EECE 506

EECE 506 Mathematical Methods in EE

I no longer teach the course, but here is the course information from Fall 2014 and 2015.

The course covers advanced mathematics topics relevant to electrical engineering applications, including linear algebra, matrix theory, numerical methods, optimization, probability, statistics, and basic algorithm development. A prerequisite for this course is calculus and differential equations.

A considerable portion of grades is based on the group project. Some good project examples:

Here is the project description from the previous class:

EECE 506 Project Information 2014

1)     Introduction

: a) Your project determines a good portion of the grade in this class. The reason for this is:

  • Presentation skills are critical in industrial and academic settings (much more important than “taking exam skills”).
  • This is an excellent opportunity to develop your presentation skills; it is okay to make mistakes in school.
  • You need presentation skills when looking for jobs in 1.5 years!
  •  One of the best ways to learn something is to apply it to a real problem.

b) You need to find an engineering problem and apply your math skills to solve it. And try to “sell” your work to your audience through the presentation. This setup is almost identical in the real engineering world.

2)     Tasks

a)     Task 1: Form a team before 9/23

  • Task reward: 1 point (1% of your grade)
  • Each team should have 3~4 people
  • If you don’t have a team on 9/23, you don’t get this 1 point, but you still need to join a group for your project.
  • EngiNet students don’t have to form a team; you will get this 1 point automatically.
  • Bonus task: Diversity team
    • (1)  Bonus task reward: 5 points
    • (2) Knowing how to work with people from different cultures and backgrounds. This skill is required to find a job in the USA.
    • (3)  If your team is diverse (which means your team members didn’t get undergrad degrees from the same country), your team will get a bonus reward.
    • (4)  This task is not required; the 5-point reward exceeds 100 points.

b)     Task 2: One-page project proposal

  • Maximum task reward: 4 points
  • Identify an engineering problem for your project with your team. You can pick any topic, but be careful about the task’s difficulty. If it is too simple, you won’t have a high grade, but if it is too hard, you won’t finish it on time.
  • Project ideas can be from the textbook, lecture, etc…
    • (1)  I will provide some example topics later
    • (2)  Or you can simply google project idea +  “the name of your interested math technique”
  • The one-page project proposal should include the following:
    • (1)  The engineering problem you want to solve
    • (2)  Why is this problem worth solving?
    • (3)  What math techniques have been used to handle this problem?
    • (4)  Font size: 12; Line space: 1.5

c)     Task 3: project report

  • Maximum task reward: 15 points
  • A team member should divide the workload and put the information in the report and presentation.
  • Do not “cut & paste”! Turnitin will check the originality of your report.
  • The report template will be provided on Blackboard later.

d)     Task 4: Group presentation

  • Maximum task reward: 20 points
    • (1)  10 points will be from me and the TA
    • (2)  10 points will be from your peers
      • (a) A presentation evaluation form will be provided on Blackboard later.
      • (b)  The median (not mean) from the class will be used for these 10 points
      • (c)   When evaluating others, consider yourself a wealthy investor; you are giving out your money (not free points) to the team you think is good.
      • (d)  I will use the evaluation form as an attendance check; if you miss evaluating one team, you will lose 1 point.
  • Each group has 15~20 minutes to talk + Q&A. Everyone should present equal time. For example, for a three-person group, everyone should speak for 1/3 of the total presentation time.
  • A PowerPoint template will be provided on Blackboard later.

e)     Task 5: Teammate evaluation

  • Maximum task reward: 5 points
  • Your teammates provide this 5%, so be professional and responsible when working together.
  • I will provide the survey/grading information later. If you don’t grade your teammates’ contributions, you will lose this 5%.

3)     EngiNet Students presentation: For EngiNet students, you have two options:

  • Do the presentation as described. And have the production played to the class. Your grading will follow the “in-class students” scale described in the syllabus.
  • Skip the presentation (you still have to do the project). Then, develop a homework-style problem and solution for a topic and send it to me. In that case, your grading will be on the ‘reduced presentation’ scale described in the syllabus.