ABSTRACT
The best way to learn how to design systems is that students should do system design projects. At the beginning of the semester, the projects can be small, taking no more than 10 student-hours, but at the end of the semester, a project requiring 100 student-hours is appropriate. In this chapter we present three types of projects: simple projects that require little knowledge of "physics," simple projects that require specific knowledge about the problem domain, and large projects. Choosing figures of merit, assigning weights to the figures of merit, and writing an equation to combine the figures of merit into the final trade-off figure of merit are important tasks that must be done by the class and instructor before the projects are begun. Unfortunately, this principle seldom applies in the real world. A major part in analyzing these projects will be finding the needed data and distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant data.
