Designing undergraduate optoelectronic laboratories: a unique senior design project

An elective course, Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, was offered by Bucknell University's Electrical Engineering Department for the first time during the Spring Semester of 1994. The purpose of this course is to introduce juniors, seniors and graduate students to the increasingly important, multidisciplinary technology of optoelectronics. The Electrical Engineering Department received funding to expand the course to include a laboratory in Spring 1996. As a Senior Design project, the laboratories were an exercise in creating experimental labs, deciding the ergonomics of the new laboratory room, lab group size, and determining the level of difficulty and the style of reporting after the laboratories. Another aspect of the Senior Design Project included developing and maintaining a World Wide Web homepage to document the project and useful optoelectronic resources.