I. Introduction
The field of electrical and computer engineering has changed very rapidly, providing both opportunities and challenges for educators. The explosion of products relying on electronics technology (medical equipment and diagnostics, portable computing, and gaming, to name a few) presents many exciting opportunities to both attract and engage talented students. However, this may require a departure from traditional textbook-based learning. This paper describes one way to immerse students taking an introductory signal processing course in a relevant real-world laboratory exercise with significant social impact—the simulation of a cochlear implant signal processor. The exercise was crafted with the goals of first providing the students with a traditional background in basic signal processing and MATLAB (MathWorks, Natick, MA) programming, and second guiding them to use that background as a platform upon which to build a working cochlear implant signal processor. Furthermore, given the diverse population of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) and biomedical engineering (BME) students, the lab project promotes a strong exchange of concepts and approaches by teaming BME and ECE students. As a natural path, themes consistent with problem-based learning (PBL) were woven throughout the exercise.