Sebastian A Roe

EE 494
Cumulative Reflection
During my time at ISU I have learned a lot about the Engineering process. From EE285 I
learned how to approach a problem using C code. In EE201 and EE230 I learned how to
design, build, and test circuits. From EE224 I learned how to analyze signals. Each of these
courses has helped build a fundamental understanding of Electrical Engineering and the design
process. From EE 333X, I learned how to tie much of what we study together to create a
functional product.
During my sophomore year I began taking circuitry courses, starting with EE201. Dr.
Gary Tuttle did an excellent job of not only delivering the course material, but connecting with
the students to make sure that they understood the class. Dr. Tuttle taught the class in a way
that inspired students to learn more outside of class and to work very hard in the class. Dr.
Tuttle also started his own unofficial audio club for those students who were interested. My only
regret from that time is that I never managed to make time for these meetings. In EE230, we
learned about some more advanced circuits. This class was my first negative experience at ISU,
as my professor seemed disinterested in the subject. After having EE201, and seeing exactly
how much Dr. Tuttle cares about his students, having a teacher who regularly cancelled classes
and dodged questions from students came as a shock. In this class, I worked on learning about
the circuitry on my own time, since in class we rarely covered new material that was not already
covered in EE201.
One of the skills that I acquired during my freshman/sophomore year that I think will stick
with me forever is programming. Starting with CprE185 in my first semester, and followed by
EE285 my second, I learned a great deal about how to approach a given problem, using C
coding as a tool. At the time, I disliked coding very much, but as time passed I found myself
using it more and more. C opens up so many possibilities for projects and problem solutions
that are otherwise much more difficult to work through. It was this interest in programming that
lead me to take ComS227, a course in object oriented coding (in this case Java). While I was
taking ComS227, I realized exactly how easy it could be to learn a new coding language after
learning the first. Class projects came very naturally to me, and problems others viewed as
difficult, I began to view as trivial. It was during this time that I began work as an Undergraduate
Research Assistant. Working for Dr. Daji Qiao, and alongside his graduate student, Jeramie
Vens, I applied my understanding of coding to a real world problem: detecting levels of strain on
bridge structures. We were given a capacitive sensor, and developed a circuit which oscillated
at a frequency determined by the capacitance of the sensor. I worked on programming a
microcontroller to measure the frequency of these oscillations in real time, and then output into
a readable format for a Matlab script, which then converted the data into strain values. This was
my first taste of what true engineering can be, taking a problem and finding the best way to
approach and solve it. Between the second semester of my sophomore year and the first
semester of my junior year, I focused on writing the most efficient code possible to measure the
frequency of the circuit.

During my Junior year, EE224 introduced me to signal analysis, a field which I decided
to pursue as my focus. This course taught the foundation for circuit analysis and synthesis. My
particular interest rests in audio signals, and how to manipulate or otherwise modify them. I
have always loved music, and the Communication and Signals focus in Electrical Engineering
will give me the opportunity to learn how audio engineers are able to produce high quality
sound. Also during my junior year, I took CprE288, which allowed me to apply my knowledge of
code to another real world application: programming a robot to perform a set of tasks. This class
taught me about embedded systems programming, something that I had already began as an
Undergraduate Research Assistant. Working with C code in an embedded environment in order
to make a robot move through a maze was a very interesting way to teach students embedded
systems. This class was one of the ones that I enjoyed the most, because of my fondness of
programming. During the course of the class, I worked in a two person group to develop
individual sections of the code that would eventually make the final project work. During the last
few weeks, my partner and I collaborated with another group to form a 4 person team in order
implement the code written throughout the semester, and write code to make the robots in lab
run through a maze. During this collaboration, two of the members of the group were in charge
of calibrating the robot, while the other two of us were in charge of finalizing all of our code. In
the finished project, we used a mixture of code written by each individual group and code that
had been re-written in order to perform better. Our robot performed above and beyond our
expectations, and was able to finish the maze on time.
Now, halfway through the first semester of my senior year, I am taking the first course in
the Communications sequence. This course presents challenges in signals that are present in
modern systems, and we learn how to deal with some of these problems, such as
reconstructing a modulated or compressed signal into a form that is interpretable by the receiver
end. I am also currently in the first semester of Senior Design, and our project presents its own
challenges that we must overcome. We are working as a five person team in order to develop a
drone based hovering flashlight for use in roadside emergency situations. This device will
provide hours of light to someone who needs to fix a flat tire or signal emergency responders
when a roadside emergency arises. This project will allow me to work on my communication
system skills, as the drone will need to communicate with a control module, as well as allowing
me to once again work on my code skills.
By far my favorite class here at ISU is EE333X, an experimental class lead by Dr. Tuttle,
in which we learn many of the specialized areas of circuits that arent taught elsewhere, as well
as how to design a circuit. Other classes focus on smaller, known circuits which can be used as
building blocks for new circuits, but EE333X teaches the logistics of putting these circuits
together, and some of the considerations that we must make when designing a circuit. Dr. Tuttle
explains some of the issues that may arise with working exclusively on breadboards, as we do
in EE201 and EE230, and how to fix these problems. One of the most important things that we
have learned in the class is how to provide power to the circuits that we design. In a consumer
electronics scenario, a circuit cannot be made with the expectation that the end user always has
a triple output power supply, or a function generator at their disposal, and Dr. Tuttle taught us
some industry standard ways of building circuits that provide their own power, whether from a
battery, or a rectified signal from a wall outlet.

My time at ISU has shaped me into an engineer ready to work in industry. I feel like
professors like Dr. Tuttle and others have imparted on me the knowledge necessary to continue
to learn outside of University, and to continue to grow as a person. Even some of the professors
who I did not care for taught me that help can always be found, and that knowing where to seek
additional sources of learning is a valuable skill. Though at times the path forward seems
uncertain, I know that many of my professors and peers are there to help me through.