EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Beginners => Topic started by: Electro Fan on December 14, 2024, 08:08:45 pm
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The objective of this thread is to provide suggested curriculums that will help beginners in electronics get up to speed (and reasonably well) as fast as possible. Ideally, this means providing a good sequence of topics to study and projects to do so that each step in the curriculum provides a foundation for subsequent steps in the learning process. Ideally, it should be fun and intrinsically rewarding in that it should help the student gain some positive reinforcement – ideally stuff should start to make more sense and fit together in a way that inspires a desire to learn more.
Some assumptions:
1. The student has a basic understanding of math up to and including entry level algebra (ie, the student is reasonably proficient with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percents, negative numbers, and the concepts of associative and commutative, etc.)
2. The student currently has no tools or parts other than what is generally found at home but they can initially spend approximately $100-$200, and if they make progress over the first 3-24 months they could potentially spend another $800 or so (less than $1,000 total).
3. The student has access to the Internet so they can search the web, watch Youtube videos, and ask questions on this and other forums.
4. The student currently knows almost nothing about electronics or electricity other than a simple notion that “AC comes from a wall outlet and DC comes from batteries”.
5. The student will probably become interested in the digital realm (hardware and software) and how the digital realm relates to the analog realm - if they get off to a good start with the analog realm - so analog is the starting point. (Comment: there will probably be some discussion/debate as to if/when to introduce an Arduino, etc.)
Given the objective and the assumptions, what are the key steps you would recommend to the beginner?
Some other thread guidelines:
It’s not necessary to spend a huge amount of your time making this into a university quality curriculum or a professional work exercise. The emphasis should be on quality vs quantity, ie recommend the most foundational steps in the preferred sequence. The key is to list the key concepts and/or projects you think a complete beginner should undertake in some appropriate sequence so that the foundation develops in a way that supports enough of a good start and some growth so that the student finds electronics approachable and interesting and worth studying further.
Net, net: You can list the concepts or topics or projects or whatever you think are the most fundamental building blocks in whatever sequence you think makes sense to help a student get from starting to a desire and an ability to keep going.
I’ll go first:
Step 1. Whatever it takes to get the student’s mind around Ohm’s Law and enable the student’s math to do Ohm’s Law calculations in a way that enables the student to build simple circuits and measure voltage, resistance, and current such that predicted values are consistently confirmed by measurements with a DMM.
You can add any steps you want before or after my suggested Step 1 – but show somewhere in your curriculum where you would introduce Ohm’s Law. Feel free to add any combination of topics, projects, tools and components (within the budget), Youtube videos, articles and books, and links to any other resources including other recommended curriculums (including other posts you have seen on EEVblog). The idea is to make a thread that gives beginners as much as insight to the best sequence of building block knowledge and capabilities as possible to learn electronics.
PS, in addition to posting key curriculum steps it’s A-OK to make posts where you discuss/debate what the appropriate steps might be / could be / should be, and why. Hopefully, as beginners find this thread they will be able to read the suggestions and discussion and see what best resonates with their current and desired level and areas of understanding.
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...before we get to university, Electronics is often (educationally) introduced as constituting a system.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zh8ck2p/revision/1 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zh8ck2p/revision/1)
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It's probably easier to just point to a book or two, the good ones will introduce concepts as required without overwhelming the reader. There's the classic Mims book. There are more modern books but I'm not familiar with those. There are school textbooks too, since some schools offer electronics subject qualifications before university.
Same with programming; there are some great beginner books (I can recommend a couple for Python, for instance, but maybe that's going off-topic).
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#1 this should be FUN! Not all math and measurements.
What's described I think is too scientific of a strategy.
Think of learning to paint - two approaches - academic is where you learn formal methods such as composition, colour, lighting etc. each bit at a time.
Second is the wild, fun approach where you pick up some brushes and paint and hit the canvas.
I know of both methods used in university- and neither one alone is any good. You need a mix of both.
What age is this "student" or the beginners?
I started learning electronics when I was under 10 years old. I remember what worked and what did not back then, towards learning it.
If you put the student off, they'll abandon interest in learning it. This is the worst possible outcome.
I had to laugh in university EE lab, Ohms's Law was resistors on a breadboard and measurements and a massive write-up in a lab report. Total boredom and no intuition learned. Zero fun. Hands on but a real sleeper.
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#1 this should be FUN! Not all math and measurements.
If it should be fun, then maths must be included. If not, then it reduces to throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks - and that ain't fun!
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Math? Yes, obviously; but tailored to the student's level.
Ohm's Law? Absolutely; that should be memorized, and demonstrated.
Ebers-Moll? No, not for a beginner.
Reactance formulae? Not until the beginner dips their toes into AC circuits.
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I know that nowadays powerful yet very affordable microcontrollers are available.
For this reason the essentials of logic circuits and boolean algebra may be neglected.
It surprises me how many newbies cannot reduce a simple boolean expression nor draw a basic state diagram.
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I know that nowadays powerful yet very affordable microcontrollers are available.
For this reason the essentials of logic circuits and boolean algebra may be neglected.
It surprises me how many newbies cannot reduce a simple boolean expression nor draw a basic state diagram.
I've had software "engineers" state "aren't FSMs used in compilers?" - even though the software they were maintaining was telecom billing software where the inputs were events like "call terminated"!
As for Boolean expressions and k-maps, not many people understand bridging terms.
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I couldn't draw a Karnaugh map to save my life.
However, I've used FSAs a lot in my own code, mostly as tokenizers for parsing. (So elegant!) So that I understand.
There's a lot out there to know ...
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#1 this should be FUN! Not all math and measurements.
If it should be fun, then maths must be included. If not, then it reduces to throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks - and that ain't fun!
I first went to tech college and then to university for engineering. Comparing (my experience of) the two streams to teaching electronics:
University gives a student a feel for what is going on in a circuit by using maths, exclusively. I had to shake my head- EE's learning electronics by looking at an equation. Sometimes a prof would spend over 1/2 hour putting together an equation. Very few people could follow and fully understand how he derived it, including the little shortcuts he used. Most just added it to their formula sheet, to be used in the exam.
There can be big disconnect between an equation and the intuition, what the phenomena is and when it's relevant etc. Yes the math says "how much" or "the trend" etc.- it's a model. I helped many students because they had no feel for it, pure numbers. Especially in their projects that didn't work. Math won't help you there without "street smarts" or practical knowledge or the ability to solder. When are you learning that?
Tech college was entirely hands-on with a little basic math. You worked with consumer electronics and could use your ears and eyes to see/hear what is going on, on a scope as well. Soldering, connecting IC's, sheet metal etc. in the first months.
I would say university tried- and fails to give a student a feel for what is going on in a circuit by using complicated math.
Tech college was easy math, letting a person develop a basic understanding and confidence with electronics, first.
A blend of both methods would be required in any curriculum. I guess it depends- how many years is the student in this program?
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It depends on what your goals are.
If your goal is being a full on engineer, then go to school and get a degree and the curriculum will be provided. EE degree programs aren't perfect, but they have a proven progression and reinforcement that's hard to self administer. If you wanted to try, then go work through MIT open courseware or equivalent (and good luck getting through the math without access to office hours).
Sure, there are plenty of examples of competent designers that didn't get a degree, but those guys mostly didn't have the problem of needing someone to provide a curriculum.
If your goal is to be a "maker", then understand the water analogy of electricity and how to copy designs from other projects. Learn some Arduino and have fun and don't sweat it if you can't calculate everything. You can actually make a lot of interesting widgets with just this level of understanding. For almost everyone at some point your understanding breaks down and the thing you are working with becomes a black box. Like electronics Legos. You may not be able to make the Legos, but you can still use them to play.
This is assuming we are talking about adults.
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#1 this should be FUN! Not all math and measurements.
If it should be fun, then maths must be included. If not, then it reduces to throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks - and that ain't fun!
I first went to tech college and then to university for engineering. Comparing (my experience of) the two streams to teaching electronics:
University gives a student a feel for what is going on in a circuit by using maths, exclusively. I had to shake my head- EE's learning electronics by looking at an equation. Sometimes a prof would spend over 1/2 hour putting together an equation. Very few people could follow and fully understand how he derived it, including the little shortcuts he used. Most just added it to their formula sheet, to be used in the exam.
There can be big disconnect between an equation and the intuition, what the phenomena is and when it's relevant etc. Yes the math says "how much" or "the trend" etc.- it's a model. I helped many students because they had no feel for it, pure numbers. Especially in their projects that didn't work. Math won't help you there without "street smarts" or practical knowledge or the ability to solder. When are you learning that?
Tech college was entirely hands-on with a little basic math. You worked with consumer electronics and could use your ears and eyes to see/hear what is going on, on a scope as well. Soldering, connecting IC's, sheet metal etc. in the first months.
I would say university tried- and fails to give a student a feel for what is going on in a circuit by using complicated math.
Tech college was easy math, letting a person develop a basic understanding and confidence with electronics, first.
A blend of both methods would be required in any curriculum. I guess it depends- how many years is the student in this program?
That's your experience at your university.
My experience at my university was entirely different.
As for "when to learn X", when I was 14yo we were taught differentiation and integration from scratch (took 80 minutes for each); national exams only used polynomials (except 1/x).
As for relevance, at the same time physics and maths lessons allowed us to realise speed is the first derivative (w.r.t. time) of distance, acceleration the second difference, jerks the third difference. A little later V=Ldi/dt, and similar. University came later.
As for learning "street smarts", university should not attempt to teach that since you will learn it automatically during life. University should be for teaching you thing you would not otherwise learn in a working life.
Soldering? Learn it on your own. Probably won't be professional quality, but who cares. If it is important to a job they must have their own training schemes.
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It depends on what your goals are.
If your goal is being a full on engineer, then go to school and get a degree and the curriculum will be provided. EE degree programs aren't perfect, but they have a proven progression and reinforcement that's hard to self administer. If you wanted to try, then go work through MIT open courseware or equivalent (and good luck getting through the math without access to office hours).
Sure, there are plenty of examples of competent designers that didn't get a degree, but those guys mostly didn't have the problem of needing someone to provide a curriculum.
If your goal is to be a "maker", then understand the water analogy of electricity and how to copy designs from other projects. Learn some Arduino and have fun and don't sweat it if you can't calculate everything. You can actually make a lot of interesting widgets with just this level of understanding. For almost everyone at some point your understanding breaks down and the thing you are working with becomes a black box. Like electronics Legos. You may not be able to make the Legos, but you can still use them to play.
This is assuming we are talking about adults.
Precisely.
Nicely put.
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Thanks for all the posts thus far. In an effort to facilitate some more discussion and suggested curriculum steps for beginners, here are a few thoughts.
As tggzzz says, Smokey’s post is nicely put. It makes a very useful distinction between having a goal of being a “full on engineer” vs a “maker”.
For the purposes of this thread, I think it might be helpful to consider that everyone starts somewhere and that a beginner might progress to an intermediate level or to an advanced level which might include becoming a “full on engineer”, or a beginner might cap out somewhere along the way.
To some extent, but not entirely, this progression can be age related. Typically people don’t reach “full on engineer” until after graduating from some higher education degreed program which generally happens in adulthood. On the other hand, while a beginner might be a young person it’s possible that as shown in a recent very nice thread (in which a forum member is seeking to help his 76 year old father find design classes or workshops) that a beginning (or intermediate or advanced) level “maker” can be any age.
The point here is that people generally start at the beginning at whatever age they become interested in electronics and that interest could grow to intermediate and advanced stages up to and including becoming a “full on engineer”, or they might start at the beginning and make some progress but remain in the “maker” camp.
The idea for this thread is that regardless of age, a beginner has to start somewhere – and where that takes the beginner is TBD.
Net, net: for the purposes of this thread we can assume that the beginner might eventually become a “full on engineer” or they might remain a “maker”. So the question remains: In the early part of the learning process, what are the key concepts and basic/elementary math that a beginner should address in order to get off to a good start that has good potential for continued growth?
In the OP I suggested that a key early concept (and basic math skill) for a beginner should be to learn and apply Ohm’s Law. Smokey suggested getting an understanding of the water analogy, and how to copy designs from other projects.
So, revising the getting started sequence, we might have:
Step 1. Learn the water analogy.
Step 2. Learn and apply Ohm’s Law including the ability to measure V, I, and R with a DMM so as to be able to confirm anticipated results with actual measurements.
Step 3. Copy designs from other projects.
Please feel free to add other key steps before, within, or following these 3 steps. Thanks for sharing your thoughts/questions/suggestions.
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The relationship between the time-domain and the frequency-domain.
Understand that multiple harmonically related sine waves can in theory add up to make any waveform. Practical experience limited to square waves, with sufficient harmonics to see Gibbs phenomenon.
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I'm curious why no one has mentioned "The Art of Electronics" yet.
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The relationship between the time-domain and the frequency-domain.
Understand that multiple harmonically related sine waves can in theory add up to make any waveform. Practical experience limited to square waves, with sufficient harmonics to see Gibbs phenomenon.
Yeah, that's la place to start.
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I'm curious why no one has mentioned "The Art of Electronics" yet.
Probably because it's more of a reference text for engineers and actually contains a fair bit of stuff that's you need a pretty good understanding of the basic topics to appreciate. I can't imagine using art of electronics to learn from scratch.
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Here is something more constructive to add. I've said this elsewhere, but I feel like a great project to get a ton of experience with real analog circuit stuff is an audio power amplifier.
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Audio-Power-Amplifiers-Cordell-dp-1138555444/dp/1138555444/ (https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Audio-Power-Amplifiers-Cordell-dp-1138555444/dp/1138555444/)
https://www.cordellaudio.com/book/Designing_Audio_Power_Amplifiers.shtml (https://www.cordellaudio.com/book/Designing_Audio_Power_Amplifiers.shtml)
This is an excellent book. You can treat it like a cookbook if you want, or I feel like he does a good job of going step by step through the circuit sections and you can get an appreciation for a ton of basic analog building blocks.
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https://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/electronics-asa-level/#tab_keydocuments (https://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/electronics-asa-level/#tab_keydocuments)
https://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/electronics-gcse/#tab_keydocuments (https://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/electronics-gcse/#tab_keydocuments)
...electronics is a subject option at school in the UK - seems to be a minority sport as far as exam boards go.
14 -16 year old GCSE Electronics
16 - 18 year old GCE A Level Electronics
[edited to include GCSE link]
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I'm curious why no one has mentioned "The Art of Electronics" yet.
Probably because it's more of a reference text for engineers and actually contains a fair bit of stuff that's you need a pretty good understanding of the basic topics to appreciate. I can't imagine using art of electronics to learn from scratch.
Basic topics are conveniently placed in chapter 1
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I'm curious why no one has mentioned "The Art of Electronics" yet.
Probably because it's more of a reference text for engineers and actually contains a fair bit of stuff that's you need a pretty good understanding of the basic topics to appreciate. I can't imagine using art of electronics to learn from scratch.
Basic topics are conveniently placed in chapter 1
TAoE is aimed at people who understand basic electronic concepts and circuits, have built a few simple ones, and now need to expand their understanding.
It is not for absolute beginners.
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I'm curious why no one has mentioned "The Art of Electronics" yet.
Probably because it's more of a reference text for engineers and actually contains a fair bit of stuff that's you need a pretty good understanding of the basic topics to appreciate. I can't imagine using art of electronics to learn from scratch.
Basic topics are conveniently placed in chapter 1
TAoE is aimed at people who understand basic electronic concepts and circuits, have built a few simple ones, and now need to expand their understanding.
It is not for absolute beginners.
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Absolutely. I had some training 50 years ago and am not particularly dense, but I found it TAoE useless. I think "Learning the Art of Electronics" with the labs is useful and may be what people are thinking of.
This topic is highly dependent of the learner's goals. A "maker" may only be interested how to combine modules; others may be interested in understanding the physics and first principles of electronics. I pointed out in an earlier thread that stated there was no excuse for being uneducated just how many university based and teaching youtubes are available today which makes learning anything much more accessible to a learner than at any other time in history. There are even aggrgators that link to community college and university online courses for free that are part of the credit based curriculum (Like MIT and Georgia among others).
I use "Collections" in MS Edge (I know, but this is feature makes Edge my browser of choice) to organize my online learning resources.
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...curriculum is a loaded term (for some)
A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice. There are a number of features of this definition which make it attractive. The first is the concentration on essential principles; this should avoid getting lost in a mass of detail likely to cloud the issues. A curriculum ought to be reviewed and subjected to critical scrutiny from time to time. That it should be capable of being translated into practice is a fundamental requirement since this must be regarded as the acid test for any educational proposal relating to a vocation.
...see Lawrence Stenhouse - Process Model
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...curriculum is a loaded term (for some)
A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice. There are a number of features of this definition which make it attractive. The first is the concentration on essential principles; this should avoid getting lost in a mass of detail likely to cloud the issues. A curriculum ought to be reviewed and subjected to critical scrutiny from time to time. That it should be capable of being translated into practice is a fundamental requirement since this must be regarded as the acid test for any educational proposal relating to a vocation.
...see Lawrence Stenhouse - Process Model
I’m about 98% good with this; the only word in the definition that might need some adjustment is “vocation” (if vocation is supposed to be synonymous with career) as not every curriculum is intended to lead to a vocation. For example, every class at every level has or should have a curriculum but some classes are for general studies or for minors - only some classes are for majors. But all classes typically are geared around a curriculum.
As mentioned earlier, we started this thread saying that a beginner can be a beginner and then branch toward being a maker or continue onward toward being a full blown engineer.
So, imo, I’d be A-ok with this:
A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice. There are a number of features of this definition which make it attractive. The first is the concentration on essential principles; this should avoid getting lost in a mass of detail likely to cloud the issues. A curriculum ought to be reviewed and subjected to critical scrutiny from time to time. That it should be capable of being translated into practice is a fundamental requirement since this must be regarded as the acid test for any educational proposal.
It emphasizes “essential principles and avoiding getting lost in a mass of detail likely to cloud issues”. 👍
- challenging as this might be in an endeavor which can include a lot of details - so finding/seeing/learning the big picture by building a foundation for further growth while not getting tripped by details is what we need for beginners, I think. This is why I suggest we talk about not only what is important but a logical sequence in the steps of introducing what’s important.
For example, while AC, impedance, and reactance are important it probably makes sense to introduce beginners to Ohm’s Law first with DC and then after DC and a few other basics are consolidated, introduce AC.
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cloud the issue detail ... well , yes ok, I liked it well enough to quote it.
But only the first sentence of it was Stenhouse's _ see chapter 1 An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development - and even that sentence he undercuts as being a starting point to just get us going.
book pdf is out there :palm:
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With basic science and maths: Introduction to Basic Electricity and Electronics Technology - Earl Gates. To complement that a 100 circuits style lab kit that describes how each circuit works.
Basic $20 multimeter, $20 lcr meter and a digital oscilloscope (recommend 4 channel for digital circuits) or a circuit simulator and get ebooks if you prefer it low cost.
Then a pick a microcontroller and associated book to learn development with.
If you wish to continue past that point I'd ensure your math proficiency was at University entrance level for Electronics Engineering and then follow a degree course and their associated textbooks.
Obviously if you want to design, prototype, layout, fabricate, build, test and troubleshoot these are all separate skills that a basic introduction or even University degree won't cover adequately, so additional books, tools and some practical is required for competency.
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At the college level, there are parallel tracks. One of those independent tracks is math. You generally need superior algebra skills before getting admitted to Calc I and this is supposed to be a first semester class. If your skills are lacking then you can spend the entire first year in a course known as "pre-Calc" which will cover a ton of fundamentals that will be required knowledge to progress. Calculus is easy, it's the pre-Calc that's tough.
Now that the math sequence is on track, you spend the next 4 years taking pure math courses, 5 years if you have to take pre-Calc. There is some overlap, of course, when you get to subjects like Fourier Analysis, Laplace Transforms and the ever popular Field Theory. Plan to take a metric dumpster load of math since engineering is ALL math.
Simultaneously and aligned with Calc I, you can start DC circuits. You will need to be conversant with matrix algebra to solve any circuit problems beyond the trivial. Complex numbers make the work a lot more difficult and AC circuits is all about complex numbers. You need to be VERY good with MATLAB or Octave although I went through the program with a slide rule. The HP 35 calculator came out in my junior year. Yes, it was a very long time ago when I went through the programs.
You need to settle right up front whether your interest is hobby level or engineering level. You can build a lot of projects without years of math but that ain't engineering. It isn't about getting a circuit to work, at the engineering level it is proving under what conditions it is guaranteed to work.
A third parallel track will be a couple of semesters of Physics (the fun stuff) and Chemistry (maybe not as fun). You can't even start Physics I without having completed Calc I. Maybe they can be simultaneous. But Calc I will be required the very first day in Physics I.
Check the published curriculum for a few local colleges and universities. The BS program takes on the order of 132 units and classes are typically 4 units so 33 units per year which is why 4 years is unrealistic unless you can get into a school offering 3 semesters per year. Of course, the shortened summer session will kick your ass since the material covered is intended for a longer semester. Hint to the student: Don't take the second half of pre-Calc during a summer session. There's a reason I bring this up..
Hobby is a lot more fun than engineering but engineering pays better.
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You might take a look at the Digilent "Real-Analog" courseware: https://digilent.com/reference/learn/courses/real-analog/start
It is based around the Analog Discovery 2 (latest version is 3 and it would be identical or better). The AD3 is pricey but it provides a lot of capability and likely enough for an entire BSEE course (well, probably not Field Theory). The point to the course is that it also includes 'homework' and 'quizzes'. The courseware is free.
If you only knew Chapter 1, you would be a long way down the road. Don't forget to click on the Materials link to get to the solutions and other exercises. Videos are available as well as Lab exercises.
Khan Academy (famous for their math tutorials) has an EE program.