menu

ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control

Lecturer Dr Surya Singh
Course Link UQ Site
Faculty EAIT
Prerequisites ELEC2004 + STAT2202
Contact Hours 2 Lecture hours, 2 Tutorial hours, 2 Practical or Laboratory hours
Semester(s) Taught Semester 1
Course Units 2
Submit reviewView reviews (6)

Rating

Total average

64.9/100

Learning Materials ( 51.5 )
Learning Activities ( 62.2 )
Blackboard Management ( 77.7 )
Course Content ( 66 )
Course Structure ( 63.2 )
Contact Availability ( 78.2 )
Course Difficulty ( 56 )

Reviews (6)

Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 80.6

This course is rewarding when you put in the effort it need and the content is very interesting and pracitcal. Recently (2021) the course has been undergoing a content overhaul when Alina became the course coordinator. It is my understanding that it is now far more enjoyable, as it was in my experience.

The course is broken up into 3 sections with roughly an even amount of time allocated to each. Signals and Systems is taught in the first 8 weeks and focuses on the specifics of analogue to digital and then back again, including topics such as filtering, windowing, digital convolution. This content is taught well by Alina and Michael and the two 20% assignments are written such that with reasonable effort you can get full marks.

The last section of the course is Control, taught in my semester by Azin. Doing METR4201 simulataneously leaves a lot to be desired by this section. The content is fairly simplistic comparatively but if you arent doing METR4201 you will find it challenging. It is also taught very quickly going from classical control (laplace domain) into modern control (state space) then finally into digital state space control. For this section the assignment was straight forward and required half the effort compared to the 2 previous ones. However, the assignment was written in a very vague way that required dozens of ED discussion posts to clarify how they wanted the task to be solved.

My biggest gripe with this course is that the marking rubbrics for the 60% worth of assignments was not available until grades were released.

Overall, one of my favourite courses taken so far.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2022

Your program/major

BE/ME Mechatronics

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

No

Positives
  • Interesting content
  • Alina
  • Great assessment structure and final exam
Negatives
  • Control section is rushed
Posted on June 24, 2022 12:48 pm
Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 54.9

Simple at the beginning
Hard at the end.

Lecture contents and tutorial are too simplified and no solutions were given

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2017

Your program/major

EE

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes

Positives
  • SIGNAL PART is straight forward and easy to understand
  • Dr Alina is a good lecturer
Negatives
  • CONTROL PART lecture is too simplified
  • Program required in assignment has no detailed instruction
Posted on July 13, 2020 5:48 pm
Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 69.7

This course is very abstract and it is run in a way that will be unfamiliar to a lot of students. The lecturer is eccentric, but wants you all to do well. The fortnightly assignments can be easy marks if you put in an effort. There are also optional labs that you get bonus attendance marks for. One of them you make a magnet levitate, it's pretty good. The assignment and exam questions are very conceptually driven, which many find hard. Ultimately it has an incredibly low fail rate, and is an easy course to get a 6 or 7 in if you put in the effort.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2015

Your program/major

BEng/Sci

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Lectures are often run by tutors. They are less knowledgeable but you get things explained different ways.

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes (lots of PDFs online)

Positives
  • Very easy mathematically
  • Bonus marks from labs
  • Interesting content if you don't stress too much about assessment
Negatives
  • Questions require thinking outside the box
  • How bonus marks quantitatively affect grade is not transparent
Posted on December 13, 2015 4:44 pm
Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 76.4

Lets just start this by saying that Surya is really different. What other reviews say is correct, in that Surya gives a very American education. I've been to MIT and studied in Canada, and Surya teaches exactly as they do over there. They spew information and to keep up you have to spend 100% of your waking hours studying just to keep up, and you always feel dumb and have no idea what's going on. It would be nice if Surya could overcome this, but I can tell he never will.

Surya's dedication to this course is amazing though. He has MADE a separate website to submit assignments, and it's god damn fantastic. LaTeX is great to submit assignments in, and the whole marking system of Platypus is better than Blackboard, and the transparency is great.

On the final, it isn't predictable at all, and you will have no idea what's going to happen. This good news is that you can just bumble around and spew all your knowledge and buzzwords, and you'll get good marks.

The best way to do well in this course is to try really hard in the 5 assignments. If you do well in these, you'll have pretty much guaranteed yourself a 5 or higher.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2015

Your program/major

BE (Electrical) + BSc (Physics)

Is lecture attendance necessary?

100% Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

No, but defs download it online at least.

Positives
  • The lecturer genuinely cares.
  • Platypus. (How you submit assignments)
Negatives
  • The lecturer is a little crazy.
  • No structure. At all.
Posted on July 13, 2015 11:15 am
Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 55.0

The course content is very interesting, however you feel confused throughout the semester. The tutors are really helpful in learning the course content for the week. The assignments are done using Platypus - an online submit system that using LaTex to write equations. LaTex most of the time doesn't work or deletes your work. In addition, there is a complete box that must be ticked everytime you submit an answer or else it is not submitted. I forgot to check the completed boxes and thus lost 15% of the marks.

Overall, the course is well structured, it is just handy if you know transfer functions and Laplace Transforms. Also, google and the textbook are your greatest resources in this course for understanding the content

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Engineering

Positives
  • The levi lab
  • The problem sets
  • Tutors
Negatives
  • Using Latex
  • No example questions
  • No tutorial Questions
Posted on May 29, 2014 12:01 am
Anonymous
   
ELEC3004 – Signals, Systems & Control 52.5

This course is both easy and hard. If that makes sense. Make sure you are roughly familiar with transfer functions, laplace transforms. The course co-ordinator, Surya Singh, is super involved, and makes the lectures funny nd generally enjoyable. The assignments are done using an online non-blackboard system. Which, you will have to learn to use. The assignments will make you learn to write in LaTeX (math text-edit language). And make sure you keep backups since it may delete your work.

The content however while being somewhat structured, can easily get confusing and difficult. But with the help of Google and the textbook, it's all all made much easier.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Engineering

Positives
  • Surya Singh is fantastic
  • Assignments are made easier with Google
Negatives
  • Some content is difficult to understand.
  • The weekly tutor run lecture is a hit or miss.
  • You feel confused in general throughout the semester.
Posted on May 22, 2014 1:02 pm

Submit your own review

Please make sure to read our Review Guidelines before posting a review.

<