Hello everyone. Its now time for IEEE to host its second workshop of the semester. This time, we will be focusing on teaching attendees soldering skills. Anyone who attends will have their choice of two introductory soldering projects.

The first is an easy to construct european-style siren and LED flasher circuit. This one makes for a great introductory project, and comes complete with a soldering iron and solder for you to take home. We only have 10 of the siren kits, so I ask that you sign up on the side if you are interested.

The second project is a DIY logic probe. Where the siren is a fun circuit to build, the logic probe is extremely practical, being highly useful for debugging circuits in classes such as ECE 110 and ECE 385. The logic probe allows you to analyze in a very plain and obvious way what is currently happening in your circuit, without having to drag a full-sized multimeter or oscilloscope around with you. Soldering set not included, but can be bought separately. We have a surplus of logic probe kits, so no sign-up needed.

The workshop will be held in 241 Everitt on Saturday, October 3 from 12 noon until 3PM, though most attendees, even first time solderers, typically finish in under an hour and a half.

Costs for the workshop are:

• Siren Kit
• $10 for IEEE members
• $15 for non-members
• Logic Probe Kit
• $5 for IEEE members
• $10 for non-members
• $5 for soldering set
note: If you choose to, you may purchase both kits, but in the interest of keeping the workshop at a reasonable length, we ask that you only construct one during the workshop time, and save the other for practice at home.

written by Donald

When:9 PM Thursday September 24th
Where: 242 Everitt Lab
Interested in joining the team to design the robot for this year’s Jerry Sanders Design Competition? Come to the JSDC Informational Meeting this Thursday at 9 PM in the IEEE lab to know the details of the competition.

written by Greg

The second annual SPAC (Student Professional Awareness Conference) will be held this Saturday beginning at noon! Hear presentations from two professors as well as an IEEE-USA speaker. Prof. Lynford Goddard will be talking about his research in Optoelectronics, Prof. John Rogers will be talking about his research in Stretchable Electronics, and Daniel Biank (of IEEE-USA) will be talking about how to mix passions with work in his speech entitled “Balancing Work with Life.”

SPAC will be held in the Plym Auditorium of Temple Hoyne Buell Hall (room 0134), located near the Education Building.

Visit our website for more information and to register! http://ieee.ec.illinois.edu/spac09

written by Mike

The second annual Student Professional Awareness Conference is coming up on September 26! This year we will again have three speakers – Prof. Lynford Goddard, Prof. John Rogers, and Daniel Biank (from IEEE national branch). There will also be an informal panel discussion following the presentations.

If you’re interested in learning about your own future, then please visit the SPAC website at http://ieee.ec.illinois.edu/spac09 for more information and to register. We hope to see you there!

SPAC is free to attend, but please register on the website beforehand!

Questions? Email spac.ieee@gmail.com

written by Mike

UPDATE: As of 1AM on September 15, the course is officially full. e-mail me at dziems@ieee.org if you are interested, and you will be put on a waiting list in the event someone changes their mind. IEEE is proud to announce that this semester, we will be offering a 12-hour course as an Introduction to AVR Microcontrollers. This course will begin the first week in October and end just before fall break (time and place to be determined, though Friday evenings 5-6:30 somewhere in Everitt are most likely). That represents 8 weekly meetings, and 90 minutes per meeting.

The course syllabus can be found here in PDF form. If you read the syllabus, you will see that this course is not intended to be rigorous and in-depth, but rather a gentle introduction into the world of microcontrollers. There will be no required homework, and only minimal time requirements outside of class (if any).

This course is open to ALL students. However, a background in C is strongly encouraged to gain the most out of this course, as all coding will be done in C. If you do not know C, but still want to take this course, I strongly recommend learning on your own time. It is not a particularly hard language to learn, and you do not need to be a C guru to understand this course; knowledge of how variables, functions, and mathematical operators work, as well as proper syntax, should be sufficient.

I strongly encourage participants to bring their own laptop. Any OS will work, but Atmel only provides its software development suite for Windows, so Mac and Linux users will need to use open-source command-line programs.

The cost will be $65 for IEEE members, and $75 for non-IEEE members. This gets you an I/O board with a variety of sensors and displays, as well as a USB microcontroller programmer and two AVR microcontrollers. All items are yours to keep after the course is done, though if you decide you do not want the I/O board, and it is in good working condition, we will buy it back from you for $20

Sign-ups are open now. Sign-ups are closed Class size is limited to 20 students, so if you are interested, please sign up as soon as possible. Since we need to order materials, sign-ups will only be open until September 18th. Also, we are requiring people to pay for the course in full by September 18.
If you are on the sign-up list, but have not paid by September 18th, your name will be removed. We will order a few extra materials in the event something is defective, but a seat in the course will not be guaranteed.

written by Donald