MIT Teaching Assistant - Back to bASICs

Teaching Assistants (TA) are needed for a 4-week long summer program, the MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI), being taught virtually. BWSI is a rigorous STEM program for talented high school students from across the country.  Back to bASICs is a new course for 2023 where students will learn the fundamentals of semiconductor theory and logic gates and apply that knowledge leveraging the open source Skywater 130nm process. Prior to the summer class, the teaching assistants will have the opportunity to pilot and help shape the lab-based curriculum.

 

Starting in June or May (timeline is flexible), TAs will help the instructors prepare the course material. During the four weeks (July 10 – August 6, 2023) of the actual summer program, TAs will largely help the students troubleshoot their designs and monitor progress during the daily Zoom-based lab sessions. The class size is expected to be around 20 students with 2-3 TAs along with 2 instructors. During the first week, the TAs may be asked to give a few lectures on some of the history and fundamentals of semiconductors. For the remaining weeks, guest lecturers will present supplementary material about general hardware and manufacturing topics which serve as enrichment material but will not be in the critical path for the student’s capstone project. For capstone, students will be given a challenge to create a design challenge and asked to create their design leveraging Matt Venn’s “Tiny Tapeout.”

 

Tasks for this class include the following:

 

Desired Skills or Experiences: