Incredibly hands-on unit with a very big focus on practical skills. Quite fun overall but the workload is high, especially ramping up with the second half of semester, juggling your second 30% midsem, labs and a project. Lecture content is much harder in the first half, especially if you haven't taken Digital Systems prior, which has a lot of overlap. Second half and midsem is generally easier than the first, with a larger focus on coding. You're expected to code in C but even if you haven't done it before it's not that much harder than Python. Labs are 20% but is a failed component. Despite having 3 hours to do the lab activity, it is often extremely difficult to score well in it if you haven't prepared properly. Even if you do, you still can score poorly - the last 3 labs involving the Eyebots are incredibly hit-and-miss to work with. Scoring anything above a 4/10 can be impossible at times - it's probably best to do as well as you can in the beginning in case of that. Very important to find a good group for the project - Thomas throws you in the deep end so you'll need to spend a lot of time to figure how to complete the project, especially if you're not experienced with skills (e.g. modelling, soldering).

Really fun unit with a lot of content. You need to prep for labs every week, which usually takes about 3 hours, then go into lab which likely will take another 3 hours in order to get that 2% grade. The group project is really hard, and you have to do it in your own time, while keeping up with labs, as well as revising for the last test which takes place on the same week the group project is due, so pray you have a good group. The tests can be hit or miss, hope you get lucky. He does practice tests but expect the actual tests to throw in some things you've never seen before.

You are forced to learn so much in such a short period of time. The reason it isnt 5/5 is the assessment weightings don't make sense. The labs take 3+ hours every week and are only worth 2% each, while two tests, an hour each are worth 60%? I know there are rules about assessment weightings but this arrangement sucked

One of the most enjoyable units I've had so far, with the practical aspects of engineering that I always wanted

Damn this unit was intense! I would definitely recommend doing in either a 3-unit semester or a least a semester where your other units are going to be pretty light. There is 4 hours of lectures a week, and a 3 hour lab every week. The labs get very hard by the end of the semester and you'll have to spend a fair amount of time preparing code/circuit diagrams for them in advance. There is also a 2 hour lab prep./prac. class session, bringing the unit to a whopping 9 hours contact each week. And on top of all that, at about week 6 you get given the group design project which you work on in your own time, and is due in week 12. Get yourself a good group that is willing to put the time and effort in, you definitely can't get away with winging it. That being said it is a very rewarding experience to see your project work on demo day. So yeah, a very practical heavy unit. As far as the actual content goes, it was relatively difficult, but high marks in the exams are certainly achievable (especially if you have prior experience with C programming). Yep that's right, there are TWO exams, each worth 30%. However since they're in weeks 5 and 11 there's no final exam, so that's nice. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on this unit, I would say by weeks 11 and 12 I was spending at least 3 times the normal amount of time I would spend on a unit, between the labs, exam prep., and group project. Although I think with the new engineering bachelor they're removing some content that was already covered in the new Digital Systems unit, so not sure if they'd add more stuff in or spend more time on the existing content. Either way, I can guarantee that you'll learn some useful stuff in this unit, and the project gives you a direct opportunity to put what you learn in lectures and labs into practice (something that is perhaps dissimilar to a lot of the other undergraduate engineering units). Good luck and enjoy yourself!