The in-class component of the Alternative Engineering 183A course is essentially the same as that of the regular Engineering 183 course. It continues with some advanced concepts of Technical Graphics and InventorŪ modeling introduced in Engineering 181. Exercises in dimensioning and calculation of tolerances helps students produce fully functional engineering drawings. Advanced solid modeling of assemblies in InventorŪ demonstrates how parts fit together to produce functional products.
An important part of this second course in the FE sequence is to introduce MatlabŪ programming. This is a powerful computer program and is widely used in advanced engineering analysis and design. Starting from the fundamentals of developing the logical, step-wise algorithms for solving a computational problem, students learn programming skills that help them analyze real-life situations and compute solutions.
The highlight of the course is a quarter-long design-build project related to nanotechnology. Additional technical and non-technical skills related to the project such as electronic circuits, brain-storming, project planning and ethics in engineering are also covered.
