Date Assigned: Wednesday, August 29, 2002
Date Due: Monday, September 9, 2002

The Problem
        The Electrical Engineering department at Bucknell University has an inventory of HP3314 Function Generators.  These function generators have the following characteristics.

• The function generators have GPIB interfaces.
• The front panel is not user friendly, and is not intuitive.  That limits the usefulness of the instrument, especially for introductory students and students not in EE.

• The user-interface should be as close to an analog interface as possible.
• The interface should control the instrument through the GPIB connection.
• The interface should be written in any of the following languages available at Bucknell.
• C/C++ - either the Visual Version or the Console version
• Visual Basic
• LabView
• The interface should run on any of the computers presently available in the EE Department.  Note that these computers have a range of ages and capabilities, and that they may run on different operating systems (although all are versions of Windows).

Your team may want to refer to the steps in the engineering design process as you work on this problem.

Schedule: On Monday, September 9, each team should come to class with a written draft of a proposal that describes one or more potential solutions. We will discuss your proposals, and then each team will begin developing a prototype that demonstrates the feasibility of your design. After evaluating prototypes, teams will design "production models" that are suitable for use in the EE lab spaces.

• September 18: Second DRAFT of proposal due.
• September 30:  Project report due.
• October 2: Present reports.