The traditional electrical circuits course within the mechanical engineering (ME) curriculum was designed to familiarize the ME students with linear circuits, including DC and AC analyses. The course was serving a narrow scope that included hands-on practice in linear circuits and on using instrumentations and equipment. The ME students were taking the introductory electrical and computer engineering course with electrical and computer engineering (ECE) students. Close scrutiny to the ME students' satisfaction and future benefits of the course suggested that a new course must be developed for the ME curriculum that serves a more comprehensive scope for the following purposes: 1. Expose the ME students to digital and analog electronics, with hands-on practice; exposure should assist the ME students with their senior design projects in the senior year for projects that require computer interfacing and digital control systems. 2. Assist ME students with multi-disciplinary research that the ME students may take advantage of when using digital and analog electronics. Recent energy conversion processes that are often covered throughout the ME curriculum may require background from analog and digital electronics. 3. Offer the ME students with the opportunity to pursue a signal-processing track within the ECE Curriculum that is important for industry applications when participating in multidisciplinary projects.
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