Robust electronic design: what's that?

This paper presents an overview of a two course sequence in robust consumer electronic design introduced in the senior curriculum in electrical engineering at the University of Washington. The focus of the course sequence is on the design process itself, from the creative generation of the consumer product idea to the redesign of that product to meet the robustness threshold required for commercial marketability. Student responses to the course sequence express conflict among their exposure to traditional engineering topics, their expectations as developed through the sophomore and junior EE curriculum at UW, their expectations of the industry experience, and their perceptions of the new ABET criteria and educational goals. Students demonstrate significant resistance to the teaching of soft skills related to design process and principle, yet respond very well to the opportunity to engage in open-ended design. Experience from the first offering of this integrated sequence in robust design for consumer electronics has clearly shown the need to bridge the gap between "what engineering students think they need to know" and "what industry would like them to know" in order to enable the effective use of projects that are not "pre-cooked" by instructors but rather are student-driven and motivated. We present the framework and description of the course sequence here, preliminary assessment results from the first sequential offering of the courses, and a directed path toward improvement in electrical engineering robust design education for consumer electronics in future offerings of the sequence.