This course is designed to teach you the ins and outs of interfacing computers to scientific apparatus and some of the data treatment issues that arise in that area. It is a half-year course and is taught at the 4th year undergraduate level although it is available to both undergraduate and graduate students for credit.
The course is based on LabVIEW a programming system from National Instruments which is quite effective and quite popular in the scientific and engineering world. This software is capable of taking, massaging and displaying the data.
There is a heavy laboratory component to the course and students are expected to perform serious experiments int the laboratory (and have fun at the same time - but don't tell anyone!). Evaluation is on the basis of a number of modules with an optional project. There is no final examination.
There is also a hypernews facility by which we can "converse" electronically and I would encourage all students to make use of that facility
Electronics has been an interest and an essential part of my physics research from the very beginning. My first introduction to research physics was a summer job building prototype electronics for a space expermiment in 1971
I built my first micro-computer system about 1975 when I remember having considerable discussion with my fellow-student (now a senior researcher at JPL) about whether we should put 128bytes of memory on the the system or "go the whole hog" and go for 256bytes! Things have changed a bit since then.
My main field of research is in Atmospheric Physics where I build instrumentation for making atmospheric measurements from the ground, from airborne platforms including balloons, and from space. I also do research in infra-red spectrscopy with Prof. May of this department and work on other problems associated with the transfer of energy in the atmosphere.
I hold an Industrial Research Chair in Atmospheric Remote Sounding from Space and interact heavily with the sponsors: COMDEV of Cambridge, Ontario, BOMEM of Quebec City, Quebec, the Atmospheric Environment Service and the Canadian Space Agency.
If anybody is interested in what I do with the rest of the time when I'm not teaching, I encourage you to visit my group's WWW site http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca