Introducing 9-12 grade students to electrical engineering technology through hands-on laboratory experiences

At Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, an outreach project has been designed and implemented to provide 9th through 12th grade students with electrical engineering technology (EET) experiences. The high school students are brought onto the college campus and given a ten-minute presentation on the EET program and career opportunities. The students then participate individually in two thirty-minute hands-on laboratory experiences, one introducing the students to PSpice(R) and the other laboratory introducing the students to LabVIEW/sup TM/. Given two electronic circuits, the students are introduced to PSpice(R) for simulation. In the LabVIEW/sup TM/ experience the presentation begins with a tone generator program. The graphical user interface allows the students to control the amplitude and frequency of the waveform. In a second program the students simulate the functions of a touch tone telephone. The workshops have been conducted for high schools resulting in very positive feedback.