Modern product design in an undergraduate EE course

The design of modern products often involves the coordinated efforts of many engineers. This paper describes an experimental course developed to give students experience with such large scale design tasks, and to improve their communication and teamworking skills in the process. Problems based active learning and traditional lecture/homework methods are combined to allow a substantial engineering effort (development of a 900 MHz digital cordless telephone) to be accomplished by undergraduate students in a single semester. Course design as well as student assessments of the class are described.