 30KW microturbines that are
being used for landfill gas energy recover.

 

[John O'Flaherty]

What's a capstone?

From American Heritage Dictionary

1. The top stone of a structure or wall.
2. The crowning achievement or final stroke; the culmination or acme.

It's current educational jargon for the final project in a curriculum.

 

[John Larkin]

1. The top stone of a structure or wall.
2. The crowning achievement or final stroke; the culmination or acme.

It's current educational jargon for the final project in a curriculum.

Ah, a "class project" or a "senior project." Impressive terminology.

Capstone is also a high-end microwave cae suite, I think.

John

 

[Chris]

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Thanx,
Ed

Hi, Ed. Malvino is one of the standard texts for technician track
courses. It's a good book. But, like any textbook (I think the
current edition is over 1100 pages), the teacher will be jumping back
and forth and skipping around.

I'd hope by this time you have a pretty good idea of your capabilities
and potential in the class. But you may not yet know the things you'd
need to knopw to figure out what a real learning experience project
would be.

Tell you what. Why don't you try asking the teacher for advice. I'll
bet he/she'll be happy to oblige, and offer you suggestions for
projects that not only will be worthy of a good grade, but will be a
learning experience that will reinforce your classroom experience.

Good luck
Chris

 

[John O'Flaherty]

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Since you're looking at medical equipment repair, you want to do
something related to that, like an amplifier for EKG or EEG or EMG, or
something to automatically read equipment leakage current, or generate
simulated heart waves or something. Maybe you could design the project
around a microcontroller, so it could do multiple things. You can get
evaluation kits for some of them for less than $100.

 

[John O'Flaherty]

Since you're looking at medical equipment repair, you want to do
something related to that,

I meant to say, you _might_ want to do something related to that.

 

[CWatters]

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment.

Do hospitals repair their own equipment?

 

[Jim Douglas]

Create a working cell phone jammer that will fit in my pocket and jam
cell phones in a 25yd radius around me. You could then market it as
a driving safety device which "Keeps others focused on the task at hand,
driving"!

 

[John Woodgate]

Start with a crystal set, then add a transistor, then add another
transistor and a speaker. Then, on another breadboard, build an
oscillator, a modulator, and an output stage, and talk to your
receiver.

There is no RF technology in the course. So, I'd do it at baseband
audio. Make an amplifier that converts microphone signals into a current
flowing in an n-turn (*) frame antenna, about 0.5 m square. Now make a
receiver with a bobbin-type ferrite-cored inductor (around 22 mH) as the
magnetic antenna. Talk from your magnetic transmitter to your magnetic
receiver.

This is easy to get going, but there's quite a lot of subtlety in there.
For example, the signal spectrum is different at different places in the
chain.

(*) This will work for any value of n, but there is an optimum value,
depending on the supply voltage to your amplifier and the maximum
current it can deliver. The antenna has inductance as well as
resistance. This has interesting effects, both locally to the amplifier
and globally to the system performance, which you can analyse in
different ways and write a 3-voume novel on.

 

[John Woodgate]

Since you're looking at medical equipment repair, you want to do
something related to that, like an amplifier for EKG or EEG or EMG, or
something to automatically read equipment leakage current, or generate
simulated heart waves or something. Maybe you could design the project
around a microcontroller, so it could do multiple things. You can get
evaluation kits for some of them for less than $100.

The course is all about analogue. Suggesting a microprocessor is
predictable but inappropriate.

 

[[email protected]]

Do hospitals repair their own equipment?

Our "small-town USA" hospital did, and probably still does, when
possible. A year or two ago, I chatted with an older gentleman who had
been one of the techs, there. They had a "shop" area with lots of
spiffy Tektronix and HP test equipment. Apparently, a lot of medical
equipment also needs to be regularly tested.

- Tom Gootee

 

[[email protected]]

1. The top stone of a structure or wall.
2. The crowning achievement or final stroke; the culmination or acme.

It's current educational jargon for the final project in a curriculum.

...or acme.

Or (since I used to be a crossword addict): apogee, peak, pinnacle,
summit, top, zenith...

- Tom Gootee

http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg

"He who lives in a glass house" should not invite "he who is without
sin".

 

[John Ferrell]

Think about a curve tracer. It can be pretty simple or very elaborate.
A signal, pulse or function generator?
Switcher type power supply?
An audio amp for bench work.
A 555 timer from discrete components?

Hi,

I'm taking a non-calculus based Electronics I course at a local
community college using Malvino's text, _Electronics Principles_. My
goal is to work for hospitals repairing medical equipment. This
semester we are covering the text's following chapters:

* Semiconductors
* Diode Theory
* Diode Circuits
* Special Purpose Diodes
* Bipolar Transistors
* Transistor Fundamentals
* Transistor Biasing
* AC Models
* Voltage Amplifiers

By the end of the semester, I need to turn in a capstone design
project. I'm looking for ideas for a project that will be challenging.

Suggestions?

Thanx,
Ed

John Ferrell W8CCW

 

[John O'Flaherty]

The course is all about analogue. Suggesting a microprocessor is
predictable but inappropriate.

Even if the capstone project is only for the particular course, most
analog stuff ends up digitized at some point or other, and it wouldn't
hurt to learn something about that process. In any case, he's free to
take what he likes and leave the rest.

 

[John Woodgate]

Even if the capstone project is only for the particular course, most
analog stuff ends up digitized at some point or other, and it wouldn't
hurt to learn something about that process. In any case, he's free to
take what he likes and leave the rest.

But he hasn't learned about microprocessors, so his capstone project is
most likely to fail. I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

I gave him something that appears to suit his course, has challenges at
several levels but is easy to get working to some extent. It even
includes its own yardstick of effectiveness - the range over which
communication can be achieved. With the antennas I specified, a range of
several feet, even through walls that don't contain significant amounts
of metal, is possible.