A ZERO- GRAVITY... · awards in the Ray Scherr Elevator Pitch entrepreneurship competition, leading...

DEPARTMENT of ElEcTRicAl ENgiNEERiNg | collEgE of ENgiNEERiNg | winter 2014

E X P E R i E N c E

A ZERO-GRAVITY A ZERO-GRAVITY

orientation lecture and laboratory. Our seniors are defining and designing their year-long senior project experience. And our graduate students are writing conference papers and preparing dissertation defense documents.

In this issue of EE Connections you will find articles on entrepreneurial students, international research exchanges, project development and testing in zero-gravity environments, EE alumni gatherings and project highlights from our College of Engineering Project Expo in May 2013.

GREETINGS FROM CAL POLY Electrical Engineering (EE), and welcome to the 2013-14 academic year.

The EE student body is already engaged in our Learn by Doing traditions. Our freshmen are busy learning how to use Scribbler II robots and perform experiments on Arduino Uno microcontrollers in their

f R o M T h E c h A i R

It’s EE IngenuitysTudEnTs’ wORk dEmOnsTRATEs ThEIR bOundlEss cREATIVITY And spIRIT

3 Student Entrepreneurs08 field Studies10 international Research12 faculty Research13 course Notes

14 EE outreach14 Events calendar15 faculty News15 industry Partnerships16 Alumni Reunion

On the CoverCal Poly EE student Christian Hume (foreground) and Professor John Oliver experience the zero-gravity environment of NASA’s ‘Vomit Comet’ aircraft. Read about their experiences on page 9.PHOtO COuRtESy NASA

Inside

Content contributions are welcome for the annual EE Connections newsletter. Please contact Lani Woods at [email protected] or 805-756-6320.

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Cal Poly recently established the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (cie.calpoly.edu/) on campus, and students have been eager to engage. EE students David Levi and Jeremy Kerfs brought new products to market as freshmen. Kerfs and another EE student, Scott Leonard, won awards in the Ray Scherr Elevator Pitch entrepreneurship competition, leading to presentations at the National Elevator Pitch contest in Chicago, Ill.

The department supports many of these projects through the EE Student Project Fund. Contributions from alumni, friends and industry are key in making our Learn by Doing tradition work. Please consider supporting the fund by using the enclosed envelope.

Our first EE alumni event in Santa Clara, Calif., drew 100 attendees sharing EE stories and career highlights with each other. The alumni also paid tribute to Mike Cirovic, our longest-serving faculty member, who just marked his 45th year. We hope to see you in 2014 at EE alumni reunions set for Jan. 16 in San Diego, Calif., and March 21 in Santa Clara (see details, page 14).

We also invite you to visit the department any time and join us for special campus events, such as the annual EE Spring Banquet and the Power and Energy Conference, both scheduled on May 9, 2014.

DENNIS DERICKSON

Department Chair Dennis Derickson talks shop with computer science major Spencer Skeen in an electromagnetic fields and transmission lab.

S T U D E N T E N T R E P R E N E U R S

EE cOnnEcTIOns | wInTER 2014 3

LAURA MACCARLEY’S INVENTION gives wheelchair users a power boost when they want it, without breaking the bank.

The 2013 electrical engineering graduate has developed the Mobility Assistance Power Unit (MAPU), a device that attaches to a manual wheelchair to offer power assistance at the tap of a joystick.

“MAPU was inspired the summer I worked as a biomedical technician at a rural hospital in Tanzania,” said MacCarley. As a participant in the Engineering World Health Summer Institute program, she saw a need for an alternative to the traditional power wheelchair. “I have a passion for biomedical electronics and bioinstrumentation,” she added.

Power wheelchairs can be expensive, large and heavy, and they often require

lAuRA mAccARlEY’s AffORdAblE AlTERnATIVE TO ThE TRAdITIOnAl pOwER whEElchAIR

vehicles equipped with lifts for transport, MacCarley noted. Her research found that many wheelchair users prefer manual folding models because they are cheaper, easier to store and take along.

“The downside is that the fatigue caused by prolonged manual propelling can s igni f icant ly a f fect the user ’s independence and accessibility — a major concern of wheelchair users,” she said.

MacCarley describes MAPU as a lightweight, self-contained, friction-driven device that quickly and easily attaches to the back of the wheelchair.

“ I t incorpora te s a s imple and intuitive joystick-user interface for speed, direction and turning control,” she said. “Through extensive testing, redesign and refinement, it has been optimized for low

MAPU

cost, portability, ease of use, and easy installation and removal.”

And MAPU can be easily stored in a compact car along with the folded wheelchair — no lift required, she noted.

MacCarley now works as a quality engineer at Alcon Laboratories in Irvine, Calif. In August, she also began graduate work in biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California.

Laura MacCarley demonstrated her senior project, the Mobility Assistance Power unit (MAPu) device, at the College of Engineering’s 2013 Project Expo in May.

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EE JunIOR dAVId lEVI sTRIkEs A cORd wITh hIs mAGnETIc cEllO

DAVID LEVI IS BUSY FINE-TUNING his melodic invention — a magnetic cello he calls the Magnetovore.

The electrical engineering junior has been stuck on the idea since his sophomore year in high school. As a Cal Poly freshman, he introduced it to his classmates and professors and found that they, too, were drawn in.

How does it work? Three elements are key in the instrument’s performance, Levi noted: a magnetic coil, a resistive ribbon and a string select.

“The magnetic coil is stimulated by moving a permanent magnet above it,” he explained. “Essentially, it acts like a bow moving across a string to create a sound, but instead it uses magnets to induce an electric current in the coil.

“The resistive ribbon allows the musician to control pitch by pressing along a membrane on the neck of the instrument,” he continued. “And the string select is needed because the instrument only has one string. It allows the musician to switch back and forth between string tunings by a simple flip of the thumb.”

With hi s Magnetovore now in the early stages of design, Levi hopes to “soon make a significant commercial contribution to the electronic cello field.”

He invites visitors to his website, magnetovore.com, to see and hear the instrument in videotaped performances a n d f o l l o w t h e e v o l u t i o n o f i t s development and design, documented extensively in the online photo gallery.

David Levi plays the Magnetovore, an

instrument he made with coiled magnetic wire and a wooden frame (above).

MAggiE KAiSERMAN/ MuStANg NEWS

the cello’s shape and size evolves as Levi

experiments with its design (right).

COuRtESy MAgNEtOVORE.COM

Science & Arts Noteworthy


WHEN JEREMY KERFS ENTERED the electrical engineering program in 2012, he brought along a colorful innovation called ChromaDye and enthusiastically pitched it at the Ray Scherr Elevator Pitch, an annual competition hosted by the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

As one of seven finalists in two cate-gories, Kerfs had 90 seconds to share his idea with the audience and judges. He placed first in the Launch Pad category, winning $1,000 and an expenses-paid trip to Chicago, Ill., to participate in the National Elevator Pitch. He also won the “Outstanding Freshman Presenter” title.

Now a sophomore, Kerfs is still eager to talk about his product.

” C h r o m a D y e i s a l i g h t -activated fabric dye that makes printing photos and designs onto fabrics easy and affordable,” he explained. “People no longer need to invest in expensive processes like screen printing.

They can use sunlight with i n e x p e n s i v e p r o d u c t s f r o m ChromaDye to permanently apply patterns to fabrics.”

Users have eight colors of dye to choose from and an online

JEREmY kERfs’ pITchEs A nEw AppROAch TO dYEInG

Jeremy Kerfs (left) and a sampling of products decorated with ChromaDyePHOtOS COuRtESy CHROMADyE.COM

repository of images for inspiration and use. “All you have to do is print a negative from your printer, paint a piece of fabric with Chromadye, apply the image, and expose it to the sun,” said Kerfs. “We‘re excited to see what people will do with it.”

Kerfs is working on negotiating an agreement with craft companies to dis-tribute the dyes. For more information, visit chromadye.com.

A Colorful Solution

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NATHAN ZORNDORF AND KRISTINE Carreon developed a keen “ear” for music before graduating in spring 2013.

For their senior project, the classmates collaborated on a Monophonic Pitch Identification System — a system that automatically converts sound to MIDI, a standard of the electronic music industry.

The system accepts a monophonic a u d i o i n p u t a n d d e t e r m i n e s t h e fundamental frequency of the signal and amplitudes of the harmonics. It then takes the signal information to output a corresponding MIDI signal that represents the musical information contained in the audio signal.

The project partners identified three parts that are key to the system’s operation: an analog anti-aliasing filter; a DSP for computation and UART signal generation; and a MIDI interfacing circuit that can connect to MIDI compliant devices.

Zorndorf and Carreon’s project was an example of the innovative work presented by EE seniors at the annual College of Engineering Expo last May.

“At the beginning of their senior year, students begin working on their projects, corroborating with their peers and teachers to create projects that have impact,” says Department Chair Dennis Derickson. “They follow a seven-step cycle in the development process,

AudIO sIGnAl/hARmOnIcs AnAlYsIs pROducEs A Pitch-Perfect Project

Nathan Zorndorf and Kristine Carreon

from proposals to completion, including idenifying user needs, designing, building, integration and testing.”

Since graduation, Zorndorf has been combining his electrical engineering and music interests, developing a website called FunkPianoAcademy.com to sell video tutorials on funk piano playing.

Carreon is an applications engineer in the Timing & Communications group at Micrel Inc. in San Jose, Calif., working on clock/data distribution products. She is also studying part-time for her master’s in electrical engineering at Santa Clara University, focusing on analog design.


SCOTT LEONARD’S BRIGHT IDEA is powered by solar energy and a heartfelt desire to give power and knowledge to those without electricity.

As an electrical engineering major, he developed a solar-powered USB charger kit for portable devices — assembly required.

“Instead of buying a pre-made charger, customers would receive a box of com-ponents and instructions to build one,”

explained Leonard, “so the value would be in the learning experience.”

He also proposed using the buy-one, give-one sales model.

“For every kit sold in the industri-alized world, a free kit would be sent to developing nations to address the one billion people living without electrical power,” he said. “These people need solar technology more than anyone, but most live on a few dollars every day. By giving it in kit form, recipients would learn a valuable new skill by assembling it.”

Leonard’s inspiration grew from in-volvement in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Club’s Power and Energy Society (PES), an inter-national organization with a campus pres-ence that connects students with industry and offers extracurricular education in power systems and electronics. Using funding from PES corporate sponsors and

No Cords Attached

Scott Leonard developed a solar-powered uSB charger kit and proposes a buy-one, give-one sales model to help those without electricity in developing nations.

his knowledge of photovoltaics, he put together a solar-powered USB charger kit for the club. The kit consisted of individ-ual polycrystalline solar cells that could be connected together with a flat-tinned wire or “solar tabbing” with the aid of liquid flux and a soldering iron. He also used a custom plastic frame made from twin-walled polypropylene (plastic card-board) and window glass, along with a metal border to hold everything together.

The kit’s key component, said Leonard, was a pre-assembled power electronics module with an integrated USB port “to boost and regulate the power from the solar cells to a stable five volts for charging devices. The total cost of these items, bought in bulk from eBay and Home Depot, was about $12 per kit.”

The kits were sold during weekend workshops hosted by PES and assembled with guidance from club officers. As the project became more popular, the assem-bly instructions and quality of the kits inproved, he said.

“This two-year experience of devel-oping the kit, revising instructions and teaching others to manage the project came together as an idea for an actual commercial product,” he said.

Calling his product the Share-A-Watt Solar USB Kit, Leonard pitched it in fall 2012 at the annual Ray Scherr Elevator Pitch competition hosted by the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. He placed second in the Launch Pad category, winning $500 and an expenses-paid trip to Chicago, Ill., to participate in the National Elevator Pitch.

Leonard credits three professors for helping to make his product a success: Dale Dolan, Gary Perks and Taufik.

“They went above and beyond their regular duties to facilitate this project,” he said. “I owe them my thanks for guiding me as an electrical engineering student.”

Leonard graduated in June and now works at Chevron as a power systems engineer for operations in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

scOTT lEOnARd’s IdEA mAY pull A fEw

hEARTsTRInGs –

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The Lighter Side

f i E l D S T U D i E S


IT’S A FLOATING SENSATION not usually associated with school activities. But one day last summer, five Cal Poly students boarded NASA’s “Vomit Comet” aircraft and found themselves airborne.

With Electrical Engineering Professor John Ol iver, they were a t NASA’s Microgravity University to particpate in “Zero Gravity Target Tracking Experiment in Real Time,” aka OTTER. The project was part of NASA’s Systems Engineering Educational Discovery (SEED) program.

“The mission was to develop and demonstrate technology that enabled a floating experimental rig to track a target — a small purple ball in this case — in microgravity,” Oliver explained. “A laser pointer and feedback system kept the system tracking the ball, while NASA’s ‘Vomit Comet’ aircraft had the apparatus and students floating together in a zero-gravity environment.”

NASA’s interest in the technology lies in future spacecraft that will use similar tracking software to lock onto objects or target areas, such as landing sites, he said.

A typical microgravity flight has 30 parabolas of microgravity, one parabola of lunar gravity and one parabola of Martian gravity, Oliver noted, adding that each microgravity parabola lasts roughly 20 sec-onds, with 35-plus seconds for the lunar and Martian gravity parabolas.

NASA’s Robert Hirsh (above, left) commemorates the visit with students (from left) Sara Lillard, Jenna Becker and Bodin Rojanachaichanin.

Floating in the “Vomit Comet” are (at left, from left) student Brandon Bussjaeger, Professor John Oliver and student Christian Hume.PHOtOS COuRtESy NASA

“These microgravity flights induced weightlessness and allowed the students to feel the effects astronauts feel when on a satellite or a space shuttle,” he said. “With project success, they took away a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of awe for the vast unknown that is space.”

Team members were electrical engi-neering senior Christian Hume, computer science senior Brandon Bussjaeger, aero-space engineering junior Sara Lillard, and mechanical engineering juniors Jenna Becker and Bodin Rojanachaichanin. Oliver served as faculty advisor and Robert Hirsh as NASA mentor.

“His guidance contributed greatly to the project’s success,” said Oliver.

Cal Poly was one of six colleges p a r t i c i p a t i n g i n t h e 2 0 1 3 S E E D program, joining Carthage College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Yale University.

A cAl pOlY mulTIdIscIplInARY TEAm bOARds ThE ‘VOmIT cOmET’ fOR A ZERO-GRAVITY RIdE

o f A N A S A f i E l D T R i P

i N T E R N A T i o N A l R E S E A R c h

A Worldly ExperienceWHEN CAL POLY electrical engineering professors Xiaomin Jin and Helen Yu travel to China with students in tow, there’s no question that EE also stands for “enriching experience.”

For the third consecutive year, Jin and Yu led a team of six students to Beijing for collaborative research and study at Peking University (PKU). The summer 2013 trip was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, as were the 2011-12 visits.

Awaiting their Cal Poly visitors in Beijing were students and faculty from PKU’s Physics Department, poised to tackle the project “International Engineering Research and Educational Collaboration on Gallium-Nitride (GaN) Lasers and Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs).”

Prior to their trip, the Cal Poly students performed GaN LD/LED design simulations in preparation for the

device fabrication work they would do at PKU. Gui Fang Dong, a chemistry professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, visited Cal Poly last March to assist in the activities.

The travelers came home with more than research on gallium nitride devices.

“My first experience in China was a great one on all fronts — educational, cultural, experiential and even spiritu-al,” said EE senior Gabriela Aleman.

Juliet Chico, also an EE senior, found Chinese culture “unique and astonishing. Throughout my stay, I enjoyed learning about traditional customs,” she said.

“This collaboration provides students a valuable opportunity to gain first-hand overseas educational experience, and it helps them adapt to a global environment,” said Jin. “The students from both universities develop an improved understanding of foreign cultures and language.”

EE sTudEnTs & fAculTY TAkE lEARn bY dOInG

TO bEIJInG

the group takes a break from work for a trek along the great Wall (background).

Senior gabriela Aleman and graduate student gabriel Halpin (left)

travis Robinson enjoys a visit to the National Museum in Beijing (above).

All suited up for lab work at Peking university (from left) are Juliet Chico with Aleman, Behill, Professor Xiaomin Jin, PKu Professor Xiangning Kang, Halpin, Davenport and Robinson. the Cal Poly team also conducted research at Beijing’s tsinghua university.


Cal Poly students at the Peking university Library are (from left): gabriela Aleman, Ashli Behill, tattiana Coleman Davenport, travis Robinson and gabriel Halpin, with Xian-Zhe Jiang, a Peking university student.

pROfEssORs’ uTIlITY JObs spIkE clAss ExpERIEncE

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f A c U lT y R E S E A R c h

Talking AlternativespROfEssOR mAccARlEY pREsEnTs REsEARch On fuEls And TEchnOlOGY AT dmE cOnfEREncE

CAL POLY ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING professors Ali Shaban and Taufik spent summer 2013 at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), working full time on special projects as part of the utility’s professorial internship program.

Shaban researched ways to safely bring power back on after a massive outage, and Taufik focused on renewable energy production and its potential impact on future power distribution. When the professors returned to their students in the fall, they brought some real-world problem solving to share.

While SDG&E benefited from the educators’ input on these challenging issues, utility officials also appreciate the value to Cal Poly’s electrical engineering students, who will ultimately be better prepared for jobs in the industry.

Read more about Shaban’s and Taufik’s internship experiences in a U-T San Diego article at: utsandiego.com/news/2013/A u g / 0 2 / s d g e - p r o f e s s o r s - s u m m e r -internship-electric/?#article-copy.

Power Rich

Professorial interns taufik (left) and Ali ShabanCOuRtESy HOWARD LiPiN/u-t SAN DiEgO

ALTERNATIVE FUELS AND AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES were the focus of Electrical Engineering Professor Art MacCarley’s research presentation during a poster session at the Fifth International DME Conference, held last spring in Ann Arbor, Mich.

In his report, “Automotive Technologies for a Sustainable Future: Alternative Fuel Engineering Education with Emphasis on DME and Methanol as Transition Fuels,” MacCarley described the present as a time of major transition in the transportation energy sector.

“Current domestic oil and natural gas resources are unexpectedly plentiful,” he said, “but known to be of limited capacity at economical extraction costs — generally estimated to be in the range of 10 to 30 years.”

The technical and market changes that accompany the eventual transition to renewable energy sources will be widespread and expensive, he noted, encompassing the fuel or energy production and distribution infrastructures as well as motive power utilization.

“Research results have increasingly pointed to two particular fuels as promising bridges between the era of inexpensive fossil fuels and the inevitable era of renewable fuels,” said MacCarley. “Dimethyl Ether (DME) and methyl alcohol (methanol) show great potential as CI and SI engine fuels, respectively, which can both be produced efficiently from inexpensive natural gas, and from a wide range of renewable biomass sources in the future.

“The relative simplicity and near commonality of the production processes for each fuel derived

from either energy feedstock represent additional advantages, reducing barriers to near-term deployment,” he continued. “With a focus on practicality, net vehicle emissions and energy-source flexibility, these potential transition fuels

could serve as logical cornerstones for sustainable and environmentally sound national or

international energy policies.”He told the audience that an integrated

research and educational effort has been underway at Cal Poly since the early 1990s to address the engineering changes needed to use these fuels, “while educating the next generation of engineers for the inevitable transition to a non-fossil-fuel-dependent future.” A centerpiece of this effort is the multidisciplinary course, Automotive Technologies for a Sustainable Future. (See article on opposite page).

MacCarley’s presentation included DME and methanol engine projects with development summaries, in-progress photos and operational data from the class.

Professor Art MacCarley


IT’S ABOUT BUILDING environmentally friendly vehicles and rethinking the re-sources that fuel them.

Students enrolled in Automotive Technologies for a Sustainable Future are exploring alternative energy options for automotive transportation and studying recent innovations that improve vehicle efficiency and reduce emissions.

“We’re investigating selected tech-nologies associated with current and future automobiles,” said Professor Art MacCarley, one of the course’s instructors. “Emphasis is on alternative and renewable fuels, and electric and hybrid vehicles.”

The multidisciplinary course covers recent innovations affecting thermal ef-ficiency, emissions including greenhouse

gases, performance, safety and sustain-ability of each alternative energy source.

Lecture discussions include compara-tive analyses of accepted alternative fuels and electric propulsion, modern engine operation, automotive electronics and control systems, and complete-cycle anal-ysis for comparisons of available motive energy options. Industry experts offer their insights as guest lecturers.

In the lab, the students get valuable hands-on experience as they work in teams to convert engines and vehicles to alternative fuel operation or electric propulsion.

All upper-division engineering and science majors are eligible to enroll, but not before satisfying a long list of

prerequisites: physics (energy and power), chemistry (stoichiometry), engineering design, linear control systems (block di-agrams, transfer functions, compensator design), and electronic circuits (RLC net-works, semiconductor devices, op amps).

“Upon course completion, students will understand basic automotive tech-nologies and viable alternative propulsion methods, including the advantages and limitations of each,” said MacCarley. “We also attempt to identify potential entre-preneurial opportunities, both now and in the future.”

sTudEnTs ExplORE susTAInAblE AlTERnATIVEs TO AuTOmOTIVE TEchnOlOGIEs, fuEls

Reinventing Our ‘Wheels’Mechanical engineering senior Matt Bezkrovny (left) and EE graduate student Kenneth Schmutz tackle engine conversion.

c o U R S E N o T E S

IT’S THE ULTIMATE GOOD TIME for teens and pre-teens who are eager to wield a soldering iron or program a robot. It’s also testimony that summer camp can be fun and educational.

In June, the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Club and Electrical Englneering Department held a five-day Engineering Summer Day Camp for students in grades 7-12.

With 45 campers, 2013’s event boasted the highest attendance in the camp’s three-year history, according to club member Traci Takasugi. The young students turned out for laboratory exercises and outdoor activities with an electrical and computer engineering focus.

“The overall goal of the camp is to provide these younger students with an affordable and enjoyable exposure to engineering,” she explained.

Conducted in various classrooms in Building 20, the laboratory exercises included electronics, using Python programming language and the Scribbler 2 robot, and general engineering activities

and presentations. Campers experienced so lder ing , s t ructure des ign, robot programming, typing code and designing programs, and constructing circuits on breadboards.

Nine Cal Poly student volunteers guided groups of 15 through a rotation of lab exercises in the mornings and led activities and games in the afternoons, said Takasugi. Campers were treated to a transmitter hunt facilitated by the CPARC Amateur Radio club, a Reuben’s Tube presentation, bridge- and tower-building competitions, and a water balloon fight. They also hiked to the architecture graveyard on campus.

“The broad age range and limited time didn’t allow for particularly deep lessons,” said Takasugi. “But our hope is that after participating in real engineering activities, the campers will be inspired to continue on their own.”

Happy CamperssummERTImE mEAns EnGInEERInG fun fOR ThEsE

E v E N T S | E E o U T R E A c h

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2013December 5Senior Project Exhibition

December 14Fall Commencement

2014January 16San Diego EE Alumni Event5:30 - 9 p.m. SDG&E Energy Innovation Center 4760 Clairmont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, Calif. http://sdge.com/eic

March 212nd Annual Bay Area EE Alumni Event Texas Instruments Conference Center2900 Semiconductor DriveSanta Clara, Calif.

April 11-12Cal Poly Open House; Electrical and Computer Engineering Extravaganza — Mott Gym

May 8-9Spring Industry Advisory Board Meeting

May 9Power and Energy Conference;Annual Spring Banquet

May 29College of Engineering Project Expo

June 14Spring Commencement

June 16-20Electrical Engineering Summer Day Camp

For updated EE Department events and details, please visit http://www.ee.calpoly.edu/events/.

Campers April Rutherford (left) and gudrun Derickson learn about engineering during lab exercises at Summer Day Camp.

Sa

ve th

e D

ate

E V E n T s c A l E n d A R

EE students at the 2013 Spring Banquet (from left) are ted Hsueh, Amy Chen and Billy Luo.


MIKE CIROVIC, PERHAPS Cal Poly’s longest-serving professor, is retiring after 45 years of teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department (EE).

The author of six textbooks, Cirovic served as department chair from 2001-07. He received numerous teaching awards, including the American Society for Engineering Education Dow Young Faculty Award, the TRW Excellence in Teaching Award, and the EE Department’s Most Inspirational Professor Award, which he won seven times.

“Mike’s a legendary figure in our department,” said current chair Dennis Derickson. “In a career that spanned from the Flower Children to the Millennials, he made significant contributions, including our Design, Build and Test electronics lab in which students design subsystems, build them and then create trial procedures to test operation.

pROfEssOR mIkE cIROVIc lEAVEs A 45-YEAR lEGAcY

VISITING FRIENDS IS ALWAYS FUN — and a visit to Anritsu is no exception.

Professor Dean Arakaki and a group of electrical engineering students took a field trip in October to Anritsu’s plant in Morgan Hill, Calif., with Department Chair Dennis Derickson joining them.

The company, which makes radio frequency test and measurement equipment, has been a generous supporter of the Electrical Engineering Department, most recently donating a spectrum analyzer and a vector network. The equipment gets extensive use by students in EE’s RF/microwaves laboratory.

The Cal Poly visitors toured the facility, met with several hiring managers, watched presentations by Anritsu engineers and lunched with Cal Poly alumni who work at the company.

“EE appreciates the strong support we receive from Anritsu,” said Derickson. “The company has shown great generosity in its donations of equipment to our labs and outreach to our students through plant tours and career opportunities.”

f A c U lT y N E W S | i N D U S T R y P A R T N E R S h i P S

“He focused on r igorous career preparation for students and established a signature lab course, EE 449, which cuts students loose from question-answer pedagogy in order to solve problems on their own. And he co-founded Innovation Quest, a nonprofit corporation that helps students launch entrepreneurial ventures based on their projects.”

At a Bay Area alumni reception held in his honor, Cirovic mingled with more than 100 of his former students.

“Two graduates remarked that they wished I was staying to teach even longer because they both have sons at Cal Poly and they would like their children to have me as their professor,” said Cirovic. “That was a spectacular moment for me.”

EE AppREcIATEs cOmpAnY’s hOspITAlITY And dOnATIOns

Professor Mike Cirovic retired his marker in June 2013 after 45 years of teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department.

Marking A Milestone

Thanks, Anritsu!

Hai Nguyen (right), product line manufacturing manager at Anritsu, welcomes EE Department Chair Dennis Derickson to the Morgan Hill plant.

MORE tHAN 100 Electrical Engineering Department alumni reunited in March 2013 in Santa Clara, Calif. Attendees reminisced about the good ol’ days and shared news about their current lives. two reunions are planned so far in 2014: on Jan. 16 in San Diego, Calif., and on March 21 in Santa Clara (see page 14 and details to come at http://www.ee.calpoly.edu/events). We look forward to seeing you there!

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