Senior Design

Written Report Guidelines

Rick Knight — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:25:00 GMT

A very general guideline for written final reports which you may find useful is attached. As always, please work closely with your Advisor(s) and Mentor on the specific format that best suits your particular project.

Beware of PowerPoint Hell

Rick Knight — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:32:00 GMT

You may find it useful to review the following link

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/powerpoint_bad/

it's possible to have too much of a good thing (PowerPoint)...maybe a case of style over substance.

MATE 493 WIT Deadlines and Reminders

Rick Knight — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:01:00 GMT

Most of you met with Peter Caroselli, our assigned WIT for this term on Tuesday evening. The key pieces of information you all (seniors) need to have regarding the WIT process are as follows:

1. The first draft of your final written report is due (by E-mail) to the WIT no later than 5/7/08. Please send documents in Word (.doc rather than .docx format to be safe) to Pete Caroselli at <pc94@drexzel.edu>. Pete will review your writing and provide feedback on the writing, grammar, syntax and structure. He will NOT be commenting on the technical content...that's between you and your Advisor(s) and mentor. You should each then make an appointment to meet with Pete IN PERSON at the Writing Center to go over his comments. Then you should incorporate suggested changes into your document as it grows from a draft to the final thing, which is to be handed in for grading (by 5/21/08). A copy of the WIT guidelines is attached to this posting.

2. Abstracts are due to me by 4/17/08 - please make sure to use the format shown in the template I circulated previously. If you don't have this then come see me.

3. Outside Judge: If anyone has a suggestion for an external judge for the CoE Senior Design Competition then please let me have their name and contact information ASAP.

CoE Senior Design Competition Dates etc.

Rick Knight — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Dear Everyone,

As promised, here are the details (dates, times, requirements etc.) for the 2008 CoE Senior Design Competition...looks like my estimates in the previous post were pretty close:

This year’s Senior Design Competition will be held on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. Please mark your calendars. Listed below are the critical dates for us (me in most cases) to provide information pertaining to the competition. I will be contacting you in due course regarding getting this information to me so that I can submit things like the abstracts by the date indicated.

Thurs. 4/17/08 Final Abstracts Due – These are needed in order to publish the Senior Design Booklet in time for Departmental Presentations. Format information to follow in due course.

Thurs. 4/24/08 Provide Name and contact information of a confirmed outside judge (one from each department). Any suggestions/recommendations?

Wed. 5/28/08 Submit Name of Group being sent to competition (5/30 CS if necessary) One group from each department. This year’s multi-disciplinary group will be from MEM.

The competition will be held in Bossone (Auditorium) again this year. It should run from ~8:45 a.m. to approximately 3:45 p.m.

Winter Term Oral Presentations 3/14/08 and Written Reports 2/13/08

Rick Knight — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Next Friday 3/14/08, we will have the Winter Term oral presentations. Here are a few guidelines to help you organize your thoughts and material.

Time: 20 minutes + 5 minutes for Q&A.

Presentation Structure:

1. Title slide [all the usual stuff...names, title, course #, date, advisor(s) etc.]

2. Brief re-statement of the Problem your project is attempting to address [1-2 slides max]

3. Brief re-statement of the Approach you are taking to address the above problem [1-2 slides max]

4. Restatement of relevent Background information...scene setting, "big picture" type material. This could go also before #'s 2 and 3 if you wish.

5. Major emphasis on your Results and Accomplishments to date, including, where applicable, your Interpretation of what the results indicate...trends, feasibility of approaches being followed, validation [or otherwise] of hypotheses formulated.

- This is where you can present data...graphs, micrographs, results of syntheses, testing, measurements and analysis etc.

- Try to show that what you are doing is in accordance with sound scientific and engineering principles...e.g. designed experiments, statistical analysis of results, appreciation of sources of error in measurements etc.

6. Explicitly address the Ethical, Societal and Environmental aspects of your work...if there are none then just state that explicitly, this then demonstrates that you have at least given these some consideration and determined that they are not issues.

7. An updated list of Tasks and an updated Timeline [e.g. a Gannt chart]...i.e. what do you still need to do in order to complete your project. Any major problems can also be addressed here, together with your plans for addressing them...i.e. your "Plan B".

I strongly recommend that everyone work closely with their Advisor(s) and Mentor(s) in preparing everything, and that you practice your presentations with your Advisor, maybe during a group meeting, before next Friday.

I will circulate a new version of the Oral Presentation schedule shortly...the most recent version had the time slots as 15+5, whereas they need to be 20+5 minutes!

Written Reports are due to me, your Advisor(s) and other faculty grader by 5:00 pm on Thursday 3/13/08. These should be 10-20 pages in length, one and a half spaced. All figures should have proper captions below them, all tables should have proper headings above them. The text should include properly formatted and cited references, where appropriate.

Remember to SPELL CHECK both your written report and oral presentation...if necessary ask a colleague to proofread them for you.

As in the Fall term, we will arrange for Pizza etc. for lunch around Noon during the oral presentations.

Good luck...and if anyone has any questions please stop by and see me.

RK

Jobs etc. + Reminders

Rick Knight — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:01:00 GMT

During Friday 2/22's meeting we talked about jobs, who has them and who's still looking. Some key parts of job hunting are:

• Making contacts:

- The name of the game is networking, getting known by people with connections. This is where it's not what you know, it's who you know becomes so important.

- Professional society membership and meetings are very useful here...it's not too late to join Material Advantage, which gives you access to the resources of four, yes four, professionals societies, ASM International, TMS, ACerS and AIST, all for just $25. Resources include resume posting and access to job postings. There's also a guy named Al Singmaster at the local ASM Chapter who runs an employment agency in the "materials" field...a good person to meet, and get your resume to.

- Be persistent and polite.

- Avoid imposing too many restraints, e.g. "job must be within 2 miles of Drexel".

- If you do get interviews you MUST follow up with a Thank You note to all the key people you interviewed with within 24 hours. E-mail is acceptable today.

- Get yourself some business cards and list you contact information.

- Do your "homework" on the company in advance of the interview...know in detail what they do, where they are located, how big the company is and so on.

- Consult with experts at Drexel's career counseling office.

SOME Important Reminders:

- Take a look at your transcripts and make sure that you aren't missing any required course, or an elective...count up the credits and make sure you have enough. If you have an issue then please see Mrs. Trachtman ASAP.

- Winter Term progress presentations will be held on Friday March 14th. Latest versions of the schedule were handed out on Friday...if there are conflicts I need to know ASAP please.

- The emphasis should be on results, progress and what's needed to complete your project in Spring. Briefly recap the what, why and how at the start of your presentation, but don't overdo it. Update your project timeline.

- Remember to invite your external sponsors.

Winter Term Senior Design: Meeting Time & Place, Progress Report Reminder

Rick Knight — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:39:00 GMT

Dear Seniors and BS/MS Students,

Good morning. OK, we finally have a room and day/time assigned for us to meet - Curtis 255B, Fridays, 10-11:50 am. Rather bizarrely this is the same room, same time and same day as was originally scheduled for us, and was then taken away...yet as of today this is what is offered in response to Judy's request for a room. Based on your input earlier in the term this should accommodate the majority of the group.

I would like to meet again the week after next (Friday 2/8/08), at which time all of the true Seniors need to submit [hard copy plus an E-mail copy, .doc format please, NOT .docx] a 2-3 page Progress Report to me, to your Advisor, your other faculty grader and grad student mentor. BS/MS students do not need to submit these. The purpose of these is twofold [1] additional practice in writing to describe and present your work and [2] an update on your status and progress with your projects, so that we can identify any major problems or issues well enough in advance to be able to develop and implement any remedial steps that may be necessary.

We will also conduct an informal "peer review" of these progress reports when we meet as a group the following week...I will provide copies of the reports, which we will "shuffle around" and have someone else read it and critique it. This provides good feedback and an opportunity to learn from each other's projects. Your progress reports should be organized as follows:

1. Make sure to include your name, course #, Advisor (s) and Mentor's names, project title and date.

2. Use "bullets" rather than paragraphs of text to report your accomplishments...bullets are shorter, more direct, and easier to comprehend in reports.

3. Briefly recap the problem your project is addressing [an opportunity to revisit your problem statement if your written report or oral presentation from back in December was criticized in this area - hint!

4. Briefly recap your approach.

5. Give major emphasis to your progress to date:

        - Tasks completed.

        - Results to date...experiments in progress, data gathered, analysis of results, status of design tasks, materials selection etc.

        - Highlight any major problems you've encountered [e.g. in obtaining materials, with equipment access, with your planned approach not working or turning out not to be feasible].

6. Highlight any significant changes in your scope or approach, and briefly explain, together with a brief indication of your "Plan B".

7. Update your project timeline, indicating which tasks have been completed and showing which tasks, if any, have slipped in timing, and by how much.

Other:

- Remember to meet regularly with your Advisor(s) and Mentor.

- If possible, participate in your Advisor's "group" meetings...request a 5-10 minute slot if necessary...get yourselves on the agenda...practice and feedback from your Advisor and others working in the group can only be good!

Finally, just to plant the seed...the Winter Term oral presentations will be held on Friday, March 14th, In Hill Seminar Room...please mark your calendars. This time, my goal will be to have the BS/MS students go first. Written reports [from Seniors, not BS/.MS] are due the day before, 3/13/08

MATE 492 Winter Term Update, Important Reminders

Rick Knight — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:56:00 GMT

Dear MSE Seniors and BS/MS students,

Welcome back everyone. I met most of you at today's scheduled group meeting, but not everyone. Consequently I'd like to take this opportunity to bring everyone up to date on what we discussed in today's meeting, and outline the expactations and requirements for this term.

1. Fall Term Debrief:

- Today I returned, to those students who were present, copies of the score sheets from December's oral project presentations - so that you each get to see the comments faculty or fellow students made during your presentations.

- I also returned marked up copies of any written reports, which I hope you will find useful. Unfortunately I only had about 5 or 6 reports and returned most of those, but I still have 1 or 2 left. Please make sure to contact your Advisor for an additional debrief on your oral and/or written presentations.

- If you weren't at today's meeting [:'(] then please stop by and see me to pick up a copy of your score sheets.

- I think everyone has done a good job so far...and the scores and grades reflected that...and there were no major disasters. Good job everyone, well done!

2. Winter Term Expectations:

- Having said the above, I cannot under-emphasize how important the Winter term is. Winter Term is the time for each you to "break the back" of your project tasks, the time to really put in the effort and get the bulk of your project tasks done.

- There will again be oral and written report due towards the end of the quarter [the due dates are in the schedule in the course syllabus] and at this time NO-ONE should even think about anything major in the future tense! Fall term was for planning and talk about what you are/were GOING to do, Winter term is the time for DOING it, and for presenting lots of results and emphasizing your progress!

- If all goes well then Spring term should be used for tying up loose ends, exploring any interesting offshoots from your projects and finishing off any longer term experiments or evaluations...but the bulk of your work should already be done by then!

3. Advising Meetings:

-Week 2 of the Winter Term has been designated by the MSE Department as "Advising Week".

- The Dept. and faculty view student advising as being very important. Not only does it enable us to get to know all of our students a little better, learn where you've been on Co-op and what your career coals are, but it also enables us to identify any potential "problems" in your plans of study, any missing or incomplete grades, missing required courses, insufficient # of credits and so on...and to do this BEFORE any such issues have major negative impacts on you...like possibly becoming barriers to your graduating on schedule!

- To that end please make sure you meet first with Judy ASAP, to update your Plan of Study form, and then meet and talk with your Advisor.

- For BS or BS/MS students, your primary advisor is your Senior Design or MS project advisor, respectively.

- BS/MS students also need to meet with the departmental Graduate Advisor (Dr. Li) to review your progress on the graduate part of your studies, again to make sure that nothing required or key is missing, so that you can graduate on time.

- If anyone does NOT meet with their advisor then we will withhold grades from this term!

4. Job Opportunity/Recruiting Visit:

- Karen Johnson, a recent (2006) Drexel MEM graduate will be visiting Drexel next Mon-Wed (1/14 - 1/16) recruiting 2008 BS and BS/MS graduates for Pratt and Whitney's Engineering Development Program. I will be circulating details of this by E-mail later today. I encourage anyone with a GPA of 3.0 or better to consider this interesting opportunity.

5. CoE Fall Term Course Evaluations:

Did anyone receive the usual notification regarding completing the CoE on-line course assessments for the Fall term, not just for Senior Design, but for any courses you were taking?

Please let me know.

6. Winter Term Meeting Schedule:

- As previously indicated, we "lost" our scheduled room for group meetings this term. Today those present at the meeting indicated on a grid the times/days they were NOT available, so that I can try to pick the best day and time for us to meet as a group. If you missed today's meeting then please stop by and see me to review the schedule.

- We won't need to meet every week, but I do wish to meet a number of times during the term to hear from you regarding progress on your projects, discuss any problems you may be having etc. While your primary technical advisors are your faculty advisor and graduate student mentor, I can also help in some instances, for example if you're having difficulty getting access to a particular instrument for measurements you need to make.

Happy New Year,

Presentation Schedule for Friday, December 7th, 2007

Rick Knight — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:42:00 GMT

A copy of the presentation schedule for Friday is attached and downloadable.

Please remember that hard copies of your written reports are due to me, you Advisor etc. on Thursday of this week. I also need hard copies of your PowerPoint presentations, printed 6 slides per page, plus electronic copies of both your written reports AND PowerPoint presentations for archiving and to distribute to other graders who may not be there on Friday. Make sure to proofread and spell check them beforehand.

BS/MS students will only be giving oral presentations, but your presentations will all be scored in the same way as the Seniors...which will provide you, your Advisor(s) and mentors with useful feedback for review after the fact.

Your presentation deliveries will be "recorded" using software called Camtasia, so all presentations should be made using the Departmental PC Laptop...which I have reserved for all day on Thursday and Friday, so there's plenty of advance opportunity to load up and test your presentations before Friday morning.

Everyone should also practice their oral presentations, more than once if necessary, certainly with your technical advisors...if you would like any objective critique then I'm available...just let me know or come find me.

Oral Presentations and Written Project Proposals - Deadline Reminders and Guidelines

Rick Knight — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:56:00 GMT

Some reminders of pending deadlines and related items:

1. The Fall Term Oral Presentations will be held in Hill Seminar Room (LeBow 240) on Friday, 12/7/07.

- Please inform any external Co-Advisors on your project of the date (a detailed schedule will be circulated nearer the date, since the times are subject to change as faculty juggle potential conflicts etc.) and formally invite them to attend your presentation. They are most welcome to attend ALL of the presentations and to be part of the scoring and feedback process...their input and participation will be most welcome.

- I encourage you to begin work on your presentations as soon as possible, and to practice your delivery ahead of time...use your friends and colleagues as an audience. If you wish I can also be available to critique and provide feedback on content, style and delivery, just let me know.

- Your Advisor, Co-Advisor, Mentor and I should each be provided with a hard copy of your PowerPoint slides, printed 6 per page on the day. B&W is fine.

- Your presentation should set out the What, Why and How of your project, and include any preliminary data/results that you may/should have already (hint!). Avoid too much text, rather use bullets. Use good quality graphics that are relevant and clear, and, if "borrowed" from other sources, properly and appropriately referenced.

- Your presentations should be 15 minutes long, plus 5 minutes for Q&A.

- Before the day of the presentations, make sure to test out your talk ON THE COMPUTER actually located in Hill...to make sure the fonts are all OK, any embedded videos and/or graphics work OK, etc.

- Use a laser pointer to highlight things, but don't waggle it around all over the place.

- Avoid excessive PowerPoint animations and sound effects...done professionally animations can enhance a presentation and really help you in its delivery, overdone it's commonly known as "PowerPoint Hell".

- Practice talking to the audience, not to the podium or screen, and don't just read out what's on the screen...as soon as you put up a new slide the audience will have read it long before you can read it out. Use the bulleted text on your slides as "prompts" to remind you of what to talk about, in more detail that is shown on the screen.

- Include and discuss your timeline (Gantt Chart) and budget in your presentation.

- Emphasize the design aspects of the project, and consult the "presentation score sheet" included in the course syllabus and ensure that you EXPLICITLY address all of the ABET a-k items listed there. If your particular project has no major "environmental" or "ethical" issues then say so...on a slide and in your delivery...that then shows the audience that you are aware that a project could have those, that you have considered them and have decided that they do not apply to your particular project. The key thing is that you address them explictly, rather than not appearing to be aware of them.

- Speak at a moderate pace, remember to breathe, and speak loudly enough to be heard at the rear of the room.

- Your presentation should set out the What, Why and How of your project, and include any preliminary data/results that you may/should have already (hint!). Avoid too much text, rather use bullets. Use good quality graphics that are relevant and clear, and, if "borrowed" from other sources, properly and appropriately referenced.

- Spell check, spell check, spell check!!!!!!!!!

- VERY IMPORTANT: Everyone should, unless they have a class schedule clash, attend ALL of the presentations during the day...that way you get to see/hear what your fellow students are doing, and to hear the Q&A and any other faculty comments and feedback. The latter often contains information useful to many of you, regardless of your particular topic.

2. Written Project Reports/Proposals are Due on 12/6/07.

- E-mail one (1) copy of the first draft of your written project proposal (Word format only) to the WIT Tutor (Valarie Pelletier) by 5:00 pm on 11/19/07...that's next Monday folks!

- One (1) copy of your written project proposal is due to me by 5:00 pm on Thursday 12/6/07 - the day before the oral presentations. No late proposals will be accepted. You are also responsible for delivering a hard copy of your project proposals to their Advisor(s) and the MSE faculty member(s) of the evaluation committee. These written proposals can/should be expanded versions of your Pre-Proposals, taking on board comments and feedback provided by me, your Advisor(s), Mentors and Valarie.

- Spell check, spell check, spell check!!!!!!!!!

October 24th to November 9th

Rick Knight — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:10:00 GMT

I will be away on travel from 10/24 through 11/9, consequently we will not be meetign on Wednesdays during this period. Please make sure to use the time wisely and productively on your Senior Design projects and/or MS research. In particular:

1. If you haven't yet submitted your Pre-Proposal, please E-mail those to me as soon as you can. Make sure to include information on who your Advisor, Co-Advisor [for an industry sponsored project] and Mentor are.

2. Work closely with your Advisors and Mentors to further develop your project plans - that is where the bulk of your technical guidance should come from...so make a nuisance of yourselves and bug your Advisors often. In early December we will have the Fall Term Senior Design presentations, at which time you will need to submit a written project report [essentially a detailed description of what your project is about, how you are proposing to carry it out, and (hopefully) some preliminary results] plus give an oral presentation to your colleagues and the faculty.

3. If anyone has not yet completed Drexel's on-line laboratory safety training you need to do this ASAP. Go to www.drexelsafetyandhealth.com, select the "Training" tab, enter your E-mail address, then complete the appropriate module...read, understand, answer the Q's, then you'll be set.

4. Keep a proper lab notebook for your project...in a previous blog post I provided some guidelines written by Dr. Fontecchio which are very useful.

5. Remember to attend the ECE S.D. lectures ad to write up and submit brief reports on each week's lecture coverage.

Senior Design Meeting - October 17th, 2007

Rick Knight — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:42:00 GMT

We will not meet tomorrow 10/17/07. Please use the time wisely and productively to work on you Pre-Proposals. If have already sent those to Valarie for review that's great, make whatever changes she has suggested and then get hard copies to me and to your Advisor and Mentor. One or two of you I know are still working to finalize your project topic...so you have a little grace period. I would like all pre-proposals to be submitted before I leave for Australia on the 24th.

Make sure that your Pre-proposal contains sufficient information regarding the problem your project will address, why it is a problem, how you propose to tackle it, the materials you will use and the characterization/analysis tools you will use, plus a timeline [Gantt Chart} and Budget estimate.

If anyone wishes to have me look over what you have written, or advise on content etc. then please stop by my office and see me.

Please don't forget to also send me some brief written notes from this week's ECE Senior Design lecture.

RK

Keeping a Laboratory Notebook

Rick Knight — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:41:00 GMT

A PDF of the document about the what, why and how of keeping a lab notebook [Copyright Dr. Fontecchio] is attached.

Pre-Proposal Guidelines

Rick Knight — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:54:00 GMT

As per today's group meeting, here is a suggested outline for a Pre-Proposal.

1. Title/Cover Page:

- Indicate the project title, your name and affiliation, your advisor's name, mentor's name [if known], and Course # information [MATE 491 for Seniors, MS Thesis for BS/MS] and the date.

2. Abstract:

- Short summary of the whole thing.

3. Problem Statement

- Describe the nature of the problem your project going to investigate/address, together with a rationale...why is it a problem? Keep this brief and as specific as possible.

4. Background:

- Summarize relevant background information that you have on the problem outlined above.

5. Planned Approach:

- Summarize your intended approach - experimental or theoretical [as appropriate], the characterization techniques you intend to sue and brief explanation as to why they have been selected.

-Discuss briefly what you intend to do by way of experiments - what you will vary, # of trials, what you hope to correlate to what...i.e. an overview of your planned experimental matrix...your design of experiments.

6. Timeline:

- A Gantt chart should included showing all the major tasks, including the deadlines etc. for reports and presentations.

- There are websites [e.g. http://timios.net/Gantt/] where you can develop Gantt charts and then save them for importing into your documents.

7. Budget:

- A cost summary including Personnel/Labor [+ Fringe] costs; Direct Costs [cost of materials, supplies, cost of using the characterization instruments (check the MCF web page via the DNI web page for the $/hr rate for things like the SEM, Ramans, Optical Microscope, Nanoindenter etc.); Indirect Costs [Drexel's Indirect cost rate is 50%]. Indirect cost is typically charged on the total cost of Labor + Direct Costs.

8. References:

- If any to date.

9. General:

- Figures can be included, and should be properly captioned...number the figures, use a format like "Fig. 1: TEM image of single-walled carbon nanotube."

- It's a good idea to use numbered main section headings and subheadings, i.e. 2, 2.1, 2.1.1 etc.

- Number the pages.

- Spell check!

Hope this all helps.

Opening On A Team Project

Rick Knight — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:24:00 GMT

Dr. Schauer has an opening for anyone wishing to join a team project related to the electrospinning of materials and involving the design of a system to electrospin multiple materials and prevent the electric fields interacting and "sparking over". THis sound like an interesting, multidisciplinary project that will involve some true engineering design work.

Anyone interested should see Dr. Schauer and/or Ronson Lamond for more information.