Summary of learning assessment and results

Project title: FPGA Chips and Student Research Projects for Physics 351

Project PI: Seth Aubin, Dept. of Physics

saaubi@wm.edu, tel: 1-3545

Project synopsis

This course development project integrates FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) electronic chips and a one month student research project into the Physics 351 digital electronics course. The student research project introduces the students to the basics of experimental physics instrumentation research. The students design, budget, shop for parts, construct, test, and present a custom electronic device for physics research.

Assessment of student learning

The following project related results were determined from discussions with students, course evaluations, and the instructor's assessment of student learning:

Student research projects: Seven students participated in the course. Five students felt that the student project was an important and useful learning experience that contributed to their research skills, while the remaining two students did not find the project to be a useful learning tool due to its difficulty. The students thought that the research project was at the right level intellectually, but that the construction breadth and complexity was too difficult for the allocated time. The project PI assesses that most of the students assimilated the learning objectives associated with the student research projects.

Integration of FPGAs into course: All students felt that the addition of FPGAs into the course was useful and interesting. [Generally, SACS reviewers no longer have much confidence in student self-reported perceptions.] The project PI determined that the students were capable of basic FPGA programming by the end of the course.

The following table details the learning objectives for the course development project and explains how the course assesses student learning for each objective.

Learning objective	Learning experience	Evaluation
FPGA program design
Students can program an FPGA circuit to satisfy the electrical input and output requirements for a device.	Students will participate in a series of lab modules in which they program FPGA circuits.	Student FPGA programming ability and creativity is evaluated by verifying that their FPGA circuits function as intended and by reviewing their FPGA programs. Each lab module is graded.
Device design competition
Proposal Students can design, budget, and write formal project proposal presenting the purpose and the design of an electronics instrument for physics research based on an FPGA.	Student teams design their device, which they present in the form of a formal project proposal with a budget.	The proposals from each student team are formally evaluated on the basis of the quality of the design, the budget, and clarity of presentation.
Construction and debugging Students can construct and debug an electronics instrument of their own design.	Student teams construct their electronics circuits and assemble their device. The student teams also debug their device to ensure that it meets all the design requirements.	The student-built devices are evaluated on the basis of performance and the quality of construction. The students work is also evaluated on the basis of team lab book records.
Presentation Students present their work in the form of an oral presentation and a webpage.	Student teams present their device in the form of an oral presentation and a web page.	The oral and webpage presentations are formally evaluated.

Conclusion

The project will be repeated again in the fall semester of 2008. For fall 2007, the students responded well to the design competition project and the inclusion of FPGA chips into the curriculum: all the project learning objectives were met. The students improved their electronics design skills considerably, while also learning valuable project management, budgeting, construction, debugging, and presentation skills. The fall 2008 design competition project will be simpler, so that a working prototype is easier to construct.

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