[sdiy] Advice to students on their projects encouraged

[Aaron Lanterman]

I told my students that they should feel free to ask on this list for 
advice on their final projects, as long as they properly thank their 
sources in their writeup. I also told them, though, that they should FIRST 
search the archives before asking their questions. (I wish the archive 
would archive 3 letter words - can't search on VCF, VCO, OTA, and for 
Harry, BBD...) I also told them not to be dweebs, i.e., don't say "would 
anyone design this circuit for me?" and to remember that I read the list 
religiously. ;)

There is an amazing assembled mass of knowledge on this that I'd love for 
my students to benefit from.

Please be constructive and gentle - i.e. nothing along the lines of "you 
idiot! why did you use a 1 muF bypass capacitor when everyone knows you 
need a 10 muF capacitor! you clearly don't know anything!" Not that people 
would write such things, of course... remember you have a whole generation 
of around _30_ new potential SDIYers whose minds you can help shape.

I'm going to put together a webpage with student project info as it comes 
together, so people can comment on the designs if they want, and even 
build them if the students come up with some cool things. I'm hoping one 
or two teams might actually make a PCB. I'm not requiring they do so; 
perfboard or verboard is fine for this project, since the PCB design 
packages have such a steep learning curve.

- Aaron

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Dr. Aaron Lanterman, Asst. Prof.
and Demetrius T. Paris Junior Prof.    Voice:  404-385-2548
School of Electrical and Comp. Eng.    Fax:    404-894-8363
Georgia Institute of Technology        E-mail: lanterma at ece.gatech.edu
Mail Code 0250                         Web:    users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma
Atlanta, GA 30332                      Office: Centergy 5212