MEE 390: Special Assignments - Individual Lab Project and Poster
for Prof. Kostic's courses (originally developed for MEE 390 & 490 Students)
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IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION TO STUDENTS:
The individual lab projects are not to be confused with regular lab experiments and are sole responsibility of each student (time, resources and cost). Normally, work orders or purchase orders are not provided by ME Department nor they could be timely, but are your personal responsibility. However, you might use only our available resources if approved by the relevant lab faculty-directors in advance and during regular business hours. If that is not provided in advance, you have to modify your individual project proposal, since the individual proposal (your own choice based on secured in advance and available to you resources only) is individual student’s responsibility and to be done on your own time, resources and cost. 
Any other special requirements needs to be worked out individually in advance with relevant lab faculty-director or his staff as a courtesy help only. This is not to be confused with help that we provide for a set of regular and mandatory MEE 390 lab experiments, which are prepared and demonstrated by the course instructor/TA and the students paid the lab fee for. Therefore, I only recommend (with this memo, PDF) that our resources may be used only if readily available, which is an important part of planning and managing the individual project.

Individual Lab Project and Poster (or PPT-Presentation)  (mandatory)
Here are the general instructions. Some may not apply to you. Any change is and will be given and clarified in class.

(*)Your MEE 390 Individual Project proposal has to be pre-approved during your meeting with instructor (please log your name in sign-up list during the meeting). Then, modify your proposal write-up according to instructor comments and email it as an attachment to instructor for final approval before the next class meeting. Your project proposal (and its title) have to be specific and reflect the project result(s), whatever they are, like resultant measured quantity or functional correlation, calibration relationship, etc.). You should know what the measurements and resultant quantities' dimensions and units are. EXAMPLE: Your Project Title should be specific, i.e. “Strain Measurements of Coca-Cola Can,” not general topic, like “Strain Measurements.”

Proposal Due no latter than one week after the assignment date.
Your typed proposal (one, maximum two pages with schematics included) must have:
    (1) a preliminary (but specific, not general type) title - must reflect final result(s) and objective(s), see above;
    (2) a brief description of objectives (what input measured quantities and your final result/s will be, what would you like to achieve..?);
    (3) planned experimental setup and method(s), and
    (4) a corresponding schematics (with your test object, measuring points with instruments and apparatus; hand sketch is OK).
You may discuss your idea with me, but only if you bring a short (one page) written proposal as instructed above (if you have two "strong" ideas to chose from, write a proposal for each, otherwise I would not discuss them with you). Further instructions and interim deadlines will be given after approval of your Poster/Project proposal, i.e. within one week after submission.

NOTE 2: First draft of your Individual Project Progress Report is due a week after it is approved. For the first draft, the form and esthetics are not important, but understanding and substance. See Additional guidelines for MEE 390 Individual Projects.

Final Report and Presentation Due no latter than one week before the last class if not specified otherwise):

As per our syllabus and class announcements given in the beginning of the semester, you have to make a poster (28 inch by 22 inch, standard poster size) about a sensor/transducer or an instrument of your choice. You have to research library resources and manufacturers information, as well as available resources on the Internet for your project. Furthermore, you will have to design, construct and perform a small experiment which will utilize your sensor/instrument, like a basic calibration and/or a purposeful experiment (quality being more important than quantity; use your experience from our regular lab experiments). Then, you have to prepare an effective illustrations/schematics and a physical sample (company donation or junkyard sample is OK). Remember, "seeing is believing," and "one picture is worth a thousand words." Use of colors and labeling is expected. Brief description of the physical principle on which the sensor/instrument design and operation are based and its technical specifications (range, resolution, accuracy, etc.), as well as typical applications, should be given. The font size must be at least 30 points. The write-up should be brief, but informative and appealing. You may prepare an effective PowerPoint presentation instead of the poster if you like to work more with multimedia presentation than with artistic hardware, like scissors, glue, etc). You have to make an impact on your classmates and your instructor in order to get more credit, particularly since the poster project also includes the "Individual lab project/experiment of your own choice" cited in the Syllabus. Therefore, you have to prepare an effective technical report (5-10 pages) about your experiment design and measurements according to the Instructions/Guidelines for project report writing and presentation. The posted instructions are general guidelines for MEE 390 & 490 and some may not apply to you and/or additional instructions may be given in class or on individual basis.Your measurement result(s) must include the uncertainty/error analysis. Further instructions and interim deadlines will be given after approval of your Poster/Project.

Improve a Lab (optional, Due date is the same as for the Individual Lab Project/Poster): As per class announcement given earlier, you may improve any lab that was demonstrated to you by our TA for an extra credit. You have to choose a lab that you believe you could improve substantially. In-depth analysis and application of the corresponding theory and uncertainty analysis, beyond the provided handout and class demonstration, is a must. An improved handout and more accurate results are expected. If this optional assignment does not result in the corresponding improvement of the class Lab, no additional credit will be given.

NOTE 1: It is possible, subject to my approval, to substitute Individual Lab Project with Improve-a-Lab optional assignment. Then you will have to make a corresponding Poster related to your Improve-a-Lab project. If you decide to make this substitution and if it is approved, the project scope, Report, and Poster should be prepared according to the guidelines for Individual Lab Project and Poster assignment and will be graded under the same criteria.

Relevant Project Links:
They include general and partial instructions. Some may not apply to you. Any change is and will be given and clarified in class.

The following link to a paper about a measurement experiment with detailed uncertainty analysis (I wrote with our Graduate Assistants) is an example to study, and it could have been done for your individual project:

Resource Links for Engineering Design and Project Presentation
Thomas Register of American Manufacturers***American Science & Surplus (Manifesto)

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