EE 210Circuits and Devices

4 credits · Electrical Engineering · Penn State

EE 210 serves as the gateway course for all subsequent coursework in Electrical Engineering. It introduces engineering circuit analysis to students headed towards Electrical Engineering and related fields. The course includes both a theoretical component, covered in the lecture portion of the course, and a practical hands-on component, covered in the laboratory portion of the course. The lecture portion of the class begins with a review of basic concepts of charge, current, voltage, electric power and electric energy. Next, circuit elements and devices used in DC circuits are introduced - independent and dependent sources, resistors, potentiometers, and operational amplifiers. Circuit analysis theorems (KVL, KCL, resistor and source combinations, voltage division, current division, source transformations, nodal analysis, mesh analysis, linearity, superposition, Thevenin's theorem, and Norton's theorem) are then presented and used to analyze DC circuits. In the next part of the course, circuit elements with time-varying properties (capacitors and inductors) are introduced and algorithms for analyzing transient RC, RL, and RLC circuits are formulated. In the final part of the course, the concepts of phasors and impedances are developed and these tools are used to analyze AC steady state circuits. These tools are then extended to calculate the frequency response of RLC circuits. In the laboratory portion of the course, students first learn how to use basic electrical engineering test equipment - oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters, and power supplies. Students then perform a series of experiments that parallel the theory learned in the lecture-portion of the course. Experiments involve electrical devices such as resistors, potentiometers, capacitors, and operational amplifiers. Circuit analysis modeling software is introduced as a tool for circuit analysis and design.