ECEN 340: Assignment Information

IMPORTANT: Schedules, assignments, and policies are subject to change, but students will be given advance notification of any changes.

General Assignment Policies:

 

1)    Assignments will not be accepted for full credit after the deadline. 

 

You will receive only one-half of the earned points for any that were not submitted on time. 

 

This policy may seem harsh, but your future employer(s) will be just as strict about finishing your assignments on time.  Don't believe it?  Look at this:   

 

"HP attempted to put in a bid to construct a geographical information system for the Polish Power Grid, but missed the deadline. According to the Warsaw Business Journal, the courier dispatched with the bid got stuck in a traffic jam, invalidating the bid. Eight bids were received on time."   (INSIDE HP, Traffic Stymies HP Bid In Warsaw , Tuesday, March 2, 2004) 

 

The reason for being late did not matter.  All of the time and hard work Hewlett-Packard put into the bid did not matter.  The bid was not accepted because it was late!

 

If you believe you have extenuating circumstances that are completely beyond your control, talk to the instructor about them.

 

2)    All assignments, unless otherwise stated in the written instructions, must be submitted electronically through I-Learn.

 

The instructor's desk is not a secure location.  Assignments left on the instructor's desk might not be graded.  Unless otherwise stated in the written instructions, submit everything through I-Learn.

 

The instructor's email is not accessible by his graders and is not connected to the grade book in I-Learn.   Assignments sent to the instructor's email address will not be graded.  Unless otherwise stated in the written instructions, submit everything through I-Learn.

 

I-Learn keeps a log of all your activities and verifies that you did -- or did not -- submit an assignment on time.  That log will settle any disputes regarding the submission of assignments.

Exams:

 

There are no formal tests in this course.

Homework:

 

Most weeks have homework assignments.  They must be completed by working with your team and are worth 20% of your grade.  Some class time will usually be devoted to this group work.  

Laboratory Experiments:

 

Laboratory experiments are the primary learning activity in this course.  They are worth 60% of your grade.  Be sure to download any data sheets or work sheets, if they are required for a particular laboratory experiment. 

 

Work with your team to complete the laboratories.

 

There is a specific format for laboratory reports. 

Project:

 

You will be required to work on a team to implement a substantial design with Verilog-HDL and an FPGA.  Your team may choose the project from one of the "Suggested Experiments" in 6.5 of FPGA Prototyping by Verilog Examples.  This project is worth 10% of your grade.

 

Your project will be scored according to its correct operation, your team's presentation of it, and your team's written documentation.

Team Contribution:

You will be assigned to a team for doing homework, laboratories, and the project in this course.  You will evaluate the contributions of all the OTHER members of your group at the end of the course.  Your score will be the average of the points you receive from your peers. 

This is worth 10% of your grade.