Enhancing One Students’ Design Skills In An Electrical Engineering Capstone Senior Design Project By Learning From The Design And Hardware Construction Of An Annunciator
- Conference
- Location
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2008
- Start Date
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June 22, 2008
- End Date
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June 25, 2008
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Electrical and Computer
- Page Count
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12
- Page Numbers
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13.548.1 - 13.548.12
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--3122
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/3122
- Download Count
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480
Paper Authors
Rosemarie Guzman University of the Pacific
Rosemarie Guzman is a an undergraduate electrical engineering student (senior standing) at the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Comptuer Science, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA. Her research interests span a wide range of topics in electrical engineering, with special emphasis on the design and development of various instruments for practical applications.
Michael Golanbari University of the Pacific
Michael Golanbari received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis, in 1999. From 2000 to 2003 he was a communications systems engineer on the technical staff of Alantro Communications Corporation and Texas Instruments (TI) Corporation, Santa Rosa, California. At Alantro and TI, he worked on wireless local area network (WLAN) transceiver design and development (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi). Since 2003 he has been on the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of the Pacific, Stockton,
California. His research interests are in engineering education, wireless communications, and signal processing.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Enhancing One Students’ Design Skills in an Electrical Engineering Capstone Senior Design Project by Learning from the Design and Hardware Construction of an Annunciator
Abstract
This paper reports on the use of the design and hardware building of an annunciator (a temperature monitor device) in a capstone senior design project course to provide an introduction to innovative instrumentation design, development and hardware construction techniques to an electrical engineering undergraduate student. The annunciator system is an excellent student learning tool because its design and implementation develops and enhances students’ knowledge of several interesting and challenging aspects of analog and digital system engineering and signal processing.
Only one student (the co-author of this paper) enrolled in the capstone senior design project course offered in fall semester 2007. For her project, the student applied various hardware design techniques to develop and implement an annunciator for a unit of the State of California Department of Water Resources Harvey O. Banks Water Pumping Plant. Since the water pumping unit already exists, the new student-designed annunciator system is designed to operate in compliance with the current setup of the plant. The student-designed annunciator system is designed to be completely compatible with the 13.8 KV switchgear, and to meet other specific requirements. For example, it is suitable for normal operation at 125 V DC and continuous operation over a range of 100–150 V DC. The annunciator system is programmable and expandable to accept up to four different inputs. It also consists of output signals, such as pushbuttons for testing, acknowledging, and resetting the device.
The dual-alarm annunciator is wired to terminal blocks at the rear of the annunciator, and uses a flashing light device as well as audible alarm horn to make notifications and provide warnings when the monitored oil level and oil temperature in each water pump deviate from a preset range. These warnings are visible in the window display of the annunciator, and are heard by sounding a loud alarm/buzzer. The student installed the new system into the existing electrical prints, which date back to the 1960s. The design was retested and verified by plant engineers before the installation. The annunciator system project provided the student with in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with designing, developing and testing a sophisticated working system that meets practical real-world engineering requirements, constraints and specifications. The instructor for the capstone design course has suggested similar annunciator design projects to electrical and computer engineering and engineering physics students taking the current (spring semester) offering of the capstone senior design project course, and plans to continue to suggest the project to students in future offerings of the course.
Guzman, R., & Golanbari, M. (2008, June), Enhancing One Students’ Design Skills In An Electrical Engineering Capstone Senior Design Project By Learning From The Design And Hardware Construction Of An Annunciator Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3122
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