Review by
Nivedya S Nambiar, 2023(BTech.)
Course Offered In
Autumn 2022
Instructors
Prof. Nirmal Punjabi
Prerequisites
None
Difficulty
2/5 Moderately easy course
Course Content
The course covers the end-to-end design of different wearable health technologies, right from sensing and transducing mechanisms, interfacing with the human body, to signal processing and transmission. The overall composition of wearable devices was covered in the introduction followed by a deep dive into the components and their types for different devices. Some topics covered include MEMS, communication protocols, photoplethysmography. Examples of existing devices on the market and in literature were also provided. However, this was the first offering of the course, and the contents may change in future semesters. The course content was wholly theoretical and did not cover any coding in examinations or assignments.
Feedback on Lectures
The lectures were all held offline, save a few extra lectures toward the latter half of the semester. The lectures started off at a slow pace but caught up speed in the second half of the semester, when they proved to be heavy in content as well. In the offline lectures the instructor showed components of devices like optical fibre cables to aid in better understanding. Being a small class, the instructor expected everyone to participate and follow up after every lecture.
Feedback on Evaluations
- 30% Assignments (2)
- 10% Quiz
- 30% Course Project
- 30% End-Sem
All evaluations were open book and open internet. The examinations covered a few case studies and relied on understanding how to combine different elements taught in the course for which the slides proved sufficient in most respects. There was no midsem in the course and we had an assignment instead due post midsems. The course project had to be done in groups of 4 and included an offline presentation post endsems.
Study Material and References
No specific books were suggested and any reference material required was suggested by the instructor in the lectures
Final Takeaways
All in all, in terms of the content, the course covered quite a lot of basic topics that were easy to grasp, but proved a little heavy because of the volume of content covered. Nevertheless, having open book examinations eased the burden to a great extent. Unless a course project chosen involved coding, the course did not require any implementations/coding in the assignments and examinations.
Grading Statistics:
