EE2028 Review (AY21/22 S1)

Taken in AY21/22 S1. 

Format

Lecture: Zoom
Tutorial: Physical (optional) / Zoom recording
Lab: Physical
Quiz/Exam: Examplify with Zoom proctoring. Lock down internet. Open book (can open any files/software on your PC).

Teachers

Lecture: Prof Henry (First 3 weeks), Prof Gu Jing (Next 3 weeks), Prof Rajesh (Second half of semester)
Tutorial: Prof Rajesh
Lab: Prof Ba Myint

Deliverables

  • Week 3: Quiz 1 (2.5%)
  • Week 5: Quiz 2 (2.5%)
  • Week 6: Assignment 1 (15%)
  • Week 12: Quiz 3 (5%)
  • Week 13: Assignment 2 (25%)
  • Exam Week 2: Exam (50%)

Review

Take note that my review is in perspective of someone who has had 3 years of experience in STM32 embedded programming coming from polytechnic.

To sum it up, the module is well-taught in terms of theory (lecture/tutorial) with some very passionate lecturers. I have close to no complains for the lectures -- it is of very high quality. However, I felt the labs are disorganised which is where most people complain about in their module reviews. I was able to cope in this module only because I had past experience.

My opinion is that for people without experience, it can be overwhelming as the lecture touches mainly on register-level programming while the lab uses abstraction libraries/drivers. Therefore, while the lecturers will advise students to “link the lecture knowledge to the lab”, I think it is hard because the students will be working with different layers of abstraction. 

While it can be argued that experimentation is the way to learn, it seems that some information was deliberately withheld in the lab, in order to force people to self-learn. I do not agree with this practice as I feel it defeats the purpose of school. Isn't the point of going to school supposed to give you the resources to accelerate your learning?

Selfish to say, it was advantageous to me since I knew the most efficient techniques from my prior experience compared to other teams who used less efficient methods since they do not know the proper tools. For example, knowing how to use the debugger properly will help to save a lot of time and therefore I felt that the workload was low unlike other reviews. 

The open-book exams had a few repeated questions from past years (to help people pass I suppose), but also there's many more questions that were not repeated. It is hard to spot questions and be prepared to look up the datasheet quickly during the exam. I felt that only 10% of what I studied during reading week was directly tested, with the rest requiring you to look up information on the fly and think through the communication procedures and make decisions based on your experience.

Grade

Expected Grade: A+
Actual Grade: A+

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