Getting Help for EE 2200

This page is to help you find help for whatever problem or question you may have about EE 2200. It is organized somewhat by topic:

Help with general course material
Where to get handouts, other information
Help with quiz preparation
Help with labs
Help with homework
Help with grading
Help with the computers
Late assignments, etc.
Other Frequently Asked Questions

If you would like to add information to this FAQ, please mail dva@eedsp.gatech.edu

General Course Help

The instructor and the TA can help with any question related to the course material. It is often easiest and quickest to reach us via email at the addresses below. There is also a newsgroup where students can help each other. The newsgroup is also monitored by the instructors.

Instructor:: Dr. Kate Cummings, kate@ece.gatech.edu
Teaching Assistants:
Newsgroup:: Class Newsgroup (git.ee.class.2200)
Course CDROM:: Support Material (demos, extra information and help, etc. - local access only)
Office Hours:: Dr. Cummings - MWF 10:15-11:00, 1:00-1:30 (Van Leer Room 465)

Finding Course Handouts

Most handouts passed out in class and many that are not passed out in class are available on the class web page. Check under the appropriate quarter under Course Materials.

Quiz Preparation

The class website (where you got this document) has an archive of all the quiz questions asked for the last several years, along with solutions. Most questions on upcoming quizzes will be similar (they reflect what you should know...). The best preparation is to

Make sure you understand the homework.
Read the chapters to be covered.
Work problems from previous quarters.

Archives of problems from previous quarters. These archives are available in a different form (organized by chapter) on the course CD-ROM.

Help with Labs

The Lab is held on the third floor of the College of Computing building in room 309.

The TA responsible for the labs is:

Jeff Antkowiak, jja@ee.gatech.edu

Please direct the following to him:

Questions about how to do some part of a lab
Questions about anything unclear in the lab assignment

Questions about Matlab may be directed to Jeff or Dr. Cummings

Before asking general questions about the lab please consult the class handouts (and in particular, the Laboratory Information handout) which are on the web. These describe such things as proper account setup for ee2200, lab expectations, grading policies, and more.

Matlab information is available on this page or by use of the "help" and "intro" commands in Matlab.

For additional items of help see the FAQ below.

Help with Homework

The best help for homework is probably the archives of problems from previous quarters. These archives are available in a different form (organized by chapter) on the course CD-ROM. Nearly all problems given to you are very similar to past problems. Please use the archives for help.

You may also send mail to any of the instructors or post questions to the ee2200 newsgroup (git.ee.class.2200).

Homework grading is done by the TAs.

Help with Grading

If you have a problem with a graded assignment, lab, or quiz you need to contact the person who graded it. For Winter quarter 1998 the grading is assigned as follows:

Quizes: Dr. Cummings
Homework & Labs

Help with Computers

We (the instructors of EE 2200) do not administrate the computers. If you are having a computer problem, send mail to help@ee.gatech.edu and they will help you.

Late Assignments

Late lab assignments are penalized 10 percentage points per day. They are considered late anytime after lab.

Late homework assignments are NOT ACCEPTED. They are considered late anytime after class.

Late assignments must be time stamped and turned in to either Stacy Schultz (GCATT 320) or Kay Gilstrap (GCATT 339) (see Help with Grading).

The penalty for turning in late lab assignments is not harsh, therefore you will find it difficult to get the penalty waved. (We are already being "nice.")

EE2200 - Frequently Asked Questions

Note: The following is from an old FAQ and while most of the information is still good, some may not be.

Homework

Q: What about solutions to the problems at the end of each chapter?
A: You'll notice that in the margin next to each problem is an abbreviation for the quarter that the problem was orignally assigned. For example: Sp94 3.8 means that the problem was number 8 on assignment 3 in the Spring quarter of 1994. You can check to see if these solutions are included in your class notes. If they are not check the assignments from previous quarters section of the main Web page.

Q: Do I really fail the course if I forget to turn in just one homework?
A: No, but missing homework won't help your grade any.

The Lab and MATLAB

Q: Where is the lab?
A: Third floor of the College of Computing building, room 309/311.

Q: Do I really fail the course if I forget to turn in just one lab?
A: Yes

Q: What do I have to turn in for the lab report.
A: Your lab report should have a cover page, the instructor verification sheet, and a write-up on the Lab section. The Lab section is everything following the last instructor verification. You do not need to hand in anything on the warm-up section except the verification sheet.

Q: What do I put in the Lab section writeup?
A: You can look at the handouts on the class web page for examples and rules. The write-up should include all plots that are asked for, any significant code, any explanations asked for, annotations on the plots and calculations written out when asked for. A simple way to know what to put in the write-up is to pretend that you are grading it--as a grader I start at the beginning of the lab and check each step to see if you have done what was asked and if you did it correctly. If it is easy for me to see that you have done it and correctly then you get a good grade, if not.... Also, I like added insight! for example, if you are asked to verify the phase of a resultant sinusoid and you verify it from the plot and check it against an alternate method that is good....

Q: When do I turn in my lab?
A: During your assigned lab section one week after the lab was assigned.

Q: I didn't get all of the instructor verifications signed before you left, can you sign them off now?
A: No. If you have trouble getting them done on time then read the lab early and get started early.

Q: Are the labs the same as in the class notes.
A: No. You can get ahold of some of the future labs by checking the web site. I will try to get them up there at least a week before they are handed out in class.

Q: My matlab plots keep turning out as straight lines instead of sinusoids. I enter:

>>  t =  -3:11
>> x = 24*cos( 2*pi*4000*t + pi/5 )

and all I get are straight lines. What's wrong?

A: If you try plugging in the values of t that you are using you will discover that your are evaluating the cos at the same point in the period for every value of t. Consider using different value of t. You have a 4000 Hz signal, why not plot only a few cycles like:

t = -2/4000:1/(20*4000) : 2/4000;

This will start plotting at two cycle before t=0 and stop 2 cycles after. The step size will use 20 samples per cycle.

Q: How do I continue a line in MATLAB?
A: Type "..." For example:

>>xx=[2 3 5 6 7 8 9 2 4 6 3 ...
>>    2 4 6 8];

will create a length 15 vector called xx.

Q: Some of the built-in functions like zcat and zvect are coming back with the message

>> Command not found

A: You don't have /home/ee/mcclella/ee2200 in your path. You can check this by typing path at the MATLAB prompt. If you have created a startup.m file that includes this command it may be possible that you started MATLAB from a different directory. Make sure that you invoke MATLAB from the same directory that contains your startup.m file.

Q: In the warm-up section of Lab3 (specifically part c) we are asked to rewrite a function without using for loops. I'm stuck.
A: The way to solve this problem is to review your matrix multiplication. In the programming tips section of the lab there is a quick review of matrix multiplication.

Q: In part d of the warm-up section for Lab3 we are asked to replace certain elements of a matrix with zero without using for loops. I'm stuck.
A: As the hint indicated, you should investigate the logical operators in MATLAB. The programming tips section of the lab has a section on vectorizing logical operators.

Q: How can we save the graphs that Matlab produces in some sort of usable form, like GIF or PostScript?
A1: First of all, 'help print' gives extensive information on producting outputs.
For postscript:

print -dps file.ps

For GIF

print -dgif8 file.gif

A2: I've used MATLAB's "capture" command to get an image of the current figure and then use "gifwrite" to save the file in gif format. The advance of "capture" over "print -dgif8" is you are just capturing the figure, not an entire page.
capture is part of all MATLABs. gifwrite is part of the image processing toolbox which is no the HP machines in lab, but is not part of the Student Edition of MATLAB.
Here is an example:

[x, map] = capture
% Be sure the figure being captured isn't covered by another window.
gifwrite(x, map, 'file.gif')

MATLAB (with the image processing toolbox) can also do BMPWRITE, HDFWRITE, PCXWRITE, TIFFWRITE, and XWDWRITE.

Q: Is there any way I can "mark" my plots so I know which is mine when it comes out of the printer (most of the students are often sending the same plots to the printer and it gets confusing)
A:Yes. There is an m-file called signature.m that allows you to specify a text string (e.g, your name) that will be placed in the lower right corner of your plot. For example, after you have your plot looking the way you want it, you would type (at the MATLAB prompt) signature('yourname'). This will place your name and the date in the lower right corner of the plot. Now when you send it to the printer you'll know it's yours! There are other options as well. Type help signature for more info.

Netscape

Q: How do I download material from the Web?
A: The easiest way is to hold down the shift key and click on the link (image) you want to download. Netscape will open a new window so you can download the file. If the file is in postscript format be sure you specify Text as the "Format for Saved Document" (this is the default option). When you click on OK the document will be saved in the directory that you specified. To print it out simply type: lp -dprintername filename

at the UNIX prompt, where printername is the name of the printer to which you want to send the output (bigbird is the name of the printer in room 309 and enterprise is the name of the printer in the room adjacent to 309).

If you would like to add information to this FAQ, please mail comments to: David V. Anderson, dva@eedsp.gatech.edu