Structure

EG1004 Structure

The course consists of a weekly one-hour lecture, a three-hour lab, and a two-hour recitation. A supervising faculty member, a team of TAs, and a writing consultant manage each section.

Common Lecture

There will be common lecture for all the EG1004 sections each week, usually held in Dibner Auditorium. The lectures are delivered by Polytechnic faculty or outside experts discussing topics of general interest in engineering and technical work in general. To help you fully appreciate the lecture, and be able to pay attention to the speaker, we will usuallydistribute handouts of the speaker's slides after each lecture.

Lab

Two laboratory TAs supervise all lab work. The three-hour weekly lab begins with a five minute quiz based on the lab manual. You are expected to be fully familiar with the lab and what is required before you arrive, and the quizzes are a way to insure that you're ready to participate in the lab. After the quiz, your TA will proceed with a prepared briefing (usually a PowerPoint presentation). You will then perform the required lab work in teams following the guidelines in this manual and the instruction provided by your TA. Lab notes must be taken using the paper provided on the EG website.

After the lab, you will prepare a lab report and a presentation. Each lab that appears later in this manual contains a section called called Your Assignment.. Refer to this material before you begin your work. Your lab must be submitted electronically. Two Web pages in this manual will show you how to do this:

• How to use the EG1004 Web Sites
• How to submit work to the EG1004 Web Site

Your TAs will also review this with you. Submit all original data to the TA along with your lab notes when

you arrive at your next scheduled lab session.

There is a two week limit on late lab reports. Twenty points will be deducted for all or part of each week that your lab is late. Late labs will not be accepted more than two weeks past their due date.

A group of grading TAs will grade your lab reports for technical content, and your writing consultant will grade your lab report for style and use of the English language.

Your lab section will typically consist of up to nine teams of two students each, for a total of eighteen students per section. You will be assigned a team partner on a rotating basis, following industry practice where engineers and scientists are formed into large teams based on availability and technical expertise. Sometimes you might not like your teammmate, but like industry you will both be expected to put your personal feelings aside and operate as an effective team.

Recitation

Your supervising faculty member, writing consultant, and Recitation TA will run your two-hour weekly recitation. The supervising faculty member will be in charge of this session. Your team will prepare a PowerPoint presentation describing the laboratory experiment, which you will deliver as a team in front of the class. The instruction team will provide pointed criticism so that the entire class will be able to improve their skills. Periodically during the term, your project team will also present information about your semester long design project.

There is no lateness on presentations. Presentations will not be accepted after the start of the recitation.

The writing consultants (one per section) attend the recitation each week. In addition to grading your lab reports and being part of the team commenting on your presentation, they will present a 10-minute mini-lesson about how to write correctly and persuasively.

The recitation will typically start with some comments from the supervising faculty member and the mini-lesson delivered by the Writing Consultant. Next, the team lab presentations will be done by the students in the class. If "Milestone" presentations are scheduled, they will be done next. After the presentations are complete, the supervising faculty member may have some final comments. The recitation will then end, with the class moving to the Model Shop (JAB573) to work on your semester-long design project, described next.

Finally, there is a semester-long design project that runs in parallel with the other activities in the course. The projects will be described at your first recitation. It's early in the term, and you won't know much of the technical detail required to complete the project, so it's best to chosse a project that you find interesting. You'll get the tools needed to successfully complete the project as the term progresses. Typical projects are robots that overcome challenges, automatic routing using digital logic, and building construction. There is enough variety in the projects that everybody will find something interesting. At a later class you'll then be asked to choose a project you find interesting, frequently with a second choce. Based on the preferences of the class, you'll then be formed into project teams. These teams have no relation to the lab teams discussed earlier. You will work with the same project partner for the rest of the term. Like the lab teams, you will be assigned to a team and will not be able to just work with your friends. The project will involve technical work, plus the skills needed to manage a project successfully, including setting and managing to a schedule, and setting and maintaining a cost. You'll be giving several "milestone" presenations during the term, where you will report your technical progress, and also how you are doing on cost and schedule issues. A session during the last week of classes is reserved for your final project presentation. This presentation serves two purposes. First, it is the final "milestone" project describing how you ended up. Second, it is a marketing presentation explaining why a customer should want to buy your product instead of your competition's. Again, this is an important skill to learn. If a technical professional can't persuade a customer to buy their product they will go out of business, even if they have a superior technical solution.

Return to Table of Contents

Continue to next topic: Missing and Being Late for Class, and How to Make Up Work

Continue to previous topic: The Course