A one-week course on practical electronics

The paper describes a one-week course on practical electronics for 2nd-year students that the authors have been running for some years now. The main activity is the design, build and test of electronic circuits, but the belief is that motivation will be increased both by the need to cooperate and if the end result can demonstrate interesting behaviour. What one inexperienced student can design, build and get to work in a week is rather limited, but by setting 16 people each to create different sub-circuits of a larger system, one can assemble something quite impressive. The announced objectives are therefore to design and build, jointly, several systems complicated enough to demonstrate interesting behaviour when complete. The first such system is a communications one, providing circuit specifications for about 16 people. As these get completed, they can move on to circuits for other, smaller, systems, mostly electromechanical. The "design specification" for each circuit averages about a page of A4, at a level intended to match existing knowledge. Further help is provided individually as needed. The purpose is to develop confidence.