Meetings
We meet regularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30-noon in 108 Keck. The meetings are mandatory (see "Grading," below). The course meetings will consist almost exclusively of working independently on projects and exercises.
You may work in the lab outside of lab hours to use LabVIEW or to work on your projects. However, for safety reasons, you must be in the lab space with at least one of your groupmates; you may not ever be in the lab space alone.
Course structure
In this course, we provide you with two design challenges. First, you will design and build a pulse oximeter. After completing that project, you will tackle the more challenging project of designing and building a real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) machine. We provide basic specifications and construction materials for these devices, and it is your job to implement the specification and demonstrate a working prototype.
At the beginning of the term, you will complete a series of exercises to bring you up to speed using the ELVIS II breadboards and LabVIEW. After that, you work on design projects.
You can work at your own pace, but it is your responsibility to have your exercises, projects, and writeups completed according to the due dates on the schedule page. You are working independently, and the course staff is here to help you, but it is your responsibility to keep your projects moving with a good time line.
The exercises and projects are done in pairs. With the exceptions of prelabs, you and your partner submit everything together and receive the same grade.
All course materials needed to do your design projects and exercises are on the course materials page.
Course communications
You are free to contact the course staff at any time, but we encourage you to use the class Piazza page for questions course topics and homework. Most of our mass communication with you will be through Piazza, so be sure to set your Piazza account to give you email alerts if necessary.
Submission of assignments
- Project writeups and exercises must be submitted as typed PDFs. While typed documents are preferred, you may scan and submit legible handwritten documents as PDFs for the prelab questions. MS Word documents are not accepted for any submissions.
- Submit all assignments via email to caltechbe189@gmail.com.
- All of the work in the class is done in collaboration with your lab partner. Each assignment should be submitted once for the pair.
- The subject line for prelabs should read "{assignment}_{portion}: lastname1, firstname1 amd lastname2, firstname2," where {assignment} is either exercises, pulse_ox, or rtPCR." For the case of exercises, {portion} is either {1-4} or {5-8}. For projects, {portion} is either {prelab} or {writeup}.
Exercises
Your exercise submission must include a PDF with written explanations of your design and all pertinent LabVIEW VIs. Include screen shots of your VI in action (demonstrate test results, sources of error, etc.). Be sure to include both the front panel and block diagram in your screenshots, as well as submitting the VI itself. If you had to wire something up on the breadboard for the exercise, you should include a photo of your apparatus in the writeup.
Design projects
You will complete two major design projects in the course. You will construct a pulse oximeter and a real-time PCR device. Your goal is to develop a prototype to achieve the provided design specification. Each project has a PDF containing some background information, overall design specification, a set of details about the specification, prelab questions, and postlab questions. You should read this entire PDF before submitting your prelab questions. Additionally included are spec sheets for components used in the projects.
Prelabs consist of a set of questions to help you get the requisite background knowledge for the respective projects. While completing the prelabs, be sure to have the specification for the design in mind.
The project writeup must include the following in delineated sections.
- Section 1: Overview. A one- or two-paragraph summary of the design objectives.
- Section 2: Design considerations. A description and rationale behind design choices you made in executing the prototype per specification. Discuss potential limitations or trade offs for major design decisions.
- Section 3: Instructions for use. Instructions on how to use your device.
- Section 4: Demonstration and assessment. A demonstration of the device's functionality and assessment of its performance. Metrics for performance should be clearly delineated and assessed.
- Section 5: Suggestions for the next design phase. Since you are building a prototype, give a discussion for changes or enhancements to consider in the next phase of design.
- Section 6: Postlab questions. Complete answers to the postlab questions.
- Appendix and attachments. Attach all pertinent VIs or other relevant auxiliary documents.
Collaboration policy
- You and your partner should work closely and share the workload evenly. Each team member must be able to intelligently reproduce and discuss the contents of your submitted work.
- You may discuss the exercises, prelabs, and projects with other teams in the course, but you may not discuss with students who have completed the course (unless, of course, they are your TAs), nor may you consult any course materials from previous terms. If get useful help from another group, please be sure to cite them appropriately in your writeup.
- You may use whatever internet resources you need.
Grading
- 25% of your grade is determined from exercises and 75% of your grade is determined from your prelabs and lab reports, with 30% of your grade coming from the pulse oximetry project and 45% from the real-time PCR project.
- Attendance is required, and you will lose 1% of the total points awarded in the course for each unexcused absence.
- Each assignment has a defined due date and time. For assignments submitted after this time, you will receive a score of (your score)/2(ceil(number of days late)). The exception is the real-time PCR writeup, which will not be accepted late.