Project

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Project Documentation

Rubric for evaluating student's Documented Technical Contributions is linked at bottom of the Tasks_and_Due_Dates page

Minutes of a Meeting - see Meeting Minutes

Design Documentation

Many businesses use elaborate computer-based systems to maintain strict control over design documentation. Design documentation may include CAD drawings and bills of materials, technical design reports and presentation review notes, engineering analysis models and calculations, product test data, engineering specifications, and much more.

EDN Forums

In the Design Lab, you are required to maintain a record of your technical contributions to the project by posting messages to your team's Electronic Design Notebook (EDN). To be considered an appropriate technical post, students should strive to answer at least two of "What/Why/How" (note that "Who" and "When" are automatically recorded within the post). For example, posting a link to a website or document (What) should also be followed by commentary regarding how or why that information is relevant to your project.

Your project evaluators (PE and CE) will periodically read your messages to help understand your thoughts and design decisions, and will ultimately use it to help determine your final grade. Your student team mates will read your messages to collectively move the project forwards. Your messages can be a valuable resource for preparing individual and team deliverables and helping you to remember important design information and to maintain personal organization. The system automatically maintains a chronological organization of your records. You should include the following types of information and post at least four messages every week:
  • Background Information: The original problem statement and objectives, team organization, meeting notes, customer requirements, functional analysis, research on prior art, competitor benchmarking, critical engineering parameters, references to other peoples work, project plans.
  • System Design Concepts: Alternative ideas that were considered, sketches, flowcharts, system diagrams, figures, diagrams, descriptions of hardware and software, pictures of prototypes and descriptions of how design elements were integrated.
  • Engineering Analysis and Calculations: Design objectives for critical parameters, possible interactions with other parameters, assumptions, mathematical models and formulas with references to their sources, parameter values used with units of measure, design constraints and trade-offs.
  • Test Data and Results: Test objectives, process descriptions, experimental plans and set-up, potential noise factors, input and output parameters, data and analysis, and observations.
  • Contacts: The name, contact information, and brief description of each external resource used, such as suppliers of specialized parts, service providers, and experts.

As all teams will use Subversion, checking in a design document to Subversion counts as posting a message. Please remember to also post a message to the forum indicating that new information is available at the Subversion. The forum is the place to discuss the information you placed in Subversion.

Within the EDN, we comment on each others work to collaborate for the purpose of improving the overall technical team output and the communication of that output. This is a work skill, part of your professional development, and is not limited to Capstone.

Documented Technical Contributions

When providing constructive feedback to each other's postings, whether here or anywhere else on the EDN, please consider the following:
  • How will your comment(s) help the author improve the quality of their work?
  • Is their posting clear to you? If not, help them by explaining which aspects were not clear.
  • Would the posting be clear to others on the team? If not, help them by explaining which aspects were not clear.
  • Did their posting help increase your personal knowledge? How so? If not, help them understand how their posting could have done that.
  • Is there additional information that would make things better / clearer / more useful / etc.? If so, provide that feedback with your suggestions as to how that could be accomplished.
  • Is the posting well organized, divided into appropriate sections making it easy to read and understand? If not, again, provide suggestions on how to improve it.
  • If references / citations are appropriate, are they provided in the proper / useful format?
  • Is the material well supported by facts rather than representing only opinions? While opinions certainly matter, from an engineering perspective, they usually carry less weight than fact based information.
In general, feedback like the following is not nearly as helpful:
  • "good job"
  • "nicely formatted except for a few missing spaces / some punctuation / some headers"
  • "looks great"
  • "anything not directly relating to the technical content"

These would be in addition to the usual guidance on maintaining professional behavior, providing constructive comments, etc.

In the course of the design development process, individual engineers will also maintain records of the many design decisions made along the way with background, insights, and thoughts that they may have had. To maintain personal organization, many engineers will use a design notebook to record a log of meeting notes, system concept sketches, critical design parameters, engineering calculations, flow diagrams, system schematics, and any references that serve as a reminder of how and when they arrived at their design decisions. A well-organized design notebook provides an evolutionary depiction of the design development process and can serve as an official record of exactly when and how ideas may have been developed in support of potential patent claims. The EDN website will serve as your personal, and the team's collective, design notebook.