Improving Electronics Preparation at the Undergraduate Level

在四年制院校的本科水平上，确实需要开设模拟和数字电子学方面的扎实课程。开设模拟电子学课程是一次极好的实验室体验。除了这种普遍的吸引力，如果物理专业的学生对电子学有很好的了解，他们将会得到很好的服务，他们打算找到工业职位。对于那些继续读研究生的物理(以及越来越多的化学)学生来说，在研究实验室做好模拟电子方面的准备是很重要的，因为在那里，这类知识被视为理所当然。所有这些都可以说是数字电子学，此外，这是相当多的学生学习计算机科学专业所必需的。为了教好这些课程，每两个学生应该有五个主要的设备可供他们使用：一个双道示波器，一个好的函数发生器，一个直流电源，一个频率计数器，对于更复杂的数字电路，还有一个逻辑分析仪。在过去，这些都是物理上独立的乐器。Ripon正在通过收购IBM ATS的插件板来集成其中的四个(电源除外)。这将降低成本，更重要的是，它将允许对波形进行数字处理(主要是傅立叶分析)，从而提高对实验进行定量分析的能力。学院将用等额的资金来匹配这笔奖金。

There exists a real need for solid courses in analog and digital electronics at the undergraduate level in four year institutions. A course in analog electronics is an excellent laboratory experience. Beyond this general appeal, physics majors who intend to find industrial positions will be well served if they have a good understanding of electronics. For those students of physics (and increasingly chemistry) who go on to graduate school, good preparation in analog electronics is important in research laboratories where such knowledge is taken for granted. All of the above can be said for digital electronics, which, in addition, is required for substantial numbers of students taking a computer science major. To teach these classes well, every two students should have at their disposal five major pieces of equipment: a dual trace oscilloscope, a good function generator, a D.C. power supply, a frequency counter and, for more sophisticated digital circuits, a logic analyzer. In the past, each of these would be physically separate instruments. Ripon is integrating four of them (all but the power supply) by acquiring plug in boards for IBM ATs. This will reduce the cost and, more importantly, it will allow digital processing of the waveforms (principally Fourier Analysis) resulting in an increased ability to do quantitative analyses of experiments. The college is matching the award with an equal amount of funds.//