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This course is a first introduction to electrical systems. It includesthe analysis of circuits including resistors, capacitors, and inductorswith DC and AC sources in the time domain and in the frequency domain.Laboratory demonstrations are given to reinforce the concepts learned fromthe lectures and homework. The course is targeted at people with a scientificor technical background who are not electrical or computer engineers. Thecoverage is not as deep as a circuits course aimed at electrical engineers.There are a number of physical applications demonstrated in this coursethat serve to motivate this topic to a wider audience. The course is idealfor someone who wants to gain a basic understanding of electrical circuits,someone who wants to get better intuition for what they have already learned,precocious hobbyists, or for someone who is considering electrical engineeringas a career.
Overview
Syllabus
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This course is broken into five Modules, each having associated homework and a quiz:
Module 1: Background:
Background information on electricity, resistors, and circuit diagramsModule 2: Resistive Circuits:
Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's Law, Resistors in series and in parallel, Systematic Solution Methods, Physical applications, and Lab demosModule 3: Reactive Circuits:
Capacitors, Inductors, First and Second Order Differential Equations, RC and RL and RLC circuit steady-state and transient response to a DC source, Physical applications, Lab demosModule 4: Frequency Analysis:
AC response, Impedance, Transfer functions, Frequency response, Filtering, Applications, Lab demosModule 5:
Real and reactive power, power factor, transformers
Each module has a quiz associated with it, where the modules that take longer are assigned more credit in grading. Each week has a homework associated with it that is due at the end of the week.
