" 6.004 offers an introduction to the engineering of digital systems. Starting with MOS transistors, the course develops a series of building blocks ‰ŰÓ logic gates, combinational and sequential circuits, finite-state machines, computers and finally complete systems. Both hardware and software mechanisms are explored through a series of design examples. 6.004 is required material for any EECS undergraduate who wants to understand (and ultimately design) digital systems. A good grasp of the material is essential for later courses in digital design, computer architecture and systems. The problem sets and lab exercises are intended to give students "hands-on" experience in designing digital systems; each student completes a gate-level design for a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor during the semester."

This article walks through step-by-step instructions for planning and executing community service projects.

In this lesson, students will reinforce the importance of giving clear instructions to a partner for a desired outcome or result, similar to what is needed in a real world work environment, when instructions or notes need to be communicated in person to or left in written form for a co-worker who may be on a different shift and need to complete a project. In the real world, if instructions are not clear, machines or entire assembly lines may be down for a period of time which causes the company to lose money.
This lesson will be used in conjunction with Code.org's Course D (2019) curriculum (https://studio.code.org/s/coursed-2019) after the initial lesson called Graph Paper Programming - https://curriculum.code.org/csf-19/coursed/1/. In this lesson, students will use what they just learned about programming, sequencing, and algorithms (set of instructions) and take it a step further by communicating instructions for navigating through a series of steps to a partner who either has their eyes closed (or is wearing a blindfold) from a starting to finishing point, while picking up small blocks (or something similar) along the way.

Students use the free computer game Pingus to learn how engineers, specifically environmental engineers, use their technical writing skills to give instructions and follow the instructions of others. Students learn to write instructions to express their ideas in clear, organized ways using descriptive, un-ambiguous sentences, as an example of one type of technical writing that important for engineers. The students write instructions enumerating how to beat a game level, which represents surveying that level for environmental problems. As a test of their instructions, students review each others' instructions and offer suggestions for improvement, and then revise their instructions to make them better. Students also see some examples of environmental problems.

Students practice the ability to produce clear, complete, accurate and detailed design drawings through an engineering design challenge. Using only the specified materials, teams are challenged to draw a design for a wind-powered car. Then, they trade engineering drawings with another group and attempt to construct the model cars in order to determine how successfully the original design intentions were communicated through sketches, dimensions and instructions.