MEC202 - Industrial Awareness and Group Project

Project Demonstration & Final Report

Assignment Regulations

•       This is a group work. Each group MUST submit the required soft and hard copy by the due date.

•      A coversheet can be created in your own way, but the following information MUST be included: full name, student ID number, and email address of each member.

•      You may refer to on-line design, open source code, and other materials in your group work, however, the assignment should be your own team work.

•      Where you do  make use of other  references, please cite them in your work. Students are reminded to refer and adhere to plagiarism policy and regulations set by XJTLU.

•      Submissions may be accepted up to 5 working days after the deadline has passed; a late penalty of 5% will be applied for each working day late without an extension being granted. Submissions over 5 working days late will not be marked. Emailed submissions will NOT be accepted without exceptional circumstances.

•      It is of the utmost importance that you strictly follow the policy of academic integrity. Please refer to the penultimate page of this script. - Collaboration and Academic Integrity.

•       For your final report submission, on top of your submission, please use the standard cover page (final page of this script), and every group member must give the signature.

This is a group work, and each group consists of 4-5 students. The project demonstration and final report together accounts for 65% of the total module mark. The group task is to design and prototype a smart software application or a tangible product for specific user groups with at least three types of sensor applications. A software or physical prototype is expected, and computer models and user interface can be designed to associated with this software or physical prototype if necessary. In addition, a few industrial projects (as described in 2 separate documents) with similar theme as aforementioned (software application or tangible products), from local industrial partners in collaboration with the department, are open to choose, which can offer very good opportunity to gain useful professional experience, hands-on skills, as well as knowledge and experience about latest technology and product development on the market related to engineering.

Student groups can either decide their own topics relevant to proper development of software or product (i.e. general projects), or choose available industrial projects to work on. For industrial projects, student groups choosing the projects will be interviewed by a panel of 3 or 4 members with both academic staffs and colleagues from industrial partner, and only the best group can get a project. It is also noted that both projects with self-decided topics and those industrial projects are applied with the same deliverables and assessment criteria. The group project required deliverables and assessment criteria are stated as below.

The group work evaluation consists of both project demonstration and final report. It will be assessed by a panel of 3 or 4 academic staffs.

Learning outcomes being assessed:

1.   Apply and integrate knowledge from engineering and non-engineering disciplines to support design.

2.   Assess an engineering problem and identify constraints, expressing as a project brief.

3.   Use creativity to establish innovative engineering design solutions, justifying the selection of ideas.

4.   Plan and execute practical and/or simulation tests of design solutions and present reports containing analysis and discussion.

5.   Apply engineering design techniques, taking account of a selection of commercial and industrial constraints.

6.   Write, structure and present technical reports and specifications.

7.   Adopt an inclusive approach to engineering practice and recognise the responsibilities, benefits and importance of supporting equality, diversity and inclusion.

8.   Evaluate the environmental and societal impact of solutions to complex problems (to include the entire life-cycle of a product or process) and minimise adverse impacts.

1. Project Demonstration (60 marks)

Assigned: February 17, 2025

Demonstration date: May 9th-10th, 2025 (The detailed schedule would be announced soon).

Demonstration documents submission deadline: 2pm, May 8th  2025

For the project demonstration, a 5-minute show‐and‐tell presentation is arranged to explain user needs, design requirements, your project software/hardware prototypes, and demonstrate their features, functions and user experience. A 3-minute Q&A session would be scheduled after the presentation.

1.   One  A1  color poster is  required to support the demo for each group, which should clearly indicate each team member’s contribution.

2.    A less than three-minute video is required to support the demo for each group to explain user needs, design requirements, design features, functions, user feedbacks and testing results.

Please compress the two documents into one file and submit to Learning Mall. The compressed file should be named in MEC202 Demo_Group No_student ID1_ID2_,…,ID5. Missing submission of each required document will be deducted 20 marks.

The physical prototypes should be submitted to the designated location (to be arranged) with the project name, Group No, team members’ name and ID before May 12th 2025.

The source code of software prototypes and the relevant explanation document should be submitted to LM with the poster and video together before 2pm, May8th 2025.

Project Demonstration Outline

1.   Present the user needs and design requirements. Note that this part may involve ethics issues, and please indicate if your group has this part. If yes, please contact the module leader in advance.

2.   Highlight the design features in software/hardware prototype product.

3.   Demo the functions of software/hardware prototypes and explain the applied engineering technologies.

4.   Explain how user needs and design requirements are satisfied in your software/hardware product design.

5.   Demo and explain software/hardware prototype testing results (on site or video) from both design and user perspectives.

Table 1 provides the marking criteria of project demonstration and the marking sheet is shown in Table 2.

Table 1 Marking criteria of project demonstration

	Marks	Poor (10-40%)	Fair (40-60%)	Good (60-80%)	Excellent (80-100%)
User needs and design requirement identification	10	confused and unclear	Acceptable but not well thought out.	Generally clear and some minor points may be confusing.	Clear and logic.
Design features	10	Unclear	Few features	Good features	Innovative features
Quality  and  functions  of  the software/hardware prototype and product design	25	Bad  quality  and lack of functions	Reasonable with essential functions	Good design with robust functions	Excellent  designed with distinguished functions
Satisfaction of user needs and design requirements	10	unclear	Partially achieved.	Generally satisfied and some minor points may need improvement.	Fully satisfied
User feedbacks   and testing results	5	Unclear	Reasonable description	Clear description with reflection	Well-organized description and in-depth reflection

Table 2 Marking sheet (project demonstration)

	Group member names/ID
Assessment criteria
User needs and design requirement identification (10 marks)
Software/hardware design features (10 marks)
Quality and functions of the prototype and software/hardware product design (25 marks)
Satisfaction of user needs and design requirements (10 marks)
User feedbacks and testing results (5 marks)
Total (60marks)

2. Final Report (40 marks)

Assigned: February 17, 2025

Due: 11:59 PM on May 11th, 2025

The final report should be submitted in both soft and hard copy. The soft copy in pdf format should be named in MEC202 report_Group No_ student ID1_ID2,…,ID5. The hard copy should be two-sided color printing and submitted to the red cabinet outside the designated locaruib (to be arranged).

The report should have an appropriate title and cover sheet, and demonstrate a complete and thorough description of the process and outcomes in smart software applications or a tangible product design. It should include adequate explanation, justification, and supporting information. The report should be formatted using single line spacing, and no more than 4 pages/per person. The contents of the  report  are  up to  each group.  It  is  recommended  that the  report would  have  at  least  10  pages  (without  cover  page  and Appendices). The  individual  contribution  should  be  clearly  indicated  in  the  corresponding  sections  of  the  report.  The following information could be included with appropriate subtitles:

Report Outline

1.   Introduction

•       Identify user needs, and survey and review existing similar industrial products. Note that this part may involve ethics issues, and please indicate if your group has this part. If yes, please contact the module leader in advance.

•      Summarize a list of specific customer needs and design requirements.

•      Project planning and workload distribution.

2.   Design concept comparison, development and screening

•      Compare design concepts in terms of the specific user requirements.

•       Perform. design concept selection and choose one or two concepts for prototyping.

3.   Prototyping and testing

•       Explain  prototyping  methods  and  software/hardware  prototype  building  process.  Computer  models  and  user  interface design can be provided if necessary.

•       Prepare a testing plan in terms of user needs and design requirements.

•      Collect user feedbacks from the testing and conduct result analysis.

4.   Conclusion

•       Draw a conclusion of your smart software application or a tangible product design project.

•       Discuss the responsibilities, benefits and importance of your design in terms of supporting equality, diversity and inclusion if applicable.

•      Discuss the environmental and societal impact of your design solutions if applicable.

•      Reflect your design process, final design performance and provide further recommendation.

•      Detail individual contribution description.

5.   References

6.   Appendices

• Appendix A Engineering Drawings

This part includes circuit diagram drawings used in this smart product design, and other engineering drawings.

• Appendix B Components’ name and price list

• Appendix C Individual Contribution Form as Table 3

This part should provide a contribution form detailing the division of work load among the team members. This will be considered in determining the final mark for each student.

• Appendix D Group meeting minutes, individual student’s logbook, and so on.