Notes:

• The grade for the course is made up 100% by the lab grades. Lab reports count 90% and are all weighted equally. Lab participation counts 10%. There may be a few chances for extra credit throughout the semester.
• There will be 13 labs. NO lab grades will be dropped. Lab reports will be due at the beginning of the next weeks' lab. Pre-labs are due at the beginning of the current lab.
• Attendance in both the lecture and the lab is mandatory. There may be a sign-in sheet that circulates in the lecture. If you are more than 10 minutes late, you will be considered absent. Being absent from the lecture results in a deduction of 15% from that week's lab grade. Forging someone's signature constitutes academic dishonesty and will be treated accordingly. You must attend the laboratory that you are registered for! Missing a lab without a documented, university-approved absence will result in a zero for that week's lab.
• You need to know how to run PSpice for both analog and digital circuits since simulations will be required with most labs. There will be tutorial sessions the first week of the semester where we will show you how to simulate a timer circuit (useful for the 2nd lab). The tutorials are held during normal lab times and you MUST attend. If your lab is scheduled to meet on mondays, you must attend one of the other tutorials. PSpice can be run in the PC lab during open hours or you can download your own copy of the evaluation package (Version 8) from the world-wide web at the ORCAD Website. If you prefer, you can download Version 6.2 here. You will also need to "unzip" this file; an MSDOS program called pkunzip can be downloaded here. After downloading both files, go to the directory where the files are (in a DOS window) and type: "pkunzip pspice". When the program is done, run setup.exe. You may need a copy of win32s.exe if you have an old version of windows. This file also needs to be unzipped before its setup program is run.

General Laboratory Procedures:

• Safety first! In this lab you will be working with electronic equipment and proper procedures must ALWAYS be followed to insure your safety from electrical shock and other laboratory hazards. ANY time you are unsure of how to operate a piece of equipment, stop and ask for help from the laboratory assistant. DO NOT try to guess how it works, or play with it to see if you can get it running. Misuse of equipment can result in serious damage to the equipment and/or serious injury to you. Your safety in the lab is our primary concern. Any student observed acting in an unsafe manner will be immediately dismissed from the lab and receive a zero for that week's experiment. THERE WILL BE NO WARNINGS!
• Students will work each week with a different laboratory partner. Your lab partner will be assigned by the TA at the beginning of each lab. Do NOT ask the TAs ahead of time who your lab partner will be and do not make special requests for lab partners. You are expected to be an equal participant in each laboratory experiment.
• There are three parts to every lab. Before the lab you must complete the pre-lab design and simulation. There will not be enough time during the lab to design your circuits! After the lab you will write up the experiment and (typically) answer a few specific questions about your results. During the lab you will work with your lab partner and share all the results that you obtain. However, the pre-lab and post-lab parts are individual efforts and each person must turn in a separate lab (make two copies of any plots that you print out).
• The lab reports should be concise and may be handwritten (neatly, please!). You may discuss the labs with classmates to the point of exchanging general ideas (about both the design and analysis), but you may not copy from one another. You may also NOT give any paper or electronic copies of any parts of your lab (or work related to the lab) to other students to look at. Any students violating these rules or committing any other acts of academic dishonesty WILL be turned over to the honor board for possible disciplinary action. Consider this to be your first and only warning!