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ENGINEERING TRIPOS PART IIA |
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EIET LABORATORY |
ENGINEERING AREA ACTIVITY |
Areas 5,6,7 and 8
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INVESTIGATION OF THE DESIGN OF CD PLAYERS |
to gain an insight into the engineering of a real, complex, high technology, consumer product.
to plan a technical investigation into a defined subsystem within a CD player or CD-ROM drive.
to gain an understanding of how the specified subsystem works.
to make quantitative measurements of the performance of the subsystem using standard and custom-designed test and measurement equipment.
to appreciate the system design tradeoffs within the subsystem, and between the many subsystems within the CD player.
to make a short oral presentation on the findings to the rest of the group, and respond to oral questions from the rest of the group.
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Book your place for this activity before booking for other practicals. For guidance on what the activity involves, and how to book, see the first page of this handout. |
This Engineering Area Activity (EAA) is available only to third year students who have chosen one of Engineering Areas 5, 6, 7 or 8 as their core group. All students in Areas 5, 6 and 7 must complete this activity. The alternative EAA for Area 8 'Instrumentation and Control' is 'Power Station Simulation'.
The objectives of the activity are listed above. It is more open-ended than standard laboratory experiments, and gives you more opportunity to plan and organise the work. It illustrates some of the problems and design decisions which electronic and information engineers have to deal with in practice.
The PGA takes 16 hours, using 4 consecutive "lab days" over a 2 week period (i.e. Fri, Weds, Fri, Weds); section 2 gives full details. The activity is carried out by a group of 12 students, split into 6 pairs, with the pairs working in parallel on different tasks. At the end, each pair makes a short oral presentation to the whole group on their findings, and answers any questions from the group.
7 groups (each with 6 pairs of students) can do the activity in the Michaelmas Term, and 3 groups in Lent. The 6 pairs in the group cover different areas of interest, namely:
For details of your specific topic, you should read the the particular description sheets.
Since slots will be booked on a 'first come first served' basis you may not be able to do the topic you would most like to. Book in for the one you like best of those that are available. Although some of the topics may be closer to your particular interests than others, all of them cover topics of relevance to all Electrical/Electronic, Control and Information engineers.
Booking sheets are available in the Inglis EIET Lab for each of the 10 start dates, and you should write your name into one of the 'slots' on one of those sheets BEFORE booking yourself into any other lab experiments.
The timetable for each group is as follows:
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Fri 1 |
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Mon 1 |
Tue 1 |
Wed 1 |
Thur 2 |
Fri 2 |
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Mon 2 |
Tue 2 |
Wed 2 |
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Intro |
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- |
- |
Lab(S) |
- |
Lab(S) |
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- |
- |
Prep |
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Study |
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- |
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Lab(U) |
Lab(U) |
Lab(U) |
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Lab(U) |
Lab(U) |
Pres |
(S = supervised, U = unsupervised)
Friday 1st Session
There will be an introduction in a Lecture Room 10 at 11:10am. The activity will be explained, and you will have a chance to ask questions. You will be given copies of further material which you may need, including data sheets and instruction manuals.
For the remainder of the day, you should study your task, investigate reference material to find out information that you need, and plan your investigations. It is up to each pair to decide on the partition of work between the two members of the pair. There will normally be another group in the Inglis EIET Lab working on it at this stage, and you are asked not to disturb them at this stage.
Wednesday 1st to Tuesday 2nd
You will have access to the laboratory and equipment from the first Wednesday until the following Tuesday. In particular on the timetabled laboratory days (Wed 1 and Fri 2) demonstrators will be available in the Inglis EIT Lab in the mornings to help. Demonstrators will probably not be available in the afternoon. It will be possible to work on other afternoons by agreement with the Assistant in Charge of the Inglis EIT Lab, Mr. M. Furber.
Wednesday 2nd
In the morning you should put together a ten minute presentation on your findings. The objective is a clear well-organised ten minute presentation, to be followed by a five minute period for questions and answers. In the afternoon, go to Lecture Room 10 at 2.00pm for a 2:15pm start.
This should involve a technical component, reflecting your investigations, and also your views of some of the 'system-level' design issues which have led to the design being the way it is.
Each pair of students should make a presentation, which should last about ten minutes, allowing five further minutes for questions and discussion and a short 'post-mortem' of the preceding presentation.
Guidance notes will be supplied on how best to prepare this presentation. Blank OHP slides and coloured pens will be supplied, for hand drawing. Computer based presentations are encouraged and a computer will be available for the presentation session.
The member of staff present will act as session chairman.
The activity is for 20 marks of 'standard credit' as explained in the 'General Instructions for Third Year Coursework'. The member of staff at the initial briefing and final presentation will award these marks for satisfactory completion of the activity, to those having shown due diligence in the lab. and presentation sessions.
Dr P.R. Palmer, October 2007