MS&E 108 Senior Project
Five Fridays, 10:00 a.m. 200-205(Class times might be different for final presentations.)
Announcements
If you represent an organization that might want to sponsor a project, please visit the Sponsors page.Please do not wait until January to form your four-student team or to arrange for a project.
To report your team or for help finding a team or teammate(s), please visit the Teams page.
Seniors,
MS&E 108, Senior Project, is required of all MS&E majors, and is only
offered during the Winter Quarter.
An organizational meeting will be held for those students planning to take MS&E&E
108, Senior Project during Winter Quarter 2009-2010.
The meeting, at 11am, on Friday, November 13 in Thornton 110,
provides an opportunity to meet other students in the course and ask
any questions.
If you are unable to attend the meeting, you can obtain all of the information at this web site.
During the winter quarter, students will work in teams of four on
public service and industrial consulting projects.
It is not too early to form your team and to develop any leads you may have for potential projects,
or to follow up the leads developed by the course faculty.
MS&E 108 Faculty
Faculty contact information is on the Contacts page.
Course Description
This course is devoted completely to your senior project. You must form four-person teams, preferably by December 11, 2009, but no later than January 8, 2010. Each team is responsible for locating an organization with a project that can be approached using methodology learned in your MS&E courses. MS&E faculty have contacts at a number of local organizations with potential projects. Contact Prof. Shachter as soon as possible for details if you anticipate needing assistance identifying a project. (You must form a four-person group before requesting project leads.)Your project must be approved by the MS&E 108 faculty. Following approval, your team will be assigned to a faculty advisor who will serve as a combination consultant and taskmaster throughout the quarter. Both a written and an oral final report are required. You will be working with the Communications Program in the School of Engineering for advice on oral reports. Finally, just as in the "real world," deadlines are crucial, and missing them bears consequences.
Meetings And Grading: Standards for Professional Behavior
The course is about how to apply the concepts of our department as professionals and to prepare our students for careers. Students should think of 108 as training for the real world. In that light tardiness and absences reflect on the student's qualifications.Part of this course's goals is to help prepare students for professional norms of behavior - that includes being proactive and assuming responsibility rather than making excuses for progress not made. Being punctual for meetings with your faculty advisor and industry clients, attending all class and group sessions, and delivering quality written materials on time are part of these norms. If you fail to meet these norms, you can expect your grade to suffer.
Scheduled class meetings and weekly individual project team meetings with your team's faculty advisor will be held throughout the quarter. These meetings are not numerous, but they are very important. Each member of the class is expected to attend every scheduled class meeting and be on time. Students are responsible for checking the course website for updates on scheduled class meetings. Students must keep the class meeting time free on their schedules for the entire quarter. Absences will be considered in determining a student's grade in the course. Only one absence is allowed without affecting your final grade. After that, you lose half a grade for each absence. For example, if your team receives an A but you were absent for two class sessions, you will receive an A- (the first absence is permitted, the second absence costs half a grade). Also important in determining individual student grades will be their contribution to the overall success of the project, quality of the oral presentation, quality of the written report, and attendance at individual project team meetings with the team's faculty advisor.
Guidelines For Written Project Description
The Project Description Form is due by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday January 19, 2010, submitted via the course web site. The purpose of the project description is to describe the problem your team will be tackling, what you plan to do, how you plan to do it, and what you expect your results to be. The primary goal is to communicate to your advisor (in the "real world," your manager, director, or vice-president) what you plan to do. Be sure to include a dated timeline that maps out exactly what steps you plan to take during the progress of the project. The project description will also serve to organize your project, providing a base from which you will begin your work. The description should be two to three pages long, and must include the following sections:1. Project title
2. Administrative information (names, telephone numbers and emails of the four team members; organization name; organization contact person name, telephone, and email);
3. Statement or description of the problem;
4. Proposed approach (steps to be taken in investigating and evaluating the problem);
5. Data requirements (anticipated information needed to analyze the problem);
6. Data sources (where you anticipate getting the data you need);
7. Anticipated results (make sure that you understand all aspects of the problem so you can realistically predict the kinds of results you will achieve - show that you have really thought about the problem!);
8. Schedule of work (detailed timeline); and
9. A schedule of 5-6 available meeting times (one hour blocks between 9am-6pm, Monday-Friday) when your entire team can meet with a faculty advisor. (Note that your team is assumed to be available during class time, Fridays 10 am to noon.)
Project Team Meetings
All teams will be responsible for scheduling weekly meetings with their faculty advisor at a mutually convenient time. Each team member is expected to attend each weekly meeting with the team's faculty advisor. In preparation for each meeting, your team must submit a one or two page written summary at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. The summary should contain these items:1. A review of work accomplished since the last meeting
2. A description of what work will be done next, and
3. A list of questions and issues to be discussed at the meeting
To facilitate preparation for your team's meeting with your faculty advisor, you should schedule a second, working meeting with your team once each week, approximately two to three days prior to the meeting with your faculty advisor.
Communication Protocols
Please use the following formatting standards for all weekly communications with your advisor, where X is your assigned team number and n is the week in the quarter:| email subject line for weekly report: | 108 Team X Week n Report |
| title of weekly report: | 108 Team X [Shortened Project Title] Week n Report |
| name of electronic file for weekly report: | 108 Team X Week n Report |
In addition, please include page numbers in all reports and make sure to copy everyone on the team on each email sent to the advisor.
Technical Communications Program Meetings
All teams are expected to schedule and attend at least two tutorials with the staff of the School of Engineering's Oral Communication Program. Sign-ups are in Terman 105. The first tutorial should be at least a week before your presentation in class. The second tutorial should be at least three days before your talk. Additional tutorials (in which your team could be videotaped) are highly recommended.Final Written Report
You will submit your final written report to your faculty advisor (in hardcopy), to the organization that sponsored your project, and to the course archives. Your written report should contain these items:- letter of transmittal to the company (attached to the report)
- cover page
- one-page Executive Summary
- one-page table of contents
- report sections as follows (modified to suit your particular project):
- introduction (including company background, nature of the problem, and project description)
- methods (including any model and data collection)
- results
- conclusions and recommendations
- technical appendices
Please use at least 1.5 line spacing and reasonable font size for readability; number body pages 1, 2 . . . and Appendix pages A-1, B-1, B-2, C-1 . . . and use those numbers when referring to material in an Appendix.
There is no minimum or maximum number of pages in the body of the report or in the appendices. Typical reports will have a body length of between 10 and 20 pages and between 5 and 15 pages of Appendix material.
Discuss the content with your faculty advisor. Ideally, you should prepare sections of the report (e.g., project description, methods, etc.) as you progress along the project timeline. Your grade will almost surely suffer if you leave all the writing to the end.
Written Report Grading
The Written Report will comprise the majority of your course grade, as modified by your attendance. In grading reports, faculty members evaluate both technical content and presentation style (including such things as appropriate organization, use of headings, clear explanations and charts, and absence of grammatical errors or misspellings). The report should clearly reflect the effort you exerted during the quarter as well as the quality of your solution; in other words, it should represent your achievement. You may ask your advisor to discuss with you specifics of what he or she expects in the context of your particular project.You should submit the final written report to your faculty advisor, your client organization, and the course archives at the same time (March 13, 2009).
Oral Presentations
Near the end of the quarter, each team will make a 12-minute oral presentation to the class. All team members should participate equally, both in time and effort. You must finalize your presentation by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday before the start of Oral Presentations, and submit it to the course archives. We'll load all presentations onto a single laptop to avoid delays between presentations. Bring your presentation to class on a memory stick as a backup.Dress code for Oral Presentations: Professional Attire (e.g., coat & tie or equivalent).
Please inform the people you have worked with at the organization that sponsored your project that they are welcome to attend our final oral presentations. They truly enjoy being invited, being introduced to the class, and listening to the results of projects. You also may wish to volunteer to present your findings orally at the organization.