Integrative hands-on projects in continuous and discrete time signal processing

To reduce its abstractness level, a couple of hands-on projects have been introduced recently to our Junior level Continuous and Discrete System Theory course. For several years our students have been supplied with their own Lab-in-A-Box kit that facilitates them experimenting on their own, at their own pace. This made it possible for them to design and build a reasonably practical bandpass filter out of analog components, with the idea of measuring and influencing filter performance towards certain goals. Most recently a discrete time filtering experiment was added to the course, based on sampling of the earlier continuous time filter. In observing and explaining what is happening, the students achieve a better understanding of the sampling concept itself, as well as getting comfortable with the idea that (some) continuous time filters can be very well approximated by digital filters.