ELECTRONICS

The Electronics Department

The Electronics department offers AQA GCSE Electronic Products and OCR AS/A2 Electronics.

For the GCSE electronic products course, the students are taught electronics from scratch starting with basic things like the resistor colour code and then rapidly moving on to studying ‘real’ electronics including digital logic, counters displays, amplifiers and the use of PICs.  Being an electronic products course we also study case design, PCB design and manufacturing processes. We have full PIC programming and PCB production facilities.

60% of the final marks for the course are awarded to a project which is generally started at the end of Year 10. The students are given a completely free hand as to what they would like to build but it must, of course, not be a design lifted straight from a book or taken from the internet. The students are expected to undertake research and design a circuit and casing. This is a challenge that students relish as it allows them to take complete ownership of there work and many complete some very elegant and thoughtfully put together products.

At AS/A2 the emphasis is on understanding the electronics and so all work is generally undertaken on prototyping boards without the need to produce a complete product. A gain, projects are undertaken at AS and A2 Level but these only account for 30% of the final mark but are still as challenging. The AS course reinforces much of the work done at GCSE but extends it considerably pretty early in the course. The areas studied include Logic, flip-flops, counters, displays, amplifiers, filters, schmitt triggers, integrators and power supplies. At A2 the topics studied include transistors, communication systems, radio, television, servos and microprocessors.

Electronics is taught with a strong focus on practical work and most lessons include an element of circuit building using real components. We do not use the screw- together circuit boards or kits. Students are encouraged to ‘play’ with a circuit once it has been built by changing component values, adding bits on or finding alternative implementations. In electronics there is never just one way to do things but a whole range of alternative solutions – the good electronic engineer takes a number of factors into consideration; cost, availability, maintenance, before settling on a final design.

One of the great strengths of the electronics department is its use of ICT and simulation. We have the very latest circuit and microprocessor simulation packages along with PCB design and PIC programming software. We are fully equipped with the test equipment needed to find even the most annoying fault.

Why should students opt to study electronics? Well, for many it will be a completely new subject but one that is extremely beneficial for those hoping to pursue careers in engineering, science, ICT or computing. Electronics provides a real challenge and gets the grey matter working – ‘How do I implement this sub-system? What value of resistor do I need here? Where can I find the pin-out of this chip?’  It is frustrating and rewarding at the same time – you may struggle for 10 minutes to find a fault but what sense of achievement when you switch on and your circuit works first time! But most of all electronics is FUN!

For students wishing to study electronics at AS/A2 level there is no requirement for them to take mathematics or physics; all a student needs to know will be taught in the electronics lessons. There is also no need for students to have studied electronics at GCSE.