ECE 396, Fall 2006 Semester
Exercise #2: Current Topics in ECE (9/8/06)
Due via email by midnight Friday, September 15, 2006
The Assignment
Today you have been given a handout of recent articles found in trade
magazines EDN and Design News. Read through this entire packet of ten short
articles, and summarize each in a few sentences (one paragraph per article).
For your reference, these are the article topics:
1. Saw blade accident prevention system “SawStop”
2. Ultrawideband radio: competing systems for Wireless-USB
3. New approach to science and technology education: “FIRST”
4. Vibration-powered wireless sensors
5. Gumstix – a single board computer the size of a stick of chewing gum
6. A novel method to interface with a 20-LED display
7. Inexpensive programmable audio sinewave generator
8. Rotary paint stripper – an example of potential product misuse
9. European Union’s RoHS and WEEE directives, their effect on US industry
10. IEEE professional organization
In each summary paragraph answer these questions: a) What is is being
reported?, and b) Why is it newsworthy or of concern to us?
Submit the assignment as an MS Word document, attached to an email that you
send me: [email protected], by 5pm Friday, September 15, 2006. Please name
your file using the following format:
Ex2_yourlastname_yourfirstinitial (for example: Ex2_Jones_P)
Assessment
As in Exercise #1, you will be evaluated on the content as well as the form of
your writing.