E80 Kickoff Presentation

Teaching Team

Prof. Josh Brake

Prof. Dre Helmns

Prof. Ethan Ritz

Prof. Matt Spencer

Prof. Qimin Yang

Lynn Kim

Xavier Walter

E80 is about forming your engineering identity and learning how to do experiments

In this course you will learn how to…

Do Experiments

  • Design instrumentation
  • Gather, interpret, and present data
  • Learn domain-specific skills (e.g., using op-amps and the wind tunnel)

Be an Engineer

  • Deal with failure and learn from it.
  • Professionally present your experiments.
  • Know what good results look like.
  • Work effectively on technical problems as a team under pressure.

Our goal is to take you from Students → Engineers

Course Philosophy

Growth requires good stress and progressive overload.

Course Overview

Key places for course information:

Lots of new stuff this year!

  • Shiny new website!
  • Redesigned labs!
  • New writing assignment format!
  • Resubmissions!

Course Overview: Labs & Project Phases

E80 has two main phases: lab and project.

Labs

Each lab has an experiment and a writing component.

  • Experiments are done during your 4-hour lab section.
  • Writing is done in the Friday Writing & Reflection period.

Project

The project is the chance for you to design and perform your own experiment using the skills you’ve developed in the labs.

You propose an experiment and design a robot with the appropriate sensors to make measurements.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Figure 1: Bloom’s Taxonomy, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching.

Learning Outcome Categorization

Look at the learning outcomes both for the overall E80 course, and Lab 1, and the Lab 1 writing assignment and categorize them using Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Learning Outcome Categorization

E80 General

  • Design instrumentation
  • Gather, interpret, and present data
  • Learn domain-specific skills (e.g., using op-amps and the wind tunnel)
  • Deal with failure and learn from it.
  • Professionally present your experiments.
  • Know what good results look like.
  • Work effectively on technical problems as a team under pressure.

Learning Outcome Categorization

Lab 1

  • Modify an E79 robot to build an E80 robot.
  • Program your robot to traverse basic trajectories.
  • Extract data from your robot, import it into MATLAB, and plot it.
  • Use statistical measures to analyze data gathered from your robot.
  • Explain the limitations and challenges of open loop control.
  • Relate your robot’s behavior to governing equations from E79.

Lab 1 Writing

  • Learn how to design a clear figure
  • Understand what information should be in the figure, figure caption, and text referencing the figure.

Scheduling & Details

E80 moves quickly and you’ve got multiple things to turn in each week.

Canvas is the place to turn everything in!

1. Lecture Quiz

Watch lecture videos and take quiz each week. Due each Monday at 12 pm (noon).

2. Lab Submission Sheet

Submit key deliverables collected in lab. Due at the end of your lab section each week (5:15 pm).

3. Writing & Reflection Section

Bring deliverables from lab each week. Write a small section of a technical memo each week, review it to meet spec, and check it off with an instructor. Due at Friday at 3:15 pm.

4. Weekly Team Check In

Fill out a survey to help you assess how your team is doing and if there are any issues developing. Due Friday at 3:30 pm.

Weekly Schedule

Day Lecture Quiz Submission Sheet Write Up Weekly Check In Peer Evaluation
Monday Quiz Due @ Noon (Canvas)
Tuesday Due @ 5:15p (E80-1)
Wednesday Due @ 5:15p (E80-2)
Thursday Due @ 5:15p (E80-3)
Friday Due @ 3:15p Due @ 3:30p

Scheduling Activity

Every week you need to have the following time carved out.

Item Time Required [hours]
Lab 4 hours
Writing & Reflection 2 hours
Watch Lecture Videos 1 hour
Take Lecture Quiz 30 minutes
Pre-lab Work & Team Meetings 4.5 hours

Team Administrivia

  1. Schedule a time for you to meet as a team of 4 each week.
  2. Create a shared file storage location (e.g., a shared Google Drive folder or Shared Drive).
  3. Decide how you want to communicate this semester (e.g., email, text thread, Discord, Slack, etc.).
  4. Block out time for all the activities on the previous slide on your calendar!

Specifications: Effort and Completion

The grading in E80 this semester for submission sheets and writing assignments will be based on whether or not your deliverables meet two different levels of specifications: effort and complete. The overall grade on an assignment will be determined by how many of the sections meet either effort or completion.

  • Effort specs describe good-faith effort.
  • Completion specs describe correctness.

In most situations, completing effort specs is equivalent to a passing grade on the assignment and the remaining sections of completion specs are worth a grade level each.

Effort and Completion Specifications Example: Lab 1

Sample Effort and Completion Specifications

Resubmissions Policy

Learning is about iterative feedback.

This year we are introducing some new policies to allow you to revise your work if you don’t meet all the specifications for an assignment on the first try.

  1. You must submit something by the deadline.
    • Don’t phone this in because there is limited time for resubmission.
  2. After you receive feedback, you can revise your submissions until spring break.
    • Most of specs can be done outside of lab with data.
    • However, if you weren’t able to get good data, there is one week before spring break where you can go back to collect more.
  3. Resubmissions are checked off by an instructor during office hours.
  4. For all submissions, you will need to self-assess before you submit. Every assignment you submit should be accompanied along with a checklist of specs that you believe the assignment meets or does not meet.
  5. All resubmissions must be completed by spring break.

Google Project Aristotle describes the attributes of a high-functioning team

  1. Psychological Safety
  2. Dependability
  3. Structure and Clarity
  4. Meaning
  5. Impact

Google Blog Post on Project Aristotle (Web Archive)

Team Formation Refresh

  • Psychological Safety: creating an environment where team members are comfortable taking risks and speaking up.
  • Team Norms: A set of agreements about how the team will operate.

“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I’m confident you can reach them.” - advice on feedback from Adam Grant

Team Contract Activity

  1. Go to the website and download the team contract form (found on the lectures page).
  2. Discuss with your team and fill out the missing sections.
  3. When you think you are finished, fill out the checklist of effort and completion specs and put up your green flag.
  4. After an instructor has come by and given you feedback, make the suggested revisions and submit a PDF of your the team contract and PDF of the completed checklist with any notes to Canvas.

You are going to build cool stuff!

E80 main PCB

Paul Zoeller, The Post and Courier.

Your E80 board has a GPS, IMU, Tiny Computer, 5 amp Motor Driver, and you’ll use the full robot in Lab 1.

Snacks

Join us for snacks outside in the tents near Parsons!