A capstone senior design course: Building a simplified computer network
Greco, John
This paper discusses a capstone senior design course for electrical and computer
engineering students. The course builds on the fundamentals of an ECE curriculum, and
offers opportunities to learn new material, and to design, simulate, debug, build, and test
a local area network. The six-node network that is realized uses either a Token Ring
Protocol or an Ethernet protocol for sending short text messages on twisted-pair cable
between network nodes. Students implement four of the Open Systems Interconnection
layers: the application layer; the network layer; the data link layer; the physical layer. The
node hardware consists of a Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller development board, plus
additional hardware interfacing which students design and test. Working in groups of
two, students appreciate the importance of exhaustive testing before connecting their
node hardware to other nodes. The course includes various topics from previously taken
courses: digital design (microcontroller programming, timing and interfacing);
electronics (differential line drivers); electromagnetic fields (transmission lines, crosstalk,
ground noise); control systems (phase-locked loop for clock recovery); electric circuits
(power supply noise). The course also introduces students to new material for
understanding network protocols. Once the network is functioning, students devise tests
and take measurements to determine the network efficiency under various traffic
conditions. This paper focuses on three questions: how is this capstone experience tied
with the core courses of the curriculum; how is the course set up to meet the requirements
of senior design and ABET’s expectations; how other institutions can develop such a
capstone experience, i.e. what should they expect from their students, and what hardware
is actually needed to offer the course.
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