Module Review: EE2026 Digital Design

Introduction 

For EE students, this is the first 2k module encountered -> No S/U option! The content of this module will be foreign to many JC kids (poly students will have an edge). It's a coding and digital electronics module and bulk of your grades will be from lab assignments. For the first half, Dr Massimo introduces various logic gates (XOR, NOR, OR etc), Boolean algebra and its arithmetics; like adding numbers of different radixes, converting them, simplifying it with K-maps and truth table. We then moved into creating combinational circuits using logic gates. The pace ramps up in second half taught by Dr Chua, which includes: sequential circuits, where combination circuits are made useful thanks to clocks; turning them into counters, adders and snails. We also learned finite state machines and drawing state diagrams. The lectures were conducted at weird timings (one at 5pm and the other early morning), but were recorded hence naturally, I did not attend (in my defence I don't stay in campus!). For the 1h weekly tutorials, it's normal to stumble when attempting the questions as it can get difficult. 

Quizzes (steep bell curve!) 

Don't get too excited if someone tells you there's no examinations. In place of those are two quizzes (that are conducted exactly like exams), weighing 20% each. Quiz 1, which tested Dr Massimo's stuff, was easy. To illustrate, the cohort median was a ridiculous 39 out of 40. Some might assume it's a MCQ test but no; it's a fully written 1.5h test with no cheatsheets or calculators allowed. Can you imagine how steep the bell curve is? There's no room for errors or you will fall behind the curve. For Quiz 2, no cheatsheets as well but calculators are allowed. It was challenging and killed some people. When we were leaving the exam venue, a student went up to Dr Chua to beg for mercy. There were larger variations for Quiz 2 results. Out of 50, many friends scored above 40. But the median was a low 30. Someone joked that EE students tanked the quiz and I couldn't agree more! - We are competing with "smarter" CEG students 😔. 

Verilog, labs and project

The coding language used is Verilog. The lab instructor, Dr Gu Jing explains everything crystal-clear. Her PowerPoint slides were important survival aids if you want to complete the labs. It was obvious that whoever created the lab assignments was attempting to make students suffer. Despite many investing a lot of time in it, many struggled and did not submit a 100% working code, especially for the last few assignments. Dr Gu Jing is a great instructor and will guide students if help is required, though she won't tolerate amateurish questions. 

Verilog isn't like C or Python hence it took time getting used to. The module ended with a pair-work project (30%).  For our batch, it was reading sound frequencies and manipulating the waveform. A skeleton of the base code are provided. The main differentiating point was on how you further enhance the project, which was a time consuming process. Each group is only issued one VGA cable and microphone, so only one can work on it at any time. Not helping is how long it takes to generate the bitstream (something like a compiling the code). So whenever you make changes, no matter how small, you will waste several minutes before you can test it again. The project also requires an external monitor, so if you do not have it, you will likely be camping in the school lab for long hours. Many groups (including mine) did irrelevant enhancements like adding games which added no real value to the project. None of the lab scores were released, hence I have no inkling on how I did.

Expected grade: B+

Update: when I saw my results, I was pleasantly surprised with it. Despite not hitting the 75th percentile mark for both quizzes, I managed to do one grade better than peers who got 75th pct. My guess is the project (30%) which differentiated our grades. I spent lots of time on it and I'm glad it paid off. 😊😊😊

My rating:

Difficulty: 3/5

Workload: 4/5

Teaching staff: 4/5 

Overall: 4/5

Assessment Format:

20% Quiz 1

20% Quiz 2

30% Various lab assignments

30% Lab Project