ECS
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Modeling and Control: Engineering of Compartment Systems
ECS is a major engineering component of the first semester freshman experience. I have been involved as a member of the teaching assistant staff since the beginning of my sophomore year. During my junior year, I took on the responsibility of organizing the other TAs and handling the various administrative duties.
Key Topics
- Effort vs Flow
- State
- Transduction
- Feedback
Skills Taught
ECS is usually the first course where students work hands-on with circuits. We teach incoming freshman a number of basic engineering skills such as the following:
- Oscilliscope operation
- Breadboarding technique
- Basic circuit theory
- Passive Components (Resistors, Capacitors, Inductors, and Diodes)
- Ohm's Law
- Voltage Dividers
- RC Circuits
- Op-Amp circuits
- Simulink and MATLAB
Contributions
One of the first labs students do in ECS is the two can lab, where a full can of water drains into an empty can with a hole in the bottom. This illustrates the connection from the physical world to differential equations and Simulink diagrams.
As part of my Differential Equations class, I wrote a short paper intended to explore the solution to the two can problem, sometimes called the TUCAN problem. It is available here: TUCAN Problem.