News and Announcements

"They Spy Who Slimed me" The Robotics competition mentioned in lecture today will be held this Wednesday at 6:30 PM-8:30 PM in the Engineering Auditorium - 101. Here is a link to the deomnstration flyer. And here is a link to the contest specification. Check this out it is pretty entertaining.

The Review Session for the final will be held in Baskin Engineering Room 152 (the normal class room) on Sunday March 18 from 12-2 pm.

By popular request the Due date for your papers is postponed until Tuesday March 13 at lecture. Careful the homework is due on the same day. Many indicate that delaying this would allow you to fit things in better during the flurryof things due at the end of the quarter... I hope this helps. To email your paper copy send it to pedrotti"at"ee.ucsc.edu, my email address. If you put the subject as "EE80 Paper" that would make them easy to sort, you could also add your title as well. As in: "EE80 Paper-The Retroencabulator".

The last homework assignment, number 5 is now posted.

The class midterm histogram I showed along with the midterm solutions and the HW3 solutions are now all posted. We will be returning your HW3 in lecture on Tuesday. 2/20. Your paper topic will be circled. Part of HW 4 is to make the outline for you paper so you will need to get your homework 3 to find out your topic in order to start your research and your paper outline. If you don't like your topic, or find out that there is little comprehensible information on your topic, please contact me and we can come up with something that works.

We finally got a permanent room, so from now on the discussion/problem solving sessions will be held in Phys Sci 140 from 10am-12pm on the days before HW is due. The discussion section is not required. Also for your reference, Madhan will hold office hours on Mondays 1-3 pm on the weeks with no homework due.

Here is the list of possibly useful formulas that was supplied on the midterm.

The Reader this quarter turns out not to have precisely the same page numbering as last years, although it was supposed to. If you are using the reader from last year you will need to subtract 1 from all page numbers greater than page number 497. I have changed the reading assignment pages to correspond with this years reader.

The course schedule has now been redone to reflect the loss of one lecture slot due to the power outage. It should now correctly reflect the reading associated with each lecture etc. Please note that the homework due dates and test times have not changed.

Special news and class announcements will be posted here.

We wanted to call this "The Secret Life of the Electron: The Story of e", but figured that it wouldn't look so good on your transcript...

Come learn about:
How to direct electronic warfare techniques toward peaceful uses: to disable your neighbors annoying radio
Why Thomas Edison was electrocuting dogs in New York.
What the second most purchased appliance was in 1900 and why your grandparents would never admit they had one.
The history, personalities and development of modern electronic technology
Find out:
How electronic devices and systems such as Lasers, Fiberoptics, Cellphones, Telegraph (the Internet of the Victorian Age), Radio, Radar, Television, Computers, Semiconductor Microchips, CD Players, the Internet and more work and have changed our lives forever.

This course while accessible to the non-specialist should be of great interest to engineering students as well, giving an introduction to the background of the profession and topics relevant to being an inventor. The material will be presented by Lecture, Demonstrations and Video.

See Demonstrated live:

The 300,000 volt generator in action- a "Hair Raising" experience
The mysteries of Electricity and Magnetism
Static electric motors made from common office supplies
A radio you can build without batteries, transistor or tubes
Radio Transmission by Sparks
Magnetic Guns- A path to low earth orbit?
A Tesla Coil in action, Source of free energy, or potential beam weapon?
The Jacob's ladder, every mad scientist has one
A human powered flashlight and how it was designed
Electronic warfare techniques: you can use them for peace at home
A post-mortem on a Furby (sacrificed for science)

and much more!

Course outline: What we'll be learning about and for about how long:

Electricity and Magnetism (1.5 week)

What were those Greeks doing with the stuff? The compass: invented by the Chinese or the Italians, should we care? Did Ben Franklin really do something as crazy as to fly a kite in thunderstorm? Who was Michael Faraday and what do we owe him?

Early communications and sound, Telegraph, Telephone, Phonograph (1 week)

Telegraph - the Victorian Internet, why was this an even bigger deal than our own recent Internet revolution? How the biggest telecommunications company missed out on the telephone revolution.

Electric Light and Power (1 week)

How does our electrical system work, how did get this way, and why Thomas Edison was electrocuting dogs and elephants? Investigate the transformations in society brought about by electrification and its impact, particularly on the lives of women.

Wireless and Electronic Radio (1 week)

Heavy duty magic when you think about it. Learn to build one from a rusty razor blade, tinfoil and a bit of wire.

RADAR and Electronic Warfare (1 week)

The atom bomb might have ended W.W.II but RADAR was arguably the invention that won it! Find out what else its good for and how a melted chocolate bar brought us the microwave oven. More seriously, here we will inquire into the history and relationship between the military and electronic technology.

Television (1 week)

How it drove Professor Armstrong to jump out a window and why its inventor didn't watch it.

Transistors, Semiconductors, Integrated Circuits (1 week)

The invention that enabled the microelectronics revolution, how it was invented, how they are made, and how it led to the birth of the innovation capital of the world-Silicon Valley. Learn to make semiconductors in your home oven.

Digital electronics, Computers and Robotics (1 week)

The Digital Revolution, Machines that Think?!?, When will I have a Robot that will cook and clean?

Audio electronics, lasers, fiber optic communications, and (1 week)
topics of special interest to the class

Cool stuff, and where things are going. The future that never happened.

Ken Pedrotti

Last updated: 1/23/2006