Integration Of A Circuit Board Milling Machineinto An Ece Curriculum

Three years ago, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lafayette College purchased a printed circuit board milling machine system and began integrating its use into the ECE curriculum. The system has been enthusiastically accepted by our students and the faculty. This paper will describe our experience with this printed circuit board milling machine. Specifically, the paper will describe how the machine is being used in a number of courses ranging from our first-year Introduction to Engineering course, through sophomore and junior year laboratory projects, to our capstone senior design course. The integrated design process used by our students to design printed circuit boards will be described and several representative designs will be discussed to demonstrate the level of design complexity that can be achieved using this technology. Finally, some initial assessment data regarding student reaction to the PCB milling machine is provided.