Create a Mission Statement for your project that succinctly defines your goals and provides a tentative timeline for completion of those goals. Be sure to include descriptions for all of the sections below.
I. Brief (one sentence)
description of the product
II. Key engineering/business
goals:
•timing of product completion
incremental
goals and tentative timeline
•desired product results
•minimum required results
•Assumptions and constraints that guide the development effort
III. Assumptions and Constraints
•manufacturing, service, environmental
IV. Staffing and other pre-project
activities
•what personnel and financial support is required
· Prepare a brief presentation (5 minutes; ~ 5 slides)
· The goal of a short oral presentation is to communicate with your audience, quickly and accurately conveying technical information. The first one should include some background information and motivation for the project. All presentations visuals must be computer-projected.
A useful text is Technically
Speaking: A Guide for Communicating Complex Information by Jan D'Arcy (on
reserve in Bailey-Howe). Also, see the following excerpts:
Some useful on-line tutorials for
Getting Started with Microsoft PowerPoint are avai
Create an on-line web-page that describes your senior project. Use the content, photographs, flow diagrams, schematics, text, etc. that you have created up to this point on your project.
Be sure to keep the content concise, and useful. You are required to have at least one additional page that you will link to.
You will be graded on content and clarity of the web-page. Additional merit will be given for technical skill.
For this assignment only, email me your url so that I may evaluate the electronic web-page, all other assignments must be submitted in hard copy.
Write a substantial progress report. This will be used as a draft for different sections of your final paper.
Submit this writing assignment in the following format:
1. Introduction: Identify the need for product
2. Problem Statement: Establish required functions, include objective tree
3. Information gathered to date: Literature review, expert interviews, competitive products
4. Brainstorming results/novel ideas to date: Include pictures/sketches/etc.
5. Objective Tree: Provide an objective tree organizing your highest design priorities in a
hierarchical manner
6. Weighted design matrix: List and justify weightings, only calculate totals where
appropriate
Note, this is not an informal writing assignment. Use correct grammar and punctuation. Be attentive to appropriate technical writing style and avoid verbosity. See formal writing assignment instructions.
Formal writing usual requires
multiple drafts and is thus distinguished from equally important informal,
exploratory writing aimed at generating, developing and extending thinking on a
subject. Formal writing is expect to
exhibit correct grammar and spelling as well critical thinking about your
subject. In engineering, various formal, technical styles are often encountered
including those of
Bailey Howe Library has many books and articles on writing and technical writing, specifically. From among twenty or so books on technical writing for engineers, the following three were selected on the basis of their clarity, brevity and usefulness. They are on reserve in Bailey-Howe Library.
The Elements of Technical Writing by T. E. Pearsall
Pocket Book of Technical Writing for Engineers and Scientists by L. Finkelstein
Communication for Engineers: Bridge that Gap by R. Ellis
1) Write a review of your partner’s formal progress report and submit a hard copy, about 1 page. Be sure that your comments can be addressed and are constructive (most good feedback can be positive in nature suggesting improvements, do not overuse negative language).
Include several general comments and where appropriate specific comments. Only provide very detailed comments if they were not written in the margins of your partner’s report
2) Revise and resubmit formal progress report
As appropriate, this report should have all sections of formal reports.
Include subheadings as appropriate.
Be sure to emphasize logical flow and brevity.
Prepare a brief presentation (5 minutes ~ 5 slides) to describe the current status of your project. Avoid redundancy with your previous presentation.