1. Project Guidance for Electronics What to do and what NOT to do

2. Introduction Your Project carries 30 % of the marks. You are to design and construct an electronic artifact. This means an electronic circuit that does something useful, rather than a circuit to illustrate an electronic principle. Your project should last about 30 hours (10 weeks @ 3 hours per week). It should be based on material you have studied in Modules 1 and 2.

3. Aim To gain experience of managing a project. To use your skills in electronic design. To reinforce your skills and understanding of electronics. To show that electronics is relevant to every day problems. To get you to think like an electronic engineer.

4. What You Need to Do You need to find something that you are interested in. You need to be able to make it, so that it works. Keep it simple. Research at least TWO alternative circuits that will do the job. Decide on which one you will make.

5. What you must NOT do Use powers greater than 100 watts. Use Voltages bigger than 50 V. Use a kit. Use radio transmitters, transceivers, or rf amplifiers. Make anything that would cause distress, danger, or annoyance to others.

6. Help Available You are NOT expected to design from scratch. You are entitled to seek guidance from your teacher. Guidance becomes assistance when the teacher actually does something for you. You are allowed assistance, but that has to be noted, and you cannot access that particular mark. However you may find it worth balancing the loss of one mark against the gain of several others. So DON’T struggle on if stuck! ASK!

7. Specification You should specify at least three numerical parameters from your research. Here is an example: The amplifier gives a power output of 1 watt into a speaker of 8 ohms with an input of 10 mV. The amplifier takes a quiescent current of 5 mA from a 12 V battery. Numerical parameters

8. Components Your project should be made of components that are readily available. There is a large range of components available in college. If the components are not available, you should look them up in the catalogue with the reference number and price. All prices exclude VAT which needs to be added on. You find that the component you are after is not available. There are equivalents that will do the job. ASK! If you want a highly expensive component, then you must pay for it yourself!

9. How to go about the Planning You must have at least three active devices: Transistors or MOSFET Op-amp 555-timer Integrated circuits. A circuit which has 4 NAND gates on one chip is considered only to have ONE active device ! Electromagnetic relays and motors are NOT active devices. The key thing to remember is that the active device is a central process.

10. Calculations You need to consider at least two factors, for example, how the resistance of an LDR changes with light level, or the sound level of an alarm. You should do calculations to show you for example the powers of resistors that you need. If your circuit gives these to you, show how these are reached.

11. Development of the System You should develop your system as sub- systems. These should each be tested separately before going to the next system 555-timer Shift Register with 3 flip-flops Decoder 7 segment display

12. Building the Project You should develop the project on protoboard. You do NOT need to solder, nor should you worry about PCB’s; you will not gain any extra marks for this. You plan the layout of your circuit so that it is clear and methodical. You might find it useful to develop one sub system on one piece of breadboard. You should take photographs as you go along Power Supply InputsProcessOutput

13. Construction WorkWork safely safely. Any “Ouch!” suggests otherwise. You must provide a risk assessment to help you focus on safety. Take care not only of yourself and the equipment, but also the components. The leads can break easily. You can overheat components while soldering. Do NOT spend time making a beautiful box for your circuit. You will gain no extra marks for doing so!

14. Testing You should test your project under normal operating conditions. You must devise a testing plan BEFORE you start testing. You should document your testing with appropriate measurements laid out in tables and graphs as appropriate. Compare your circuit with your original specification. Modify your circuit if you need to.

15. Report Your report should be such that another AS level student can pick up your report and reproduce the circuit. You must provide evidence for all the marking criteria if you are to gain the marks. You must maintain a record of supervision. Lay your report out in the same way as the assessment scheme.

16. Writing Your Report You should word-process your report. If you leave something out, you can add it later. Include photographs (JPEG images are sufficient). However watch your file size! Write down your references, whether they are from books or CD-ROM’s or the Internet. Include all your evidence. Credit cannot be given unless the evidence is there.

17. Presenting Your Report You should write your report on A4. You should keep it brief and to the point. You do not get extra marks for writing loads! The project is not weighed! Staple your report together with the cover sheets.

18. Spelling and Grammar Try to use good English. Although it is not assessed, poor English takes away from the impact of a report. Use your spell-check but don’t rely on it. Yore spell cheque dose not all ways pick up every Miss Take that ewe have maid. Even if their our know red lanes under what you have wrote, it dose not mean that it make’s census.

19. And Finally… Enjoy it!