HOW TO SELECT A GOOD PROJECT

Features of a Good Project

• Input-output + datapath + controller   • Suitable for digital control

• Interesting to group members              • Appropriate level of complexity

• Features can be added or removed    Debugging features built in

Recent Projects with Descriptions

More Lists of Past projects

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Objectives

it is expected that each student will accomplish the following:

A. Starting from a functional specification, consider possible alternative solutions.

B. Develop a block diagram-level design.

C. Proceed from block diagram to detailed design, choosing appropriate combinational and sequential logic to meet functional specifications.

D. Utilize methods for state and logic minimization.

E. Begin to develop some “designer’s common sense”:

1. Become aware of the relative costs and availability of commonly-considered components.

2. Weigh parts costs, construction expense, and design complexity against each other.

F. Learn modern methods of design, construction and debugging, which include:

1. Computer-aided schematic capture and logic simulation

2. Modular design (building and checking one module at a time and/or designing modules to be independently testable). For timely completion of your project the use of structured design and modular testing will probably be the most important activity in your project.

3. Identifying and resolving timing problems (e.g., logic analyzer)

4. Construction techniques and packaging: wirewrap, connectors, debugging, etc.

G. Perhaps most important, persist in debugging a design to achieve a working prototype.

We cannot stress this point enough. It is easy to underestimate the time required for debugging; very often insufficient time is allocated for it. In fact, in many cases, most of your time in the end will be related to debugging problems and this is a cruicial to learning how to properly wire digital circuits.

Rules

Size is not the issue — rather, we want to make sure that your project is difficult enough

to really teach you something, yet not so hard that you can’t get it to work in the time allotted (a project that works will earn a better grade than one which doesn’t). It will be important to select the “right” project for your group’s abilities. The key part of the planning is that the project must involve

some form of a state machine to control function. homework and labs will, we hope, equip you to understand what kinds of design issues each possible project might involve, and to estimate the total effort.Nevertheless, you may quite reasonably feel nervous about the choice of a project. Fortunately, most digital design projects are quite flexible. Features can be added to simple devices, and subsystems can be omitted from complex systems.

Therefore, we will use the following rules:

A. Proposal

The proposal is a functional description of your project — what switches and lights it has, how a

user operates it, what its design specifications are for speed, etc. You will submit your written proposal and discuss it with the teaching staff. This meeting will be about ten minutes long. After some discussion, in which we will try to give you our best estimate as to the degree of difficulty involved, this description becomes a tentative specification.

B. Design Reviews

At the design review on (check up your dates) you will meet with the project guide (staff member) and team leader to present your complete design and answer questions on it. You will hand in a complete paper design including a set of specifications, a block diagram showing the major functional components and the signals that interconnect them, and a detailed schematic diagram where every chip, wire, and switch is defined and specified. Changing specifications or adding/deleting features after this point is possible, but only with the advice and approval of guide and team leader. In addition, you will use transparencies of your design to assist in the presentation and discussion of your design. This meeting will be about thirty minutes long.

C. Construction review

The construction review is a short meeting with Conceptual team: (Dr H.S.N murthy, Mrs Naga jaya lakshmi, _____________ in the lab on _______(check up dates ). The purpose is to make sure you are using good clean circuit construction techniques so that your design will be reliable and debuggable. A portion of your project grade will be based on physical design and construction. You should be meeting with your team leader frequently and getting ideas and help from them.

D. Final presentation and demonstration

The final presentation is a short (12 minute) description delivered before the entire class (and anyone else who wants to come) on dates intimated to you; each member of the project team will spend an equal amount of time describing the design, implementation, and features. You are expected to demonstrate a working project at this time. As a matter of courtesy, you are expected to attend all of the project presentations.

The Final Written Report, which consists of a narrative description of the design and a complete set of drawings, is also due on that date. Your project will be graded by comparing the operation of the “final product” to the specification as planned at the design review. The clarity of your oral presentation and the completeness of your design documentation will also be weighed.

E. Tools

Each project group will be assigned a tools for the project phase of the course. You are

responsible for returning these tools in good order at the end of the each session

F. Parts and Supplies

1. Principles

Whenever possible,  try to design with locally available parts what is on hand

Always obey honour code

with step-by-step construction and checkout, you may well discover a need for additional

parts..

G. Keeping the Project:

If your project works, you get to keep it.

H. Summary Schedule:

You will be undertaking a complex engineering task. Taken step-by-step in a reasonably organized fashion, it can be enjoyably completed on time. However, if no construction begins until the last week, disaster is assured. These deadlines are intended to help you avoid such an outcome.

_____________: Project proposals

_____________: Design reviews; final specs, drawings, and parts list due

_____________: Construction review

_____________: Project presentations — your project is expected to work and be

  Demonstrated in class, and you should turn in your final written report.

_____________: Last chance to demonstrate a working project and turn in written

  report.

_____________: Return all material given to you by 4:00 PM.

Project Proposal Guidelines - due _____________

The purpose of the project proposal is to outline both the project objective and a process for meeting that goal. We know that there are many aspects of this project that are a mystery to you at this point. There are significant decisions to be made, and questions that you are not even aware of yet. So, certainly, the project proposal is not a complete description of your project. It should, however, be a complete description of what you know about it to date. That should certainly include a complete (if changeable) functional description that tells what tasks your project will perform and what human interface is involved. This should be spelled out in “owner’s manual” detail. The project proposal should also reflect your thinking about how to proceed with the design and construction. For example, if you were building a telephone tone-dialer, you would probably specify that your first task was to develop and test the tone generator, and only then would be move on to the human interface. What follows is a sketched-out project proposal. It is up to you to choose what particular subjects are covered in your proposal. Some project groups will want to include preliminary calculations of memory sizes, for example. Others will include pages of “owner’s manual” since their project has an involved user interface. The final size of this proposal will vary (but if it isn’t more than a page, you probably haven’t thought enough about it). Your project proposal will be part of your project grade. The grade will reflect the care and

thought you've put into it.

Sample Project Proposal: A Digital Alarm Clock

Functional Description

A disadvantage of all alarm clocks is the ease with which the user can turn the alarm off in a semi—conscious state and go right back to sleep. This alarm clock forces the user to come fully awake by requiring her/him to enter a four-digit code in order to turn the alarm off.

Block Diagram & Description

Insert Diagram Here

Schematic:

You could be using multisim to draw schematics with a little practice of half an hour or so it should not be that difficult

Specifications

• 4-digit display (HH:MM), AM/PM LED, ALARM LED

• Controls: Run/set, Alarm/time/code set, alarm on/off, keypad (for entering times and codes)

Instructions for use

• To set the clock: Set the run/set switch to “set”, the alarm/time/code switch to “time”, and enter the time on the keypad (hours first). Use the “#” key to toggle the AM/PM LED, and the “*” key to clear the time and start over (in case of a mistake). Set the run/set switch back to “run”. • To set the alarm: Set the run/set switch to “set”, the alarm/time/code switch to “alarm”, and proceed as in setting the clock.

• To set the code: Set the run/set switch to “set”, the alarm/time/code switch to “code”, and enter the four-digit code on the keypad. Use the “*” key to clear the code and start over (in case of a mistake). Set the run/set switch back to “run”.

• To “arm” the alarm: Press the alarm on/off button. The ALARM LED should light.

• To turn the alarm off, once it has begun to sound: Enter the four-digit code on the keypad and press the alarm on/off button. The alarm sound should stop and the ALARM LED should turn off. If the code is not accepted, press the “*” key and try again.

Resolved Issues

Rather than build the clock itself from scratch, we would like to purchase an integrated clock chip. This way, the bulk of the design effort will be devoted to the alarm features. Right now, it appears that the design will separate into two modules: the clock proper, and the alarm system. We need to store the alarm code, but that is only four digits, so a memory chip is too much; four eight-bit registers will suffice.

Unresolved Issues

We don’t yet know how to make a telephone keypad work. We don’t know if any commercial clock chip can be set from a keypad. We don’t know what to do if the user forgets the code. The neighbors could get real annoyed if the alarm never shuts off. We don’t know how to make an alarm noise. Maybe the “#” key on the keypad can be used for the alarm on/off button.

Milestones

While we do not have fixed dates for these milestones, the order given here provides an incremental realization of our project.

• Find an appropriate commercial clock chip. If we cannot locate one, design a clock from MSI counter chips.

• Specify the functions of each module and the essential I/O signals to interconnect the modules.

• Design and simulate the individual modules.

• Build and test each module.

• Connect the modules together and test the entire system.

A GOOD PROJECT start with A GOOD DRAEM Because in Dreams we see what could be..