In addition to providing notes to be used in
writing reports, lab notebooks are also important for other reasons. First, good records allow the team to
frequently review progress and efficiently plan its next steps. Second, in the event that a new member is
added to a team or if advice is sought from an outside consultant, good records
are necessary to quickly bring him/her “up to speed” with no loss of quality to
the team’s work. Finally, if something goes wrong with the design, good records
are a “paper trail” that allows for a thorough review of the process to detect
mistakes and, if necessary, determine liability. For all of these reasons, you need to
document your design process in a detailed and organized fashion. The typical standard for level of detail and
organization is that someone else who has not been part of the team could reconstruct
exactly what you did and reproduce the same results. Basic documentation protocols and practices
will be covered in class. The notebook
itself will not be formally graded but the quality of your documentation will
be reflected in the quality of your report and its Appendices (see below).
Components of the Design
Report
Below is a list of sections that the design report should have and brief overviews of the content of each. More specific guidelines and strategies for writing the report will be covered in class.
The components of the design report are
intended to meet the needs of different readers. Some readers will carefully read the entire
report from beginning to end. Some will
also scrutinize the material in the appendices.
Most readers skip around, looking for the information they are
interested in and skipping the parts they don’t need. Some readers read only the executive summary
and the conclusions, and perhaps glance at the figures and tables. To approximate this variety of reading
approaches, the writing faculty will read the body of the report excluding the
Appendices, one of the engineering faculty will read only the Executive Summary
and the Conclusions and will look at the figures and tables, and the other
engineering faculty will read the entire report and the Appendices.
- Executive
summary
This is a concise “stand-alone”
explanation of the purpose of the project, the approach that was used, and the
general results. No specific values
should be given here. Remember that the
executive summary is written for a reader who is not likely to read the body of
the report. Refer to relevant figures and tables in the text so they can be
found with ease. Executive summaries are
usually about 1/10 the length of the complete document, or in this case, about
1/3 of a page.
- Introduction
Explain the general background of the project and specify what the report contains. The introduction provides context and information about navigating the report to a reader who is either going to read the entire document or wants to be able to skip around.
- Definition
of the Design Problem
Explain, in your own words, the problem that was assigned to you, including the project goals, parameters, and constraints. Do not copy directly from the lab handouts.
- Technical Description of Final Design
Describe your final design in detail, including materials, key attributes, and functioning. Focus on the physical object; do not explain the design process or rationale here. Include and refer to at least one diagram of the rocket. The diagram can be computer-generated or hand-drawn, but must be neat and done to scale. Label the parts and show dimensions. Additional illustrations or alternative views may be included if desired.
- Rationale
for Design
Explain the design process behind the rocket. Your discussion should distinguish between design decisions that were not under your control (including constraints as well as assumptions made for the purpose of simplifying the design problem) and those that were the focus of your optimization. Describe the test matrix and procedures you developed to optimize the parameters. Include scale drawings of the fin geometries you evaluated. Be sure to identify the conditions within which your design was optimized. Summarize the key data that informed your design decisions in appropriate graphic form and refer to the data in your discussion. Remember that some readers will look principally to these graphic representations of your data and may not read the accompanying text. Also, for the benefit of those readers who want more detail, you need to refer to any additional relevant information that you have included in the Appendices (see below).
- Final
Launch Results
Provide the results of your rocket’s final launch, including distance, trajectory, and characteristics of the rocket’s flight. Note the launch conditions. You might want to include data on the performance of other teams’ rockets. Do not comment on the results.
- Conclusions
Summarize your optimization of the soda bottle rocket. Evaluate its performance against your expectations. State your conclusions about the quality of the design and why it did or did not succeed. This, like the executive summary, must make sense by itself for those readers who are not reading the body of the report. Refer, again, to relevant figures and tables in the text.
- Appendices
The main body of the report must give all the information needed for the reader to see what the final design is and how the team arrived at it. The appendices contain details that are not essential for understanding the report but would allow the reader, if so inclined, to verify that the statements in the main body of the report are accurate. You should include early sketches and diagrams of the rocket, test matrices you developed for each parameter, results of your testing, and results of calculations using the rocket equations. All appendices must be referred to within the report.
Format and Style
This report should be:
- no more than three pages of text, single-spaced, not including graphics or appendices
- standard memorandum format
In addition, please follow these format guidelines:
- Leave 1-inch margins all around the text.
- Use 12-point Times New Roman font for body text.
- Emphasize headings and subheadings with Arial or Arial Bold.
- Show pagination at the bottom of each page.
- Number figures (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) and give descriptive captions; place labels below figures.
- Number tables separately from figures (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) and give descriptive captions; place labels above tables.
- Organize different kinds of material into separate appendices and label them with capital letters (Appendix A, Appendix B, etc.) and an identifying title.
The style should be formal; avoid casual, imprecise, or slang expressions (for example, do not say “we thought up a bunch of ways to do the nose”). Avoid using the first person (“I” or “we”). You may refer to “the team” to attribute actions where necessary to avoid awkwardness (phrases like “it was decided that”) or ambiguity (cases where it is important to identify a team design decision versus a specification or condition beyond your control).
General Grading Criteria
The report will be evaluated primarily on the thoroughness of your description and explanation, the degree to which you demonstrate that you are developing an understanding of effective design thinking, and the degree to which your report reflects awareness the various readers of the report. You will receive a more detailed checklist of grading criteria before the assignment is due.