Our 1st year students are working on an analog synthesizer project!

Each semester, our budding electro-centralians have to carry out an electronics project and a computing project.
That’s a total of 10 technical projects to complete before entering the major of your choice.

In the^2nd semester of the first year, as part of the analog electronics course, 1st year engineers were asked to design and build an analog synthesizer. The latter is based on various technical blocks seen in lessons and practical exercises.

What was the job? How did the project go?

In addition to the usual courses, teams of three students from the same TD group were asked to work for 5 weeks on a synthesizer project. The permanent staff of the electronics division and its support engineer were on hand to answer students’ questions outside class. The specifications included both functional and technical requirements, and a V-cycle project methodology had to be applied.

Among the synthesizer’s many features were: the ability to play notes from the keyboard, modify note frequency using an ultrasonic sensor in the manner of a theremin, display played notes on a graphical interface, implement a metronome with variable beep frequency, and so on.

What did they learn?

In addition to their electronics skills, the students once again had to apply a V-cycle project methodology and work in teams: they had to organize themselves to design, implement, test and validate various very concrete functionalities within a given timeframe, but also document their work using a scientific approach: what is the test plan? what results do we get? is it what you want it to be?

And where does creativity fit in? How will the project evolve?

In addition to the technical mastery required, we felt it was important to stimulate our students’ creativity. To do this, we suggested shooting a video about the project, choosing one of three categories: technical promotion of the project, creative video, or a reworking of Jacno’s Rectangle clip (shot in 1979 on the Beaugrenelle slab, a stone’s throw from the Paris campus).

Here are a few of our students’ achievements.

Subsequently, the project could evolve into an à la carte project where students would have to choose from the implementation of one of several musical instruments and, ultimately, compose their own music video in association with other groups.

Discover our students’ video projects

Updated 2 January 2024