Course format includes meeting four times a week for lecture. Experimental and computer lab sessions are scheduled throughout the course which help to illustrate the concepts. Groups of four students work together on the lab experiments, but individual lab reports are submitted. There are four projects during the semester which involve the identification, modeling, and analysis of design problems using optimization principles and computer-aided design. Two-hour lectures are held twice a week, but once projects get underway, about an hour of each class meeting is used for the groups to work together.
Homework is assigned each class period to reinforce certain concepts.
The lectures follow the textbook materials quite closely. There is a midterm which is usually given in the evening. The final exam is comprehensive. Final grades are based on the composite score of the projects, homework, and exams. Topics include statistical aids for analyzing data, decision analysis, reliability and analysis of systems, computer modeling, and simulations.