Description

Course Description: Via team projects and discussions, students will discover the tools of engineering design, data analysis and modeling, estimations, spreadsheets, oral presentations, logbook, written reports, web page building, movies making, graphical programming, teamwork, leadership, project management, and problem-solving skills. Not only for prospective engineering students, also for those seeking important skills to succeed in college an/or the job market. (3 credits, Lecture)

Course Location and Time: Science Building, S-3-126, the Engineering teaching lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 AM (Section 1, until 10:45 AM) and at 2:00 PM (Section 2, until 3:15 PM). (This lab is open to Engineering 103 students on Mondays 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM and on Wednesdays at 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM.)

Objectives

In this Natural Science Distribution course you will find, by doing it, answers to questions like what is engineering versus science? What is engineering design? What are the engineering design tools? What is teamwork? What is the role of the computer? How to keep an engineer logbook? How to write a project documentation? How to maintain a web page? What are the techniques for effective communication?

Learning Activities

Engin 103 Logbook (a learning journal) is emphasized as an important design and learning tool: in an active learning approach, students are presented with activities (which include classwork and teamwork), after completing these, they are encouraged to extract their own conclusions about the different activities and their interconnections. Guidance is available to extract the right conclusions. These conclusions should be kept in the logbook along with any discussion and progress made as related to the course projects. There will be no traditional lectures but class attendance is required. Regular out-of-class team meetings, either in person, on-line, or by phone, are needed to work on the projects. Project "competitions" will be scheduled every month. Project reports are due the next class after these competitions. Individual engineer Logbook (Example of a Logbook page 8) is required for each student as well as a final, very short, oral exam. Students will turn in class works at the end of each class that will count towards their grades. Some homework will be assigned.

Textbook, Materials and Handouts

Textbooks: 1) Learning with LabVIEW 8 & LabVIEW 8.6 Student Edition Software (required) by National Instruments, Inc. Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2009 ISBN-10: 0138004609 ISBN-13: 9780138004606 . 2) Design Concepts for Engineers 4th Ed. (optional) by Mark N. Horenstein Prentice-Hall, 2002 ISBN: 0-13-146499-X.

Required materials: A letter-size quadrille notebook (please number pages consecutively), storage media such as a USB flash drive, and an active e-mail account.

Handouts: No handouts will be made generally. All course materials (including homework, classworks, and projects assignments) are electronically available from this web page. The student should print out and take a copy of these assignments before leaving the class. Links to all class notes and assignments can be found on the e-syllabus page.

Homeworks, Classworks and Projects

Homeworks: Assigned in the e-syllabus, due the following week. Graded individually.

Classworks: Done in class and due at the end of the class.

Projects: Doing a project means achieving some goal, assigned or proposed, whose results are unknown, with an agreed upon budget, and a specified completion date or deadline. Long projects are organized in phases (e.g. I, II, final) with progress reports submitted after each phase. In addition to performance, meeting the deadline is very important, so planning is essential. A timeline is useful, it should allow enough time for each job, and extra time for unexpected but necessary modifications.
All specifications as detailed in a project assignment should be satisfied to avoid "disqualifications".

Once completed, a project presentation should be carefully prepared. Since it is through this presentation everybody else will see what you did and be convinced or not it was worthwhile the required budget and time. Peer evaluation is also a very useful design tool that’ll be encouraged via the team web pages.

In addition to the project presentation, the project documentation or product manual will be what remains of what you did. Without a documentation it would be hard to use your product, or to modify it to do something useful. This is especially critical when lots of money were invested in a project that worked, but later useless without the documentation. Project documentations will contain at least three parts: background or introduction, descriptions of design/building/improvement process (including detailed sketches, drawings, pictures), and analysis/testing of the product (including graphs, tables, numbers).

The project documentation should be based on the engineer logbook, a personal notebook with consecutively numbered pages and dated entries. No erasers should be used, instead just cross out undesired words/entries. The dated entries in a logbook constitute the best legal evidence in patent or authorship disputes.

More about projects: The progress reports are due before the presentations. Project documentations are due the next class after the presentations. Although all team members should participate equally in every project, the student who wrote the progress report, project documentation, or prepared the team web page should appear as the first author. This does not mean the other team members will not receive credits. In order to qualify for a grade, each student should perform at least once as a team leader, Webmaster, and author of the project documentation. Project documentations will not be accepted without the cover sheet as explained in the project assignment.

Team members (in print)

Percentage of participation of each member (full is 100%) in the design/building/analysis/improvements of this project (in print)

Date and signatures (hand writing)

The team web page is due with the project presentation or “competition” (no html knowledge is assumed, all instructions and helps to put up and maintain a web page will be provided). It should include a self-contained explanation of the designs/buildings/analyses/improvements (drawings, graphs, and tables are required elements) leading to the team project. The targeted audience is your classmates. Peer evaluation on these presentations will be made following the “competitions”. Name of the Webmaster(s) for a particular project should appear on the web page.

Teamwork

Suppose a team received a grade of 55/60 for the four projects (0,1,2,3), in order for a team member to actually receive this grade, she/he should have:
1) Received a 100% of participation in all four projects as listed in the appendix of the team reports (see instruction above). This means that she/he has participated in all team meetings (meeting dates and times are set by agreement from all members), and has carried out the tasks she/he and the team has agreed upon regarding the design/building/analysis/improvements of a project. Please be fair, a 100% participation cannot be assigned if you agreed to do certain tasks but finally failed to do it. If a member fails to do his/her job more than once without a justified reason, the other members may ask him/her to leave the team. In this case there is no guarantee this member can find a team if all teams are filled, he/she might consequently have to work alone (notice that grading criteria will not change, and most project presentations require the collaborations of more than 2 members).
2) Worked once as team Leader, and author of the Progress Report and Project Documentation.
3) Worked once as a Web Master.

Grades

A project is matured when it has evolved through several improved versions with many decisions made, and in which each team member has contributed actively. When a project is fully executed, one should be able to look back and say that it seemed impossible a few weeks ago, and the energy and hard work brought in by each member played an essential role. The grade distribution will be class- and homeworks 20% (individually), projects 60% (by teams), and logbook and final exam 20% (individually). Project grades will be assigned in consultation with team leader’s evaluations. No project grade will be assigned to members missing or coming late to one of the project presentations.

The course grade will be computed with a maximum of 100 points. The estimated average is 80 points (B). An example distribution is as follows:

>=	60	64	68	72	76	80	84	88	92
	D	C-	C	C+	B-	B	B+	A-	A

Please notice that the 20 points from homeworks and classworks will make a big difference in your final grades, as well as those 20 points from the personal logbook and final exam.

Due Dates, Late Penalties and Rules

The due dates for required materials, including project progress reports, projects & web sites, project reports, logbooks, class work, and homework are listed in the syllabus. The following late policies apply**:

Project progress reports: 20% per calendar day.
Projects and web sites: Projects and web sites are due the first of the two days the projects competitions are scheduled. The team project performance during the "competitions" will count 20% towards the project grade. The project documentation counts 70% towards the project grade. The remaining 10% comes from the presentation, and from the team web page. If a team presents their project and web site for the first time during the second day of the competition, a 50% late penalty will be applied. If a team cannot improve their project performance from day 1 to day 2 of the competitions, a 10% reduction will be applied.
Project reports: They are due the next class after the second day of the competitions. The project report will not be accepted without the signatures (in hand writing) of all team members next to the percentage of their participation in print. Late penalty is 20% per calendar day.
Logbooks: They will be collected three times, during the next class after the second day of the three project competitions. A grade will be assigned based on conciseness and completeness (sufficient learning conclusions), detailed sketches, the readability of your handwritings, and whether format and content corrections have been made based on instructor’s previous comments. Logbooks can be submitted with improvements for re-grading. Late penalty is 20% per calendar day. The logbook will also need to be submitted during the final exam.
Class works: Late penalty waived for the first two late class works. The fourth late class work will receive a 20% reduction per calendar day.
Homework: Late penalty waved for one late homework. The second late homework will receive a 20% reduction per calendar day.
**Late penalties can only be waived in exceptional circumstances, e.g. when a medical certificate is presented.
A big penalty on the final grade (up to 30%) can be assessed without notice for inappropriate use of the computers during class. This includes: checking email, chats, news and other things not related to the course work.

To stay in the class, if you will be absent on certain date, you will need to notify in advance by email the following three people: the instructor, the TA, and the current team leader. In addition, if credit is requested for a late assignment submitted after the absence, you will need to justify it with a document such as the doctor’s note.

Code of Student Conduct

Students are required to adhere to the University Policy on Academic Standards and Cheating, to the University Statement on Plagiarism and the Documentation of Written Work, and to the Code of Student Conduct as delineated in the catalog of Undergraduate Programs, pp. 44-45, and 48-52.

Accommodations

Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 offers guidelines for curriculum modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. If applicable, students may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Ross Center for Disability Services, M-1-401, (617-287-7430). The student must present these recommendations and discuss them with each professor within a reasonable period, preferably by the end of Add/Drop period.

Links

- E-syllabus

-Google Group Page Section 1 (9:30 AM) Section 2 (2:00 PM)

- Team Web Pages

- Team Information*

- Example of a Logbook page*

- Logbook Questions*

*Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed for opening .pdf files.