I'm registered for Control Systems Analysis which I hear will be the most difficult class I take in my undergraduate career in Electrical Engineering.
Those math problems!!! Yikes 😬
@Mike403 I am just finishing studies for a license after finishing a degree. I can relate.
I’m not sure if I took control systems, but what I heard where I went to school was that signal analysis was the hardest class.
Good luck though, you got it.
Now I know why engineers make so much money, after taking a look at that textbook page.
@sunnysideup - That isn't on my degree plan. The class I'm taking relies on a mathematical technique called Laplace Transform and I barely passed the class that taught it with a C.
Matlab, my boyfriend mentioned that. He's doing Electrical Engineering Technology.
~ Sunset Snuggles
Matlab is a computer software to do certain calculations too complicated to do by hand. It stands for Matrix Laboratory. I had to buy a second textbook dedicated just to that.
@Mike403 - you are giving me PTSD from my undergrad days. I took Laplace Transforms in a Maymester (my university offered a a few 3 credit classes in 3 calendar weeks in May). For me the controls systems class wasn’t that bad but the classes on Laplace Transforms and Thermodynamics were the most difficult. Hang in there, I’ve read enough of your posts to know how you think and you’ve got this! 👍
That textbook page is very badly laid out. I do not accept work of that low a quality from my maths students. It looks like it was formatted by somebody who had never heard of mathematics.
In other words, if something is confusing you just remember that it might be the book's fault.
@Mike403 I thought logic controllers was really fun!
Fourier transform took a while for me to wrap my head around man. This isn't trivial stuff also like above mentioned, some of these textbooks are just no good. . I find many youtube tutorials that helped more than my textbooks did.
@JohnR1972 You can rest easy knowing those days are over. At my local university, UMD, which I didn't go to for EE, I've heard of many students failing out of the engineering program first semester. Because they wanted limited entry in the field, they pressured professors to make the freshman classes arbitrarily hard, apparently. And other students that drop out years into the program even with passing grades because of the stress. Luckily I got my EE from a small town university.
These books aren't cheap either. $350 total for both of those books.
That's almost half my monthly rent.
Nice progress by the way! Would you say you're an expert in using Kirchoff's Law? I felt like that was used in like half of many of my first/second year EE courses.
@sunnysideup Your rent is hella cheap, son! Don't move to Washington! 😁
@SunsetSnuggles Only because I have roommates! Living in the DMV is not cheap for sure.
I love this thread cause I get to see a different side of people.
@sunnysideup - Kirchoff's Law is one of the most important concepts in electric circuits. Kirchoff's Current means that the same amount of current that enters the circuit must also leave the circuit. Kirchoff's Voltage means that the sum of all voltages in a closed loop circuit must equal to zero.
Control Systems was one of my favorite series of classes, not because I am a math whiz, but because of the physical meaning of poles and zeroes in the stability of aircraft. My degree is in Aerospace Engineering.
As for Laplace transforms, be encouraged that sometimes the math concepts click in our heads in other classes or applications.
More please !
I'm not looking forward to it either, but for slightly different reasons.
(mutters under breath about "those durn kids")
It’s always difficult to decide whether to study advanced math or cuddle. 🤷🏻♂️
Although MatLab is nice, I wish they would stop utilizing Matlab and switch to Python + matplotlib/numpy (SageMath) or even Julia, in school. But I guess companies still utilize it, so good to be familiar with it.
Good luck with your studies!
I find programming can help a lot with understanding and visualizing math. Get to play with numbers and see results so much faster. And to double check your hand written work
@achetocuddle - You want more? Here's a lecture on Laplace Transform. Enjoy. :P
I start classes this week. I'm also taking an elective on criminal justice.
I thought the visual language of control systems (represented in Matlab with Simulink) was beautiful in terms of what phenomena could be expressed simultaneously, all in balance. I had to learn how to combine this stuff with writing digital code to approximate these types of systems in robotics college.
Some of the math got a bit hairy, though.
@Mike403 The more important question… Where are your bedsheets?
(CJ is my undergrad, so hope you enjoy that class.)
@Mike403 Take heart. It may not be as difficult as you've heard. I took Feedback Control Systems the second half of my Junior year, and found it to be not as difficult as several of my other engineering courses. I probably had an advantage, in that it was my second class that year from my favorite professor. The previous one was Analog Computers, which was about half lab work. @entwine Analog computers are marvelous tools for building simulations of control systems. You're able to twiddle knobs to do things like adjust the gain, or damping, or hit it with a pulse input. Then watching the output on on a scope, gives a much better intuitive feel than you can ever get with Matlab.
One of my lab projects was to simulate a lunar lander (it was in the 1970's) , and try to land it a a specific spot, with as near zero vertical velocity as possible.
Good grief y'all sure are smart. Fascinating. I did not know there was such a thing as an analog computer; seems like an oxymoron. I might could get along with an analog computer. Lol.
@TheMidnightOwl You are observant I had to scroll back and see what you were talking about. If I were studying this stuff (ha ha) I would be too tired to put sheets on the bed, no joke.
@achetocuddle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_integrator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
@Mike403 That is a hard class, for sure. You will do just fine. Fortunately, there are lots of excellent lectures online which explain the difficult concepts via different approaches, so that gives a better shot at grasping the material. I really like the MIT lectures on control systems on YouTube - they are a bit scattered so you have to do some work to find the right sequence, but they present the material well.
Now, if only I can apply control systems theory to control the chaos of thoughts in my brain...
@CuddlesByDeep Meditation is like a PWM controller.
