ENEL200-25W (C) Whole Year 2025

Electrical and Computer Engineering Design

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 February 2025
End Date: Sunday, 9 November 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 16 March 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 24 August 2025

Description

This course will introduce you to fundamental tools and techniques for designing electrical and computer systems, and give you hands-on practice applying those tools and techniques to a variety of different design projects.

Topics covered include:
• Processes, tools, and practices used in electrical and computer engineering design
• Design and assembly of electronic circuits and Printed Circuit Boards
• Design and implementation of simple embedded software systems
• Mechanical analysis, drawing and design
• Documenting and communicating designs

Design involves applying technical engineering knowledge to solve real problems people face in the world. It is an essential part of why engineering exists as a profession. For this reason, you will find design courses, in some form, offered in the curriculum of every engineering discipline.

The goals of this course are to help you learn how to understand what a design needs to accomplish, how to make effective and efficient design decisions, and how to clearly and concisely communicate your design, so that you can formulate well-defined design problems and synthesize good hardware and/or software designs that solve those problems.

Because design is a practical skill, the course includes direct experience with design problems ranging in size from tightly-specified combinations of a few components up to open-ended design of reasonably complex electronic systems. These design problems will be posed during lecture sessions, labs, and in projects. At the end of this course students will participate in the design and build of a product prototype, using the tools and techniques introduced in the course.

We have one lecture and one 3-hour lab timeslot per week. Many of the lectures will be “lectorials” that include pencil-and-paper design activities performed in groups. Some labs will involve structured activities to practice specific skills. Other lab timeslots will be unstructured time for you to work on your projects.

Learning Outcomes

  • By the end of this course you should be able to:

  • LO1: Analyse small real-world design problems, and design effective electrical and computing systems that can demonstrably solve those problems (WA1, WA2, WA3, WA4, WA5, WA6, WA7)

  • LO2: Use verbal, written, and diagrammatic means to communicate the context and objectives of your design, the design you have developed, and your reasoning for the design, in a professional manner (WA6, WA7, WA8, WA10)

  • LO3: Work collaboratively to complete small design projects (WA9, WA11)

  • LO4: Improve your designs and your design approach through critical evaluation and reflection (WA9, WA10, WA11, WA12)
    • University Graduate Attributes

      This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

      Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award

      Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.

      Employable, innovative and enterprising

      Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.

      Engaged with the community

      Students will have observed and understood a culture within a community by reflecting on their own performance and experiences within that community.

      Globally aware

      Students will comprehend the influence of global conditions on their discipline and will be competent in engaging with global and multi-cultural contexts.

Prerequisites

Subject to the approval of the College of Engineering Dean (Academic)

Restrictions

ENEL211

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 15:00 - 16:00 Rata 222 & 223 Drawing Office
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
Lab A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Wednesday 13:00 - 16:00 Rata 342 CAD Lab (19/2-2/4, 30/4-28/5, 16/7-20/8, 10/9-15/10)
Rata 216 CAD Lab (19/2-2/4, 30/4-28/5, 16/7-20/8, 10/9-15/10)
Elec 210 Electronics Lab (19/2-2/4, 30/4-28/5, 16/7-20/8, 10/9-15/10)
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
02 Friday 10:00 - 13:00 Rata 342 CAD Lab (21/2-4/4, 2/5-16/5, 30/5, 15/8-22/8)
Elec 210 Electronics Lab (21/2-4/4, 2/5-16/5, 30/5, 15/8-22/8)
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 18 May
26 May - 1 Jun
11 Aug - 24 Aug
Lab B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Friday 14:00 - 17:00 Rata 342 CAD Lab (18/7-8/8, 12/9-17/10)
Elec 210 Electronics Lab (18/7-8/8, 12/9-17/10)
14 Jul - 10 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
Lab C
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 11:00 - 13:00 Rata 342 CAD Lab (20/5)
Elec 210 Electronics Lab (20/5)
19 May - 25 May

Course Coordinator

Allan McInnes

Lecturer

Don Clucas

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
ECE Design Labs 8%
ECE Design Project 17%
CAD Tutorials 12%
CAD Project 13%
Product Design Labs 6%
PCB Project Layout 1%
PCB Project Reports 7%
PCB Project Demo 6%
Final Project Review 8%
Final Project Report 22%


This is a project-based course. There are no tests or exams. You're expected to develop your design knowledge and skills through various labs and tutorials, and to demonstrate those design skills in a practical context during your projects. To be eligible to pass ENEL200 you must:

• Complete at least 6 of the Term 1 and Term 3 labs to at least the "meets expectations" standard (see below)
  o Resubmissions are penalty-free
  o You can resubmit as many times as necessary to complete the lab
  o Every submission after the second attempt requires a meeting with the course coordinator before the submission will be accepted
  o Submissions beyond the third attempt cannot earn anything higher than "meets expectations"
  o Term 1 lab submissions will not be accepted after the end of Semester 1
  o Term 3 lab submissions will not be accepted after week 9 of Semester 2
  o To obtain the full 2% credit for a lab you need to complete the lab to an Exemplary standard
• Achieve a mark of at least 50% in the Mechanical CAD section of the course
• Achieve a weighted average mark of at least 50% on the Semester 2 projects

Some other important things to be aware of when it comes to assessment are:

• Lab reports submitted by the due date will receive feedback before the next lab session, allowing you to apply that feedback in your lab.
  o Failing to submit a lab by the due date without a previously agreed extension is counted as a non-assessable "first attempt", and there is no guarantee that you will receive feedback prior to the next lab. Aside from that, there is no penalty for a late submission.
• Project submissions made after the due date or a previously agreed extension date will be penalized 10% per day over the due date, where the number of days is calculated as hours_over_due/24 rounded to 1 decimal place. Example: a project submitted 37 hours late is considered 37/24 = 1.5 days late, and will receive a mark that is (100% - 1.5 × 10%) × mark_without_penalty, or 85% of the unpenalized mark.
• Although we release raw assessment marks throughout the year to give you some feedback on how you're doing in the course, the raw marks may be subject to scaling at the end of the year when your final letter grade in the course is determined.

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Allan McInnes; ENEL200 Learn Page ; (There is no required textbook for ENEL200. The key information and notes for the course are provided on AKO | LEARN. Several of the LEARN sections include pointers to relevant external resources and readings).

Recommended Reading

Darren Ashby; Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School, But Probably Didn't ; Newns, 2012.

Ford, Ralph M. , Coulston, Chris S; Design for electrical and computer engineers : theory, concepts, and practice ; McGraw-Hill, 2008.

White, Elecia; Making embedded systems : design patterns for great software ; O'Reilly Media, 2012.

Additional Course Outline Information

Mahi ā-Ākonga | Workload (expected distribution of student hours, note 15 points = 150 hours):

Contact Hours

Lectures: 22 hours
Tutorials: 18 hours
Workshops: 0 hours
Laboratories: 21 hours

Independent study

Review of lectures: 0 hours
Test and exam preparation: 0 hours
Assignments: 89 hours
Tutorial preparation: 0 hours
Laboratory calculations: hours 0

Total 150

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,312.00

International fee $6,428.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Electrical and Computer Engineering .

All ENEL200 Occurrences

  • ENEL200-25W (C) Whole Year 2025