Improving Undergraduate Retention through Tailored Use of the Infinity ProjectS

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of using the proven Infinity ProjectSM program as a foundation to build computer science and engineering students’ knowledge of software as well as hardware and to create an expectation of what they may be able to achieve in the future. The Infinity Project is a nationally recognized partnership between leading research universities, industry, government, and educators that has created innovative educational approaches to modern engineering that are both fundamental and fun. The development of the Infinity Project material was spearheaded by the Electrical Engineering (EE) faculty at SMU along with engineers at Texas Instruments (TI), makers of the DSP components used in the Infinity VAB kit, and Hyperception, Inc., the software developers for the VAB software to control the DSP. The Infinity Project is designed around hands-on experiments that demonstrate the basic concepts of electrical engineering. Each experiment utilizes real-time DSP hardware in the Infinity Technology Kit controlled with the Visual Application Builder (VABTM) component-based DSP software that provides a graphical interface and a methodology of developing DSP systems by simply connecting functional block components together with point-and-click methods. This paper focuses on how the Computer Science and Engineering Department (CSE) at UTA is tailoring the use of the Infinity Project to the needs of a computer science audience. In particular, we will discuss how CSE@UTA will use the structure of the Infinity Project to not only let incoming freshmen CSE majors explore the interesting and hands-on engineering applications made possible by the use of the DSP and other components but to also integrate these activities with explorations of programming.