Syllabus

Syllabus#

ECE 39595: Applications of ECE through Reverse Engineering Spring 2026

Last Modified: 2026-01-09

This syllabus can be found at https://btmannin5132.github.io/RevEng/syllabus.html

This syllabus is subject to change

Instructors#

Role

Name

email

Course Instructor

Ben Manning

btmannin@purdue.edu

Primary Research Investigator

Jason Morphew

jmorphew@purdue.edu

Teaching Assistant

Alex Valdes

valdesa@purdue.edu

Additional Resource

Conner Hack

hackc@purdue.edu

Course Overview#

Welcome to Applications of ECE Through Reverse Engineering! Throughout this course students will use skills and knowledge learned in prior labs to deconstruct, analyze, and potentially improve commercial products. This course serves to provide a place for students to explore different fields in ECE while also developing skills needed for senior design and future careers.

This is an experimental lab course. Experimental courses in academics are designed to explore innovative teaching methods, emerging topics, and new areas of study that are not yet part of the established curriculum. The instructors of this course are grateful to the students that are willing to work with the instructors to develop this course as it is developed.

Course Objectives#

A student who successfully fulfills the course requirements will be able to:

  • Competently select, use, and automate electronic measurement instruments. [1,6]

  • Design, wire, and troubleshoot electronic circuits. [1,6] simulate electronic circuits. [1,6]

  • Keep a laboratory notebook and prepare a formal laboratory report. [3]

  • Function on an interdisciplinary team that draws on diverse backgrounds. [5]

  • Design, build, and test resistor-inductor-capacitor, operational amplifier, etc. circuits to meet specifications. [1,6]

  • Demonstrate knowledge of laboratory safety precautions. [2]

Research Disclosure#

This course will be the subject of research through the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the school of Engineering Education at Purdue University. This research is approved through the Institutional Review Board (IRB 2024 – 582), with Dr. Jason Morphew as the Principal Investigator and Ben Manning as the Co-Investigator. Anonymous data will be collected from students to assess their development through the course, specifically focusing on the student mindsets of ECE concepts and personal confidence with the material.

The purpose of the research is to evaluate the course activities and the instructor. This means that students will not be asked to do anything other than the regular course work for this class. In addition, all identifying information, such as a student’s name or student id, will never be shared with anyone except the course instructor in compliance with FERPA. This means that student performance in this class will remain confidential.

Required Material#

Course Schedule#

Note: We reserve the right to modify the experiment order and topic. Any change will be announced with sufficient time to prepare for class.

Week

Topic

Journal Write-Up

Project

Report/Presentation

1

Welcome, Syllabus, and Lab Safety

2

Effective Reverse Engineering Strategies, tools, generating schematics, simulations, and the LED light bulb

x

3

Sensors and Filtering, Thermostats

x

4

Microcontroller tutorial, GPIO, Analog, PWM

x

5-7

Appliance Deconstruct/analysis Project

x

x

8

Analog/Digital Multimeter Reverse Engineer

x

9

Charging Block by manufacturer comparison

x

10-11

Motor Controllers Deconstruct/Build- Brushed and Brushless

x

12

FM Radio Deconstruct/ AM Radio Build

x

13-15

Final Project: Personal interest reverse-engineer

x

x

Course Policies#

The section Graduate Instructor is responsible for assessing the quality of your work and progress in the course. Ultimately they are responsible for determining your semester grade.

To receive a passing grade, you must at least:

  • Attend all scheduled lab sections (unless excused by the instructor). Students must request an excused absence from the instructor before the scheduled sessions begin.

  • Perform all experiments.

  • Submit a complete journal write up for each lab.

  • Obtain an average of 60% or better between the project presentations and reports.

  • Effectively work with your partner(s) during the lab period.

Failing to complete any of the above criteria are grounds for failing the course.
Food and drink other than water are prohibited at all times in the lab. Anyone with open food or drink in lab will be required to leave. Water must be in a resealable container, and placed on the floor.

Piazza#

Any overreaching announcements, lab modifications, and assignment adjustments will be announced through Piazza, an online forum where students can ask questions, and instructors can post announcements. It will be expected that students check the course Piazza page regularly to make sure they stay up-to-date on the course. Email notifications can also be added for when instructors make announcements. Students initially enrolled in the course will be automatically populated into the course Piazza page. If a student is added late, or was not automatically populated into the page for whatever reason, they can join the course Piazza page by going to https://piazza.com/purdue/spring2025/ece39595.

Assignments#

Lab Journal#

Laboratory Journals should be a log of all your work performed in this course. This notebook can be either digital or hand-written. If you start with either digital or handwritten it needs to be consistent throughout the experiment. The notebook should be updated in real time during the experiment.

The lab notebook should focus on answering the below questions:

  • “What are we doing in this task?”

  • “Why are we doing this task?”

  • “How are we performing this task?”

The above questions can generally be answered using the below procedure:

  • Give a brief context to where you are in the experiment.

  • Capture detailed results from experiment.

  • Give quick/short insights into why you think an outcome occurs.

  • All deconstructions will be expected to have a general SPICE simulation/schematic/flow diagram to help with the analysis.

The lab notebook is essential to success in this course. It should be kept organized and neat to improve your effectiveness as researchers. The notebook will be turned in digitally with the experiment.

Reports#

There will be two projects that require a well-documented formal report to be turned in. These documents will include in paragraph form:

  • An abstract

  • An introduction and conclusion to the overall problem and solution.

  • A theory section that explains how the system and its parts work.

  • Contains a discussion of the measurement results and conclusions made based on the results.

  • Has only electronically drawn schematics and typed equations

  • Answers all question in the experiments text


If preferred, the formal reports for this class can also be written as a service manual/datasheet for the products that are being analyzed. Please reach out to the instructor for more information.

All Write-ups and reports need to completed in a word processor. Hand-written or stylus-written write-ups will not be accepted, Any hand-written or stylus-written component of the writeups and reports will receive a score of 0 for that submission. This includes hand-drawn schematics and figures.

Presentations#

Along with the project reports, Students will be expected to present their projects in two formats. For the first project, this will be a brief presentation to the class discussing the deconstruction and analysis of the student’s chosen product. The second presentation will be a poster session open to the general public where students will discuss their final project deconstruction and analysis.

Weekly Reflections#

One of the main purposes of this course is to provide a space for students to reflect on their learning, and how they will use the content learned in personal projects and future applications. Students will conduct a promoted weekly reflection where they will discuss what they learned that week and where they see them using the content in the future, or not using it for that matter.

Due dates#

Journals and Reports#

Write-ups and reports are due at 11:59pm of the day of your next lab, skipping the first week of the semester. There will be a 20% deduction for each 24 hours late, starting at 12:00AM the next day, including weekends.

Late submissions for the final project report will not be accepted.

Lab reports turned in after midnight after the due date will be considered late.

Submission Policy#

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that submissions into the grading platform are on time and successful. If a student is having issues submitting an assignment for whatever reason, they should reach out to their Graduate Instructor in a timely manner to explain their situation. Late submissions will be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

Regrades#

Requests for regrades must be made within one week of the grade in question being returned to the student, and 24 hrs. After grades have been returned. Request made after this time will not be considered.

Cheating#

  • All work submitted must be the students own.

  • The student may not copy text or figures from the course manual.

  • Use of material from past semesters will be considered cheating.

All cases of cheating will result in a grade of zero on the assignment. Offense(s) may result in failing the course. Cheating may also be reported to the Office of the Dean of Students.

Large Language Models/AI/Generative Models#

As generative models continue to embed their uses into our regular technologies, it would be a disservice to fully deny the use of the tool in modern education. Instead, the discussion should revolve around using the tools properly and ethically. The below concepts should be followed when using generative models in this course:

Effective Usage:

  • Students are encouraged to use generative models to help brainstorm and organize thoughts. Especially for formal reports, generative models allow for multiple formats to be accessible in a short time period.

  • Students are NOT permitted to use generative models to analyze data. This is a task that is expected to fully fall to the student. This is different than helping visually present data, as generative models can quickly provide multiple different ways to visually present data. It is still up to the student to determine the best way to present the data.

Ethical Usage:

  • Students must be transparent where and how they use generative models in this course.

  • Students may not use AI/LLMs on their reflections. These are not graded for spelling/grammar, instructors are only interested in the student’s own thought process.

  • Students may generate up to 20% of a submission using generative models. This should be focused on formatting and thought collection. All data analysis must still be completed by the student.

  • Students must acknowledge where they use generative models in their writing using a reference note discussing the usage. A URL must also be provided to link to the prompts and outputs of the generative model. For example, the FAQ for ChatGPT link sharing can be found at https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7925741-chatgpt-shared-links-faq.

  • Any writing or other submissions not explicitly identified as generated will be assumed as original to the student. Submitting generated work without identifying it as such will be considered a violation of Purdue’s academic integrity policy, specifically the violation of “submitting a document written by someone else but representing it as one’s own.” As in any situation where a student is using writing from another person without correctly referencing the original author, this would be considered a form of plagiarism.

Generative models are still a developing technology, and how they are implemented in educational settings is still a divided topic of discussion, and can lead to grey areas on judgement. If a student is unsure on how much of their document is artificially generated, or if they are in violation of a policy, the student should reach out to Ben Manning at least 48 hours before their submission due date to receive guidance.

Grade Breakdown#

This course uses a weighted grade system. The weight of each section of the final grade is listed below.

Category

Weight

Journal Submissions

50%

Weekly Reflections

15%

Project Reports

15%

Appliance Project Presentation

10%

Final Project Poster Session

10%

The following grade cut-offs will be used in this course.

Percentage Range

Grade

Percentage Range

Grade

\(100\%>x\geq96\%\)

A+*

\(80\%>x\geq76\%\)

C+

\(96\%>x\geq93\%\)

A

\(76\%>x\geq73\%\)

C

\(93\%>x\geq90\%\)

A-

\(73\%>x\geq70\%\)

C-

\(90\%>x\geq86\%\)

B+

\(70\%>x\geq66\%\)

D+

\(86\%>x\geq83\%\)

B

\(66\%>x\geq63\%\)

D

\(83\%>x\geq80\%\)

B-

\(63\%>x\geq60\%\)

D-

\(60\%>x\)

F

* A+ Grades will still appear as an “A” on a transcript

Course Expectations#

Preparing for Class#

While there should be minimal work needed outside of the lab, students should review the devices and appliances being discussed that week to help move the lab forward efficiently.

In Class#

During lab you should perform each task of the experiment. Recording your work in your lab notebook as you go. Your lab notebook is proof that you performed the experiments.

If you do not finish the experiment in class, you must complete it before the beginning of the next week’s experiment.

After Class#

After performing the experiment and gathering results, you will need to analyze the results and draw conclusions. Analyzing data should be done in tools such as MATLAB, Python NumPy, or any other numerical computing applications to make plots and compare results.

Your analysis should always compare theoretical calculations with measured results and attempt to measure and describe the causes of error.

Office Hours#

Ben will have office hours in ARMS 1224 on Wednesdays from 2-3pm. Location may change later in semester.

Alex will have office hours in Potter B053 on Tuesdays from 3-4:30pm. Additional hours can be scheduled at request of students on Piazza or over email.

Safety#

There are several dangers that can be encountered in an electronics laboratory. These include (but are not limited to):

  • Shock

  • Burns

  • Mechanical injury

  • Chemical exposure

Be aware of these potential dangers and make every effort to avoid them. Violation of these rules may result in access privileges being revoked. There are cameras in the lab and we will review them as needed.

Lab instructors hold the responsibility of ensuring the lab is in a safe working condition before the students use the area, and enforce proper safety etiquette in the lab. If students are intentionally unsafe in the lab, encouraging unsafe behavior, or are continuing unsafe behavior after being told to cease the behavior, the student will be removed from the lab, resulting in a failing grade for that week’s lab. If multiple occurrences of this behavior continue, more severe consequences can be discussed. These additional consequences can include but are not limited to:

  • Failing of the course

  • Reports to student advisor

  • Reports to campus and local law enforcement

Equipment Safety#

The benchtop equipment that is used in this lab is very expensive, and can be damaged if not used properly. If a student is found intentionally misusing the equipment, the same consequences can be issued as stated above for unsafe actions in the lab in addition to putting a hold on a student account until payment is made to replace any damaged equipment.

It is recommended students use the provided desktop computer in the lab when using the benchtop equipment. Students use their own personal devices such as laptops at their own risk when using the benchtop equipment. For example, If the final project is not made correctly, there is a chance of surges flowing back to the computer through the audio port of the computer, which can fry the audio port, motherboard and power supply unit.

Questions or issues#

If you are in doubt about any section of this syllabus or the grading of the course, ask your TA. If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of the content or teaching of this course please inform your TA or the course coordinator Ben Manning (btmannin@purdue.edu).

Purdue honor pledge#

Purdue’s Honor Pledge was developed by students to advance a supportive environment that promotes academic integrity and excellence. It is intended that this pledge inspires Boilermakers of all generations to stay “on track” to themselves and their University. We encourage you to make this pledge. The pledge is:

“As a boilermaker pursuing academic excellence, I pledge to be honest and true in all that I do. Accountable together - we are Purdue.”

You may find more information at https://www.purdue.edu/provost/teachinglearning/honor-pledge.html

CAPS#

CAPS Information: Purdue University is committed to advancing the mental health and well-being of its students. If you or someone you know is feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and/or in need of support, services are available. For help, such individuals should contact Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at (765)494-6995 and http://www.purdue.edu/caps/ during and after hours, on weekends and holidays, or through its counselors physically located in the Purdue University Student Health Center (PUSH) during business hours.

Non discrimination#

Purdue University is committed to maintaining a community which recognizes and values the inherent worth and dignity of every person; fosters tolerance, sensitivity, understanding, and mutual respect among its members; and encourages each individual to strive to reach his or her own potential. In pursuit of its goal of academic excellence, the University seeks to develop and nurture diversity. The University believes that diversity among its many members strengthens the institution, stimulates creativity, promotes the exchange of ideas, and enriches campus life. Purdue’s nondiscrimination policy can be found at: http://www.purdue.edu/purdue/ea_eou_statement.html.

Students with documented disabilities#

The Disability Resource Center (DRC) is a resource for students and instructors. Students may present a “Letter of Accommodation” at any point in the semester. Should you have questions about accommodations, please contact the DRC at: 494-1247 or drc@purdue.edu. In many cases the DRC can partner with you to develop inclusive teaching strategies that benefit all students in your class

Academic integrity#

Academic integrity is one of the highest values that Purdue University holds. Individuals are encouraged to alert university officials to potential breeches of this value by either emailing integrity@purdue.edu or by calling 765-494-8778. While information may be submitted anonymously, the more information that is submitted provides the greatest opportunity for the university to investigate the concern.

Campus emergencies#

In the event of a major campus emergency, course requirements, deadlines, and grade weights are subject to change. In case of such an event, information will be provided via Piazza and email.Relevant changes to this course will be posted onto the course website or can be obtained by contacting the instructors or TAs via email or phone. You are expected to read your @purdue.edu email on a frequent basis. A link to Purdue’s Information on Emergency Preparation and Planning: https://www.purdue.edu/ehps/emergency-preparedness/
This website covers topics such as Severe Weather Guidance, Emergency Plans, and a place to sign up for the Emergency Warning Notification System. It is encouraged for students to download and review the Emergency Preparedness for Classrooms document.

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