2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Curriculum integration engages students as active learners and involves meaningful learning organized around issues important to teachers and students. In 2019 the [Department Name] at [School] implemented an extensive curricular revision. One major benefit of the curriculum change is the opportunity for scaffolding and integration of student knowledge and experience between courses. By threading topics between (and within) academic quarters, faculty can reinforce fundamental concepts and minimize the compartmentalization of knowledge that challenges many students as they progress through an engineering curriculum.
A staple of a “Circuits, Signals, and Measurements” course in biomedical engineering is the design and implementation of a biopotential amplifier. Students are introduced to physiological signals, amplification principles, filter design, the importance of patient protection, and many other instrumentation fundamentals. In the lab, students implement their circuit designs on breadboards, learn essential troubleshooting skills, record signals, and observe how the signal-conditioning circuits they design improves the quality (signal-to-noise ratio) of their electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings.
At [School], the sophomore-level “Circuits, Signals, and Measurements” course is taken concurrently with “Design Methodologies”, a course where students build hands-on design skills by: (1) identifying and analyzing product design and development processes commonly used in engineering, (2) developing the concepts and tools necessary for product design, development, and evaluation in engineering, and (3) redesigning a product to address a unique user need. During the 2022-2023 academic year, faculty integrated the biopotential amplifier from “Circuits, Signals, and Measurements” into “Design Methodologies” to help students connect how their prototyped biopotential amplifiers could be further developed into a more polished finished product. This project was an ideal selection for the "Design Methodologies" course because it reinforced all three course learning objectives and integrated technical knowledge that students recently were learning.
From a design process perspective, the biopotential amplifier had clearly defined user needs, design inputs, and design outputs for the students to evaluate. With those functional design criteria established, students approached the project from a manufacturing perspective. Students designed, manufactured, and assembled a stand-alone device consisting of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), a switch-controlled power supply (9-V batteries), and an enclosure that accepted the raw human electrophysiological input and produced a filtered ECG signal with high signal-to-noise ratio that can be displayed by an oscilloscope. Verification of the device allowed students to build on and reinforce the knowledge obtained in the “Circuits, Signals and Measurements” class. During this process, students had to make sure their devices met the functional requirements by performing continuity and switch tests. Validation, on the other hand, gave students the opportunity to rethink their design manufacturability and identify possible redesign recommendations.
This work-in-progress will share the project requirements, deliverables, and rubrics. The authors will also identify “lessons learned” and plans for the next project iteration.