Satellite and aircraft communications through SDR as an introduction to Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering

This article describes our teaching experience and lessons learned using Software Defined Radio (SDR) for introducing freshmen to Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering programs. During the course we give a hands-on introduction on SDR, Python programming language, and some basic concepts in communications. With these tools, the students address challenging projects on wireless communications. One of the main objectives is to motivate freshmen students on Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering programs. In this paper we explain the methodology used and some of the projects that have been developed during the last two years.