Syllabus ENGR 201CO S10

From The Collaboratory

MESSIAH COLLEGE ENGR 201CO - Communications Group Orientation

Classroom

• Combined - Frey 150
• Group Specific - Frey 253 and/or Frey 266 Lab

Time

• Combined - Mondays at 1:50 - 2:50 PM
• Group Specific - Monday afternoons, 3 - 5 PM when Combined sessions are scheduled, otherwise 1:50 - 5 PM

Advisor - Harold Underwood

• E-mail address - HUnderw@messiah.edu
• Office Phone - 766-2511 ext. 7125
• Home Phone - 717-697-9709
• Office hours - M 10:30-11:30 AM, TR 10:30-12 Noon, WF 1-2 PM, or by appointment

Group Leader - Nicole Steiner

• E-mail - ns1224@messiah.edu
• Phone - x5286

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 What is Group Orientation? 1.2 Goals of this class 2 Policies 3 Grades 4 Quizzes 5 Reflective Writing Assignments 6 Participation/Attendance 7 Logbook 8 Syllabus Schedule 9 Schedule

Overview

What is Group Orientation?

Group Orientation is the first of 7 courses that make up the integrated projects portion of the Bachelor of Science in Engineering program at Messiah College. In this Integrated Projects Curriculum (IPC) you put the knowledge content of other classes to work in creative hands-on problem solving. The IPC brings you and other students together with professors and other advisors to solve real-world problems brought to us by off-campus clients. Through these projects we also seek to live out our Christian faith as God's stewards over the resources of the engineering discipline.

The IPC courses are challenging, but not like other courses. Innovative features include shared project leadership by students and educators, project teams of students from all years of study, and sustained effort between academic semesters to achieve tangible results for clients. The IPC functions within the Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research, so you gain practical work experience in a real organization. Some students decide to pursue voluntary service and leadership in the Collaboratory, but the IPC gives every engineering major some practical experience and an opportunity to consider how their work and Christian faith connect.

In Group Orientation you learn how to work in the the organization called the Collaboratory, and how to work on a project teams. You also gain technical knowledge and competencies specific to your Group. In other words, this is where the Group advisor and current student leaders equip you to be useful in the fall semester on a project team. All of your other classes are general to the engineering discipline; they serve many but no particular industry or class of project. This class is focused specifically on what you need to know to contribute to the work of your Group.

Goals of this class

Students who successfully complete Group Orientation will be able to:

1. Describe the mission, core values, and operating principles of the Collaboratory.
2. Discuss the basic principles of project management.
3. Apply the practices of productive teams and team members.
4. Write and complete SMART goals, specifications, and deliverable statements
5. Describe 7 phases of application development.
6. Name features of good project documentation.
7. Build a page in the Collaboratory wiki.
8. State your Group's mission statement, and how it advances the mission of the Collaboratory.
9. Discuss your Group's history, lessons learned, work culture, and core values.
10. Name your Group's projects, their clients, and their global objectives.
11. Research and write a review of the literature on a topic relevant to your Group.
12. Pass quizzes on technical material specific to your Group.
13. Satisfy certification requirements for the use of shop and laboratory equipment strategic to the work of your Group.
14. Demonstrate proficiency in material and part selection for applications important to your Group.

Policies

1. If you are absent due to illness or emergency, please call or leave a message so that your professor can determine if the absence is excused or unexcused. If your professor does not hear from you within 48 hours of the missed class then the absence is unexcused.
2. If you miss a quiz and your absence is excused, the professor will probably ask you to take it later. In rare cases you may be excused from the quiz, meaning the quiz will not count for or against your final grade. If your absence on the day of a quiz is unexcused then you have earned a score of zero.
3. The professor will accept late work if you have an excused absence. The length your extension will depend on the assignment and circumstances. You must make arrangements for an extension when you see your professor about the absence.
4. Assignments will be collected at the beginning of class on the due date. The professor will accept late work up to one full day after the due date with a 10% penalty, and work that is more than a day but not more than a week late for 1/2 credit. You can not excel in this course if you don't keep up. The goal of this late-work policy is to encourage you to keep up with the work, while providing some flexibility for the occasional emergency. Finally, if you miss an assignment, get something in. Half credit is much better than a zero!
5. You may submit work that is assigned on a day that you are absent from class. There will be no opportunity, however, to make up in-class assignments. If you have an excused absence the professor will excuse you from in-class assignments; they will not count for or against you on the day of your excused absence. If the absence is unexcused, you have earned a score of zero for class exercised on that day.
6. The standard for all assignments is professional documentation prepared for your peers. Write for persons who know as much but not more about engineering than you. This is because when you write about your IPC project it will be for the next generation of students!
7. As part of the documentation requirement for this course, you will be required to keep a logbook. Your logbook will stay with you throughout all the IPC project courses, so take care of it and use it wisely.
8. Plan on Group Orientation class running for three hours. The actual class length will vary from week to week, but please do not commit to other activities in anticipation of routinely finishing class early.

Grades

Serving as your assistant in a time of personal growth and development is your professor's motivation for teaching. We are not here primarily to rank you according to ability. Your value as a person is independent of class performance. Whether you excel or struggle, you are an important part of our lives this semester and beyond.

Grades for the course should, however, reflect individual progress as engineering students. A fair and thorough evaluation is important, both to you and to the reputation of the Engineering Program at Messiah College. Since your achievement must eventually be reflected in a grade, we have established the following basis for determining grades in this course:

• 25% Combined
  1. 50% Quizzes
  2. 50% Assignments
• 75% Group Specific
  1. 25% Quizzes based on Ham Radio Technician Class License Question Pool
  2. 25% Reports or Reflective Writing Assignments based on Activities
  3. 25% Logbook
  4. 10% In-class Activity Participation (see Schedule/Group Specific)
  5. 10% Knowledge Proficiency: Ham Radio Technician Class License Exam
  6. 5% Skill Proficiency: soldering equipment

Quizzes

Throughout the semester, a number of proficiency quizzes will be given based on the Ham Radio Technician Class License Manual (HRLM). The syllabus schedule shows the chapter with references to the related items from the question pool that the quiz will address; each quiz will select no more than 20 questions directly from the HRLM question pool. By the end of the course, you will be expected to have enough proficiency on issues related to amateur radio to be able to pass the official Technician Class Amateur Radio License Exam, to gain your own FCC approved personal operating privileges, and call sign. The knowledge base for these quizzes will also help you form a basic, broad and practical background for project work within the area of Communications technology, upon which latter courses in the Electrical concentration of the Messiah College Engineering curriculum build.

Reflective Writing Assignments

Reflective writing should be word-procesed, printed on 8 1/2" by 11" paper, and approximately one-half to one page in length, double-spaced. Please include a suitable heading including your name, coure title and number, date and title of the assignment. Submit reflective writing attached to supporting data or other worksheet, as appropriate. Reflective writing will be graded on a pass/fail basis. In either case, your instructor may provide additional comments / questions for you to consider. If judged unacceptable, your instructor may return the assignment for you to redo.

Participation/Attendance

Due to the limited number of class periods available, attendance is very important. You will be expected to attend and actively participate in any discussions, exercises, or activities, etc. Your participation grade will encompass attendance, participation, and evaluation of your effort in completing non-graded exercises and project tasks assigned to you.

Logbook

All Group Orientation and Project I-IV students are required to keep a logbook. This logbook will become a resource for both you and the Communications group as a whole. In addition to the general IPC logbook guidelines, the Communications group has these specific policies regarding your logbook:

• Group Orientation will provide your logbook, but you will need to provide the dividers for it.
• Reserve a page in the front of your logbook where you can create a Table of Contents listing:
  • Each section of your logbook, as suggested by the guidelines, and labeled by your dividers.
  • The projects that this logbook covers.
  • The dates that you worked on each project.
• Every time you do work on a different project, add this project to the list in the front of your logbook.
• Date your entries so that others coming after you can quickly and easily find the information they need.
• Your logbook may be inspected periodically throughout the semester.
  • Criteria for logbook grades include completeness, content, organization, and neatness.
  • Logbook checks toward the end of the semester will be weighted more heavily than those towards the beginning, helping motivate you to correct any early issues you encounter with logbook use.

Syllabus Schedule

The following schedule is tentative, and may be adjusted as needed to better suit the class, based on the timetable of external clients, HRLM exam schedule, or project work requirements within the Communications Group.

Schedule

Group Orientation is a 3-hour laboratory class. Some learning activities in this class are Combined, that is they are for all students in Group Orientation this semester. Be there! Other learning activities are specific to your Group.

All Combined class sessions are on selected Mondays at 1:50- 2:50PM in Frey 150. All assignments for combined sessions will be available on the Sakai page for the course. Our group will meet at the following time for our group specific activities: Monday afternoons, 3 - 5 PM when Combined sessions are scheduled, otherwise 1:50 - 5 PM in Frey 253 and/or Frey 266 Lab.

February 1 - 5

• Introduction to Group Orientation: Meet at 1:50 in F143
• Combined (February 1): The Collaboratory & IPC - Dr. Fish
  • Assignment 1 (addresses Goal #1)
• Group specific:

1. Introduction to the Communications Group
2. Review of the Course Syllabus
3. Discussion of the IPC curriculum
4. Begin work on Activity #1.1 AM Radio DXing / Report on results due next week
5. Read The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual (HRLM) Chapter 1

February 8 - 12

• Combined (February 8): Research - Prof. Erikson & Beth Transue, Librarian
  • Assignment 2 (addresses Goal #11)
• Group specific:

1. Brief overview of past & current projects
2. Complete Activity #1.2 Comm. Practice: The Phonetic Alphabet (FRS Radios) / Brief Reflective Writing Exercise due next week
3. Read HRLM Chapter 2 & Review all exam questions highlighted in light blue boxes, in preparation for quiz next week
4. Other work-time activity: update Tri-fold display, as needed

February 15 - 19

• Combined (February 15) Documentation, Wiki, & Logbooks - Dr. Fish
  • Assignment 3 (addresses Goals #6 & #7)
• Group specific:

1. Complete Activity #1.3 GPS Coordinates & Grid Square Conversions / Brief Report due next week
2. Quiz on HRLM Chapter 2 Question Pool
3. Read HRLM Chapter 3 & Related Questions. Be prepared for quiz next week.

February 22 - 26

• Combined (February 22): Working on Teams - Drs. VanDyke and Whitmoyer
  • Assignment 4 (addresses Goals #3,#8, #9, and #10)
• Group specific:

1. Complete Activity #2.2 Frequency & Wavelength Calculations Worksheet
2. Complete Activity #2.3 Demo's: Line-of-Sight Propagation and Tropospheric Ducting
3. Complete Activity #2.5 Radio Waves & the Ionosphere Worksheet
4. Quiz on HRLM Chapter 3 Question Pool
5. Read HRLM Chapter 4 & Related Questions. Be prepared for quiz next week.

March 1 - 5

• Combined (March 1): Introduction to Program Management I - Dr. Fish
  • Assignment 5 (addresses Goals #2, #4, and #5)
• Group specific:

1. Complete Activity #3.4 Hook-Up Wire: A Soldering Project
2. Quiz on HRLM Chapter 4 Question Pool
3. Read HRLM Chapter 5 & Related Questions. Be prepared for quiz next week.

March 8 - 12

• Combined (March 8) Introduction to Program Management II - Dr. Fish
  • Assignment 6 (addresses Goals #2, #4, and #5)
• Group specific:

1. Make up any work from previous weeks
2. Quiz on HRLM Chapter 5 Question Pool
3. Read HRLM Chapter 6 & Related Questions. Be prepared for quiz next week.

March 15 - 19 - SPRING BREAK

March 22 - 26

• Group specific:

1. Quiz on HRLM Chapter 6 Question Pool
2. Try www.hamtestonline.com [1] for practice testing with evaluation
3. Read HRLM Chapter 7 & Related Questions. Be prepared for quiz next week.

March 29 - April 2 Short week due to EASTER BREAK

• Group specific:

1. Complete Activity #6.1 Repeater Anthology
2. Quiz on HRLM Ch 7 Question Pool
3. Quiz yourself using www.hamtestonline.com and review as needed

April 5 - 9 Short week due to EASTER BREAK

• No class on Monday April 5 due to EASTER BREAK
• Group specific:

Activity: Travel to Harrisburg Test Site for Ham Radio License Exam

(9am Sat April 17 in Harrisburg)

April 12 - 16

• Combined (April 12): Outside Speaker on Special Topic
• Group specific:

1. Review & Summarize online documents: Purpose of Amateur Radio Service & Safety Issues
2. Complete Activity #4.4 How Antennas Work: Build One & document the process

April 19 - 23

• Group specific:

1. Check database to find your call sign
2. Make amateur radio contacts & report log of activities
3. Presentations by Project II students
4. Begin project work as assigned by Project II students & document in logbook

April 26 - April 30

• Group specific:

Complete project work as assigned by Project II students & document in logbook

• Student Scholars Expo Presentations (April 30)

May 3 - May 7 Short week; last week of classes

• Group specific

FINAL EXAM PERIOD (Time TBD)

• Combined : Discussion and recommendations for improving this course

Assignment due: personal wiki page update

Reflection paper due: Senior Design Project Presentations

Logbooks collected