Project Overview

This project is a series of labs that will be used as part of a curriculum for undergraduate engineering students. The goal of these labs is to introduce students to digital circuits and microprocessors. The labs are designed to bridge the gap between embedded systems, electronic circuits, and digital logic. Helping students better understand how digital logic is implemented in hardware and how the software interacts with the hardware. Our design supports labs focused on hardware, software and labs that tie the two together. Additionally, our design contains reusable testing circuits that allow students to verify their work in the labs. Our design allows students to complete each lab within three hours. When implementing our design, hardware-focused labs were prioritized to ensure resource availability. These labs build breadboard implementations of components present within the i281e processor. The software labs focus on software like KiCad as well as coding in assembly. The labs are also designed to be convertible into activities that can be used in outreach events. Such that participants with less background knowledge can complete the lab activities. Using our design we finished ten labs, five with a hardware focus, four with a software focus and one that ties the two together. We also created a mini project that builds upon two of our labs to expand student comprehension. The next steps for this project will be to continue any revisions in the labs to refine language and figures to enhance student understanding. Additionally, the lab curriculum we designed has room for an additional lab as well as a final project that can be expanded into their own activities for the lab curriculum to be used alongside a semester long class. There is a goal to build another PCB implementation for the i281e processor and document the development process.

Previous i281 Teams

PCB Implementation: sdmay24-14
Breadboard Implementation: sddec22-20
Visual Debugger: sdmay21-38

Team Members

Ethan Uhrich

Team Lead & Treasurer

Ethan Uhrich is a Computer Engineer from Bettendorf, Iowa. Ethan enjoys cooking, card collecting and Video Games.

Ariana Dirksen

Editor & Note Taker

Ariana Dirksen is a Computer Engineer from Dubuque, Iowa. Ariana enjoys reading, playing board games and working on creative projects.

Tessa Morgan

Webmaster & Graphic Designer

Tessa Morgan is a Computer Engineer from Des Moines, Iowa. She is moving to Baltimore after graduation to work for Northrop Grumman.

Gigi Harrabi

Client Interaction & Outreach Coordinator

Gigi Harrabi is a Computer Engineer from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Gigi enjoys baking and painting.