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Assignment for One
Credit Letter Grade Option
Overview
This one credit letter grade option is
offered to students whose schedule does not permit working on a team-based
project in ENGR110/210, but who wish to receive a letter grade.
For your assignment you are asked to
interview an individual with a disability or a senior, choose and pursue a
specific project activity, present your work, submit a final comprehensive
final project report that encompasses your efforts for the entire quarter, and
reflect on your experiences.
Contents
Required
Course and Individual Project Activities
The required course and project activities
for students working on an individual project for one credit and a letter grade
are:
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Participate fully in the class including
attending lectures as required, listening actively, posing questions to the
guest speakers and the course instructor, engaging in class discussions,
verbalizing thoughts and analyses, reading and responding to emails from the
course instructor, and communicating project progress.
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Attend at least 10 lectures, including
the first lecture, Introduction to Assistive
Technology.
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Meet with the course instructor to agree
on an assistive technology project and to report progress during the
quarter.
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Interview an
individual with a disability or senior, consisting of an overview of the
individual's life, challenges being faced, successes achieved, desires for the
future.
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Review of assistive
technology employed, their usefulness and limitations, problems experienced,
and similar products on the market.
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Focus on one of these
activities that relates to or would potentially benefit the interviewed senior
or individual with a disability:
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Research an assistive technology
topic - report on new products and research under
development.
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Pursue a "paper design" of an
assistive technology device - develop a CAD design or a "low resolution"
physical device built from foam-core or other prototyping
material.
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Create a work of art - create
an original poem, song, skit, painting, or video. (This option would be of
particular interest to students who have skills and expertise other than
engineering.)
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Give a final
presentation of about 15 minutes in length to be scheduled outside of class
time during the week of March 5th that includes PowerPoint slides,
photographs, and short videos as described below.
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Submit a final report that documents the
entire quarter's effort and addresses the elements described below. Individual final reports are due Monday, March
12th.
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Submit an Individual Reflection as described
below. Individual reflections are due Monday,
March 19th.
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Individual
Project Presentation
Week of March 5, 2012
Schedule a presentation time (the
presentation will take place during the week of March 5th) with the course
instructor. Describe your project work in a 15-minute presentation that may
employ PowerPoint slides, photographs, and short videos. Other students and
community members may be in attendance. The presentation should include the
following elements:
- Personal introduction
- One sentence project
description
- Overview of the interview with the senior
or individual with a disability
- Review of assistive technology
employed
- Choice of and rationale for the selected
project activity benefitting the interviewee:
- assistive technology topic
- paper design
- work of art
- Discussion of project activity process:
background research, alternatives considered, selected approach, rationale for
choice, prototypes made, and final design
- Project visualizations: photographs,
videos, sketches, drawings, models, prototypes
- Activity demonstration (as appropriate,
depending on project activity)
- Future work and challenges for continuing
the project, including technical feasibility, engineering difficulty, estimated
cost of a commercial product, and market potential (as appropriate, depending
on project activity)
Course staff, your classmates, and others in
attendance will judge your project on the process you employed, your prototype
on its overall design solution, and your presentation on its overall quality
according to these metrics:
- Content - what was overall quality
of the information you presented?
- Clarity - how well did the audience
understand your presentation's content?
- Conciseness - was your presentation
short and to the point?
- Completeness - did you include all
major elements?
- Convincing - did you provide a good
reason for all your design decisions?
- Creativity - how inventive /
innovative was your design / efforts?
Other presentation considerations and
suggestions:
- Anticipate questions from those in
attendance.
- There may be people from industry
attending the presentation, so please dress professionally (no jeans, t-shirts,
or flip-flops).
- Most important - practice your
presentation to maximize the quality of its content, clarity, conciseness,
completeness, understanding of your design decisions, creativity, pacing, and
timing.
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Individual Project
Report
Due Monday - March 12, 2012 at 5pm
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Your report should document all your
project efforts using the format below and be at least 10 pages in length,
printing on one side of the paper only. (The course instructor can print your
final version on a high quality color laser printer.)
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Suggested format for your project
report:
- Report cover - use the supplied
translucent report cover, do not staple pages
- Cover page - include course
name & year, project title, name, and photo
- Abstract - one paragraph
summary of objectives, approach taken, and results of the project
- Introduction - problem to be
addressed, problem background
- Objectives - project goals and
rationale
- Design criteria - project
background research, interviews with project suggestors and potential users,
project specifications
- Methods - what did you do and
why - include your evolution of ideas, alternatives considered, selected
approach, prototyping, model building, preliminary testing, calculations,
analysis of final design
- Results - discuss specifics of
your design solution such as features, benefits, aesthetics, cost, safety,
reliability, usability, test results, feedback from users, etc.
- Discussion - include challenges
and suggestions to further develop and refine the project
- Next steps - assuming this
project will be pursued in ME113 or as directed study, identify future
challenges and include a timetable of major tasks to produce and test a
functional prototype.
- Additional - optionally address
issues relating to technical feasibility, safety considerations, potential
manufacturing, cost of materials, mass production, marketing, advertising,
distribution, sales, licensing,
- Images - add photographs,
drawings, and sketches documenting your design process and activities
throughout the document
- References - bibliographic and
web citations
- Acknowledgements - cite
individuals / facilities who / that helped you
- Appendices - detailed
calculations, testing notes, relevant vendor information, etc. that are
referenced in the main body of the report
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In addition to a printed project report,
also submit an electronic copy.
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Individual
Reflection
Due Monday - March 19, 2012 at 5pm
Reflect on your class and project
experiences. Provide a discussion (two pages minimum) of your design process,
what you learned, and what was most valuable to you individually. Here are some
items to consider and address:
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Review Learning
through Structured Reflection article
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You have spent the past quarter hearing
from different professionals and users, interviewing community members,
brainstorming with your instructor, doing background research, looking at prior
art, fabricating and testing a prototype device, etc. Please comment on the
relative value of the different parts of this process toward your
design.
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How did the different interactions in the
class (with users, community members, speakers, professionals, etc.) contribute
to the results of your design? Was any particular interaction especially
rewarding or helpful? Why?
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If you were to go through this process
again, what would you do differently? Was there support from the teaching staff
or course content that was helpful or that you felt was missing? What advice
would you give to future students?
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Additional questions to be considered for
your reflection can be found here.
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Grading
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Progress
Reports
Final Report
Final Presentation
Individual
Reflection
Participation * |
30%
30%
30%
10%
10% |
- * Participation includes meeting with
instructor, actively listening, posing questions to the guest speakers and the
course instructor, engaging in class discussions, verbalizing thoughts and
analyses, and communicating project progress.
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