Here are my thoughts on the fifth week's material, etc.

• This week's material is an introduction to electrical filters.
• First order filters only.
• Labs are designed to show how filtering works to reduce noise in a signal.
• This year I found a good filtering lab - after looking for years - and it was right under my nose.
• Later in the course I use a liquid level system in the control segments.  A pump pumps liquid into a tube with an outflow orifice in the bottom of the tank.  There's a pressure sensor close to the base of the tube.  There is a lot of turbulence at the liquid surface and the pressure signal has a lot of noise - and I should have noticed that before.  I devised a lab where students had to design a filter to reduce the turbulence noise in the signal from the pressure sensor.
• In-Class exercises
• Problem Freq1P02
• Class Notes - Good so far, but I need a lot more.
• Some things to think about.
• In other years I used a real fun lab - "Filter Appreciation Day".  Students got to "experience" filters using headphones, etc.  Would like to work this back in.
• Sensors encountered to this point in the course.
• Thermocouples
• LM35s - giving two examples of sensors with voltage outputs
• Thermistor - giving an example of a sensor with a resistance change.
• AC Tachometer
• Pressure Sensor
• Thoughts about where this is at this point.
• I think that filtering the pressure sensor signal is better than Filter Appreciation Day for non-EEs. but there were good aspects to things when students could listen to CDs and filter the signals.  They got a better feeling for what a filter is???