The engineering class that teaches how NOT to make things

CWRU Professor Larry Sears shares his expertise in engineering with students.
“This sounds corny, but ‘Larry Lab’ changed my life.” 
-Student nominator describes Larry Sears’ applied circuit design course


Technical skills. Independent thinking. Creativity. How to not make things. 

It’s the stuff of a “legendary'' course taught by Case Western Reserve University alum and faculty member Larry Sears. “Larry Lab,” a class in applied circuit design, is described as one of the most challenging courses in the electrical engineering curriculum, yet it was the course that recently won Sears the university's highest honor for undergraduate teaching, as nominated by students.

Read more about Sears and "Larry Lab."

Sears’ project-based approach challenges students to a new project every week. The goal is to shape students into productive engineers who design efficient, cost-effective and reliable products. In his class, Sears emphasizes that even failures provide learning opportunities, because “it’s probably more important to learn how to not design something as it is to learn how to design something.”