Engineering Project
Course Policy

Background  

Completion of an Engineering Project is required for fulfillment of the graduation requirements at Rensselaer. The Project must be completed in addition to 27 credit hours of course work. Three credit hours are awarded on successful completion of the project. The Engineering Project consists of research work carried out by the student under close supervision of a Faculty Advisor and assisted by reviews and feedback from classmates and others. The Engineering Project in this new, course format, is a novel strategy introduced at Rensselaer that is designed to expedite the successful completion of the graduation requirement within the span of a single academic term. This document constitutes the official written charter for the Engineering Project.

Objective  

The Engineering Project has the objective of showcasing the student's ability to master and apply concepts and methods learned during his or her program at Rensselaer. It is expected that the student would have reached a high level of intellectual maturity that should enable him or her to carry out independent work and to be able to incoporate and benefit from constructive criticism of it. Although not assigned as a text for the class, I strongly recommend you pick up a copy and read the book "Managing Projects Large and Small: The Fundamental Skills to Deliver on Budget and on Time", prepared by Prof. Robert D. Austin and published in the series Harvard Business Essentials, Boston, MA, 2004, ISBN 13-978-59139-321-4. In this book, you will find many useful insights that will help you successfully complete your project. The key objective of this class is to get you to successfully complete a high quality Engineering Project in fifteen weeks!

Rights and Responsibilities  

The Engineering Project has all the features of a regular project. Namely, it has Sponsors (the student's parent company and Rensselaer), a Project Manager (the Advising Faculty), Project Leaders (the student) and Team Members (the other students in the class and perhaps even people outside class). Each member of the above cast of characters has well defined rights and responsibilities.

The Sponsors have a right to expect the student's work to be of the highest caliber and their responsibilities include the provision of financial support and the award of official credentials.

The Advising Faculty is responsible of providing an environment conducive to sucessful completion of the Engineering Project. This includes not only the provision of sound technical advice, monitoring progress, performing quality checks, assistance in identifying and mitigating the adverse effects of risk, help with mid-course corrections, maintenance of weekly minutes, and stylistic guidance, but also the creation of a setting suitable for the open exchange of ideas and constructive criticism. He as a right to demand that the student's work is carried to the highest standards and to expect the timely submission of deliverables.

Individual students, act as team leaders and are the champions of their own individual projects. They have a right to the best possible advise both from the Faculty Advisor as well as from their classmates and to all the necessary resources for the sucessful completion of their Projects. Individual students have ultimate responsibility for the quality and timeliness of their work and for the development and maintenance of a web-based portfolio archive containing at all times an up to date collection of project related materials that can be used to gage progress in their work.

Students in the class are responsible for acting as team members on each other's Projects by following attentively their classmates progress over the semester and by providing active and concientious feedback with the objective of improving the quality of the final product.

Student Portfolio  

Students in this course must maintain at all times, a complete, clear and carefully organized web-based portfolio of materials related to their project. The portfolio must contain at least two key subdirectories called "Updates" and "Reference". The proposal, progress reports, presentations and final drafts will be accumulated inside "Updates" and all other related materials (.e.g. computer programs, technical papers, etc.) should be placed inside "Reference". Additional subsubdirectories should be used as much as needed to facilitate inspection and evaluation of the portfolio.

Note: the recommended format for posted written documents is pdf.

Note: Students are required to carry with them to class at ALL times as backup a large capacity USB flash drive/flash pen containing ALL materials related to their projects.

On completion of the project, it is required that the student portfolio contain all relevant and necessary information related to his/her project. Required materials include the project proposal, the various report updates, the final report (which must also be prominently displayed as a separate file next to subdirectories Updates and Reference) as well as all computer programs, symbolic manipulation worksheets, spreadsheets and the like. The posted materials must enable anyone accessing them, to fully reproduce at least selected results obtained during the performance of the project. Please discuss early with your Project Advisor any questions you may have regarding the archival materials that are required in this course.

Project Phases  

As with any regular project, the Engineering Project consists of four basic phases: defining, planning, executing and closing. Students must maintain a carefully organized collection of all materials associated with the performance of the project. This portfolio of materials will be a key deliverable for this course and will be used for the assessment of your performance. Specifically, each student is responsible for the performance of the following activities concerning his or her project:

  • Selecting a Topic and defining the Objective(s) for the effort,
  • Preparing a Project Proposal - including Milestones - and presenting it for approval,
  • Carrying out the necessary Literature Search, Research Work, Task Breakdown and Activity Scheduling
  • Preparing Progress Reports (using the RPI Thesis Template) and Making Class Presentations on request,
  • Preparing a Draft Final Report of the Work (using the RPI Thesis Template), Making a Class Presentation on request and Submitting it for Review and Approval, and
  • Producing the Approved, Definitive Final Report using the RPI Thesis Template.

    • These activities are never handled in linear, sequential fashion but a significant amount of iteration and revision is always involved. A description of the above activities is as follows:

    1. Selecting the Topic and Defining Objetive(s).

    Students may select a topic themselves or ask the Faculty Advisor for suggestions. Topics may be selected from the student's own work or professional experience, from list of topics provided by the Advisor or from research work reported in the recent technical literature of the profession. Note that the work you will do for your Project as well as the final report belong to the public domain so you must avoid selecting as a topic a project involving proprietary information.

    2. Preparing the Project Proposal and Presenting it for Approval.

    The proposal is a concise document containing a summary description of the work to be done, the ultimate objective(s), its relevance and adequacy, the fundamental principles of the discipline involved, the means to getting it accomplished and references to any prior work in the area. The proposal must also include a timetable with key milestones. The Faculty Advisor will review the proposal, discuss its contents with the student, comment and suggest modifications (if any). The proposal will also be presented to the class so other students can provide feedback and constructive criticism. Once the Proposal is deemed satisfactory by the Advisor he or she will approve it and the student should start work immediately.

    3. Carrying out the necessary Literature Search, Research Work, Task Breakdown and Activity Scheduling.

    Students will then carry out the necessary research by reviewing the relevant literature, performing analysis, calculations and/or experiments and maintaining a research activity notebook summarizing their progress. Frequent interaction with the Faculty Advisor and with their classmates is mandatory during this phase. However, the student has complete responsibility for the Project since a key objective of it is to develop the ability to carry out independent work. It is also the student's responsibility to maintain the Faculty Advisor and the rest of the class appraised of his or her progress. Students must be prepared to devote a total of at least 120 hours of their time to the completion of the Project.

    4. Preparing Progress Reports and Presenting to the Class on Request.

    Following the proposal, two partial progress updates will be produced (one approximately every 3-4 weeks). Progress will be presented in front of the class following request from the instructor, even on short notice. Strict adherence to deadlines and the accomplishment of milestones are vital for successful completion of the Engineering Project. Students must document their progress on their web sites in a professional and timely manner.

    5. Preparing a Draft Final Report of the Work and Presenting it for Approval.

    Each student must present to the Faculty Advisor a final draft report of the research at least two weeks before of the last day of class. The draft must be a complete report and shall contain enough information in it to allow reproducibility of the results reported. The draft must be of high quality and it shall conform to the RPI Thesis/Project specifications as embedded in the official templates. It shall contain various sections such as Cover Page, Abstract, Table of Contents with page numbers, Introduction, Methodology, Analysis, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, References, and Lists of Tables, Symbols, and Figures. Please feel free to refer also to the guidelines established by professional societies such as the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME International), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), The Metallurgy and Materials Society (TMS), or the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for ideas to help you produce a high quality report.

    The cover page must contain, in order and centered on the page, the title of the Project, the student's name and the sentences "A Project submitted to the Faculty of Rensselaer at Hartford in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER of Engineering. Major Subject: (Mechanical, Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering or Engineering Science). The original of the seminar is on file at the Rensselaer at Hartford Library. Approved by Project Advisor, Prof. (Name). Rensselaer at Hartford, Hartford, CT, Date."

    The Advisor will review the draft and offer comments and suggestions for improvement. Students shall use the Advisor's feedback to prepare the final report. The Advisor is not obliged to review or approve seminar reports submitted outside the indicated schedule.

    6. Producing the Approved, Definitive Final Report using the specified format.

    Once approval to produce the final report has been received from the Faculty Advisor the student will prepare a final report. The report shall have all the characteristics of high quality, professional work and be prepared in the required standard format. Ideally, Project Reports shall be of high enough quality to serve as backbone for presentations at meetings or conferences of professional societies or for papers in the technical literature. Students are also encouraged to prepare their work for display on the World Wide Web. A detailed set of guidelines for the preparation of high quality Theses and Reports, as well as Thesis Templates (in MS Word and Latex formats) can be found at Rensselaer-Troy HelpDesk on Thesis Preparation. Please consult your advisor if you have any questions.

    Two copies of the final report will be delivered to the Faculty Advisor no later than the last day of class. The copies should be in hardcopy format as well as in electronic format. The hardcopies must be provided in standard 3-hole 8.5 by 11 white bond paper bound separatedly in black ACCO or Oxford binders (available at the Renssselaer-Hartford bookstore). The electronic copies should be in CDs and also in the student's web site. Please note that grading will be based on the student portfolios posted on individual student's web pages. The hardcopies and CDs are designed for archiving in the Rensselaer library. The Advisor will sign the final report and deliver one of the copies to the Registrar's Office together with the completed grade roster. The Registrar will then deliver the copy of the Project to the Rensselaer-Hartford Library for archival shelf filing.

    Course Format  

    The format of the class consists of explanation of guideliness and general advise on individual project stages by the Fculty Advisor. In addition, students will describe their progress at regular intervals of time and at the request of the Advisor. Time will also be allocated in time for literature searches, project planning, performance of analysis and computation and for writing. Significant progress on the Project is expected each week. Regular meetings with the instructor to discuss progress and as often as necessary are mandatory. No prior significant experience with scientific and engineering computation is assumed but students are expected to become efficient users of the following resources available in the classroom at RPI:

    Sun Workstation and PC Network,
    Symbolic Manipulation Program Maple V (student version strongly recommended for home study - see for details and see also the Maplesoft Homepage for a copy of the software for home study),
    Symbolic Manipulation Program MatLab (student version strongly recommended for home study - see the MathWorks Homepage.
    Basics of the Fortran programming language,
    Basics of the Gnuplot plotting and visualization software (see the Gnuplot Homepage for details),
    Basics of the COMSOL Finite Element Method software.
    Basics of the Ansys Finite Element Method software (student version strongly recommended for home study - contact Computer Aided Engineering Associates, Inc. for how to obtain a copy of the software for home study),
    Basics of the Latex document typesetting programing (see the Latex Class Handouts Page for details and PCTeX for a copy of the software for home study), and
    Basics of Internet Publishing.
    Basics of Remote Accessing (if you plan to use Rensselaer's resources from remote locations - check SSH for the appropriate software for your remote computer and Rensselaer's Technical and Information Services for help if need there be.

    If you are new to the network please make every effort to attend the workshop for new users at the begining of the semester (contact TIS for details). This workshop is an overview of our network and applications, login ids and passwords, dialup access, our PC classrooms, the Internet and more.

    Grading  

    Students completing successfully all the requirements for this course will earn a grade of "Satisfactory" (S).

    Reading Assignments  

    Reading assignments will be identified by you, by the Faculty Advisor and/or by your classmates. You are expected to read carefully any materials relevant to your project and to maintain a well organized library of resources used.

    Office Hours  

    By appointment only but preferably Thursdays 4:00-5:15. Other times may also be arranged but by appointment only.

    Code of Ethics  

    Ethical and professional conduct is expected from everyone. Violations of this code such as academic dishonesty, misrepresentation and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Failing grades will be assigned to any student who is found to engage or participate in unethical behavior. Given the research orientation of this class you must be particularly wary of avoiding charges of plagiarism.

    Buckley Amendment  

    Student privacy is guaranteed in this class by ensuring that no student has the opportunity of knowing any other student's grade. Although shared learning is encouraged among students, grades will be strictly confidential between the instructor and each individual student.


    Updated: 2010-09-20, 11:41