Course Description

ROP Engineering Technology Advanced is an elective science class offered at Monta Vista High School. Students prepare to join today's technical workforce by using team problem-solving techniques, documenting experiments in a notebook, and demonstrating professional language, behavior, and attire. Guest speakers will occasionally come to the classroom to describe their research and work.

This vocational course will teach students how to conduct their own research on topics of interest, culminating in an actual research paper. Projects follow the 'Hands On - Minds On' philosophy so we do a lot of team oriented projects to teach principles. Students will focus on electronics and electrical systems using the Parallax Stamps microcontroller as the product platform. Students learn the operation and utilize electronic sensors such as 3-D accelerometers, temperature and humidity probes, sonar, RFID, GPS, Infra-red, motion detectors, pressure sensors, and others.

Students exploring engineering careers in high school are best challenged by participating in competitions. Our top research papers will be submitted into a local area competition during the winter. Students are encouraged to generate their own engineering projects by following the '7 Step Engineering Process' taught in class. Every student will demonstrate his/her prototype as an entry in the local Synopsys Science and Engineering Fair held in March. The top projects from Synopsys go on to compete at the California State Science Fair or to the International Science and Engineering Fair.

Spring will be devoted to semiconductor manufacturing technology. Students will understand the basic fabrication processing steps and terminology. They will be able to explain NMOS transistor operation from a cross-sectional view and understand the basics of mask layout.

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