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VCE Systems Engineering Unit 1 — Electrotechnological systems design · Stage 6

Weeks 1-2 · Systems, inputs and outputs

Describe any device as input, processing and output, and tell an open-loop system from a closed-loop one.

VCE-SE-U1-O1

Open this deck on the projector and press F for full-screen. N toggles speaker notes. The accompanying teacher guide is at /curriculum/vce-systems-engineering-unit-1/teacher/lessons/1.

Before this lesson:

Have one dismantled device on the bench — an old remote, a mouse, a kettle thermostat. Physical beats slides here.

intention 2 min

Systems, inputs and outputs

Describe any device as input, processing and output, and tell an open-loop system from a closed-loop one.

Have one dismantled device on the bench — an old remote, a mouse, a kettle thermostat. Physical beats slides here.

concept 10 min

What we're covering

  • Pick a device in your home you have never thought about. Work out what it senses, what it decides, and what it changes.
  • Sort ten devices into open-loop and closed-loop. Be ready to argue about the ones that are hard to place.
  • Draw block diagrams for two of them.
  • Read the design brief and highlight every word that constrains what you can build.
  • Set up your record of evidence and make your first entry.
  • Open with a system the students already trust and never think about: a fridge, traffic lights, an automatic door, a phone that dims its own screen. Ask what it senses, what it decides, and what it changes.
  • Teach Input → Processing → Output on those examples, then extend to feedback: the fridge measures its own temperature and that measurement changes what it does next.
  • Draw the distinction that runs through the whole unit: an open-loop system acts without checking the result (a timer), a closed-loop system measures the result and adjusts (a thermostat). Have students sort a list of ten devices into the two categories and defend the hard ones.
  • Introduce block diagrams as the way engineers draw this, and have students diagram two systems from the sorted list.
  • Issue the design brief and read it together. Do not start solutions — the point is that students carry the brief for the rest of the semester and it gets sharper as they learn what components can do.
  • Set up the record of evidence and explain that it is kept as they go.
check 5 min

Quick check

I can draw a block diagram for a device I did not build, and say whether it uses feedback and how I know.

Students often call anything automatic 'closed loop'. A timer is not feedback: it never measures whether the thing it wanted actually happened.

reflect 5 min

Before you pack up

Name one device you will never look at the same way again, and say why.

Block diagrams for two devices; the open/closed sort with reasoning on the contested ones.

End of lesson 1

That's it.

Tomorrow / next lesson: How electrotechnology got here, and what it costs.

Teacher guide Next lesson's deck → All decks