A Practical Application Digital Systems Course For All Engineering Majors

This paper discusses the development of the Introduction to Digital Systems course at Grand Valley State University. As this course is a prerequisite for all engineering majors prior to secondary admission, the course focuses on the practical application of digital systems to solve engineering problems. During the laboratory portion of the course, students design, build, and test various types of digital systems. A unique feature of the course is its integration of digital system fundamentals, C programming, and microcontroller interfacing. Logically and sequentially thinking in both hardware and software are enforced throughout this course. For the Mechanical and Manufacturing disciplines, this provides a strong foundation for the types of digital system applications that will be encountered in the upper level courses and senior projects. For the Electrical and Computer disciplines, the depth of content is developed in subsequent courses. The rest of this paper expounds upon the motivation behind the course, course topics, lab activities, and integration of the course into the ECE and ME/MFG curriculum.