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I am Professor Scott
Tippens in the Electrical

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and Computer
Engineering Technology

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Department at Southern
Polytechnic State University.

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I've been teaching here
for about 11 years.

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And in my opinion,

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we have one of the greatest
electrical programs around.

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Our program is focused
on hands-on experience.

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Taking the knowledge that you've

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gained through early courses

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and design projects and

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applying those to bigger
and bigger systems.

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What I have here is

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the submarine robot that

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we're using to
compete in San Diego.

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Every year we enter
a competition.

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It's an international submarine
robotics competition.

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And we have students work on

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this robot platform to get

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us ready to compete
against schools like MIT,

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Cornell, Duke, and so on.

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And so this is our
second year entry.

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And this robot we
just put together for

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the first time this year or

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last year's robots in the closet.

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But basically this
robot represents

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everything that we
do in our classes.

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We have electrical systems

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that drive the motors and
propulsions that you see here.

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We have four motors here,

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two thrusters on the side,

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and then two vertical thrusters

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that help us go up and
down in the water.

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We have the two for
our electronics

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and control circuitry.

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We have to program
the controller to

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interface to the motors as
well as to other sensors.

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We have sonar sensors

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that are able to hear
sound underwater.

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And we have video cameras
two video cameras,

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one pointing forward and

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one pointing down. They're
not here right now.

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The teams are actually
working on them now.

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In fact, some of them are
in the background here

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working on getting this thing
ready for the competition.

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We also have a marker
launch system that

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basically launches
small torpedoes,

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if you will, at targets at
the bottom of the pool.

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And as part of the
competition specification

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and our program,

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we really do focus
on the hands-on.

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And every course
we have except for

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maybe two courses, is lab based.

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So you're going to be
in the laboratory,

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is working on circuits from

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the very beginning
circuits courses

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to the electronics courses,

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all the way through to
your senior design courses

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where you design small
computer systems.

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By the time you graduate,

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one of the things that
our program will do for

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you is it will give you the
viability in the job market.

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You're going to actually have

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skills that you can apply today.

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The companies love that.

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They love to be able to
take you and put you

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right into a design
project so that you can

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actually work and make

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things happen. You're
very productive.

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And they're-- you're
just in high demand.

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This program, well,
this program is

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incredibly unique because
of the hands-on experience.

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You'll find a lot of students

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when they go to
some other schools,

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I get a great deal of theory.

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But in this and in
our curriculum,

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you get the theory plus you get

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the practical application of

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them because you learn by doing.

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A lot of people can
learn really well in

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a book that can open
a book and read it,

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understand it, do some problems
and they're good to go.

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But many people,
especially like myself,

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prefer to learn the theory and

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then apply the theory
in the laboratories.

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And that's really what we do.

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We learn the theory and then

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we apply it and we make it real,

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make it come alive.

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Thus, one of the main
differences in our program.