Third Year Project

Third Year Project David R. Selviah Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering University College London E-Mail: d.selviah@ee.ucl.ac.uk Phone: 020 7679 3056 Fax: 020 7388 9325

Outline • Project Aims and Description • Project Deliverables • Logbook, Viva • Report Writing • Bar Chart, First Report, Plagiarism • Oral Presentation • Literature Survey • Project Work Mark • Time Management

Securing the Project • Once you have considered carefully your choice of project you need to register formally in order to secure the project. • Obtain a registration form from the departmental office room 705, and take it to your supervisor. • Agree with him the clear aims of the project, the title and what you will be doing.

Securing the Project • Make sure the form is completed by you and your supervisor with the agreed title, your name in block capitals underlining your family name and both of you must sign it. • Give it to the departmental office to secure your registration. • Some supervisors may ask for you to give them a photocopy of the form.

Project Aims and Description • Write a clear description of what you think are the agreed aims and project to be carried out, putting the title and your name at the top and e-mail it to your supervisor. • In this way your supervisor can check that you both have the same clear idea of what is involved in the project. • He will then either modify it or will write a correct description of the project which he sends to the third year project co-ordinator. • A panel of academics will then double check that the project is neither too hard nor too easy and that the aims are likely to be achievable in the given time.

Securing the Project

Second Assessor • A ‘second assessor’ is appointed by your supervisor to act as a second examiner. • The second assessor acts as an independent second check on the fairness of marking and plays a major role in the viva. • The second assessor is usually not involved in the project but can help the student during the project by bringing complementary expertise and a second viewpoint of the work.

The course of the Project • You will begin your project in term 3 of this year. • Immediately after your last exam you must go to see your supervisor. • We expect you to carry out at least two weeks of project work and attend the two design lectures before the end of term so do not arrange your flights home until after that. • It is mainly library search work and photocopying of key sections of books, research papers and web sites. • In addition, you will begin to prepare your first report.

Project Assessment • The project will be marked on the following: • Work task planning • Task execution (Work Quality) • Time and resource management • Independence • Initiative and Originality • Oral Presentation • Written Work • Effort • Achievement

Project Assessment • You will be marked by your supervisor and the second assessor. • Then the marks will be moderated by the Departmental Project Review Panel to ensure fairness.

Project Importance • The project is worth one quarter of the marks for the whole third year. • Employers ask supervisors to send them a secret letter telling them about your punctuality, ability to meet deadlines, honesty, how hard you work as well as your academic ability. • So poor performance in the project may affect your employment prospects. • If you fail the project the FIRST TIME that you take it you can only be awarded a degree without a specified field of study, even if you take the project again and pass it. • Such a degree is not accredited by the IEE.

Project Deliverables • You are required to submit pieces of work, known as ‘deliverables’ which must be carried out by certain deadlines. • Marks are awarded for these deliverables. • The following table shows the percentage of the total project mark allocated for each deliverable.

Project Deliverables

Project Deliverable Penalties • If you are late in submitting a report your marks for that report will be reduced by the percentages given in the following table. • If you are absent from the presentation without due cause you will lose quarter of the marks for the whole project!

Project Deliverable Penalties

Logbook • The first thing you must do is to obtain a logbook. • The logbook is a record of everything you have done on the project. • It is A4 hardback with fixed bound in pages which cannot be removed - try ULU and the college shop. • You should number every page so that it will be clear if anyone has torn out any pages - for legal intellectual property (IP) reasons. • Leave 2 pages free at the start so that you can enter an index to help you to find your way around it. • It need not be neat but it must be legible.

Logbook • Always date every entry. • Record in it the experimental parameters for each experiment you do and the results - tables and graphs. • Record every modification to a computer program that you make and its new name and the program output. • Record every program run, the input parameters and the output data file. • Glue in print outs of computer programs, graphs and tables. • Take it with you to all your meetings with your supervisor. • Draw rough sketches in it and ask your supervisor to do so and not on scrap paper during your meetings.

Logbook • There is a mark of up to 15 % for project work given by your supervisor and he may use your entries in your logbook to help to determine this mark. • You must also take your logbook to the viva to show to your supervisor and second assessor.

Viva • The viva is a live examination in which you are questioned by two examiners and discuss your project work and your second report. • The examiners are your supervisor and your second assessor. • The second assessor generally runs the viva and asks most of the questions.

Viva • The viva is really a time when the examiners can help you to improve your marks. • The viva has several aims • To find out if you wrote your second report. • To find out if there are any ‘holes’ in your knowledge of the subject which you can then ‘plug’ before the presentation questions and final report. • To see if you have a good plan of how to complete the project. • To feedback to you comments on how to improve on your second report when you write your final report.

Viva • The viva usually begins with you giving a short ~5 minute presentation about your aims, your method to achieve the aims and your results. • You should prepare this in advance. • The feedback you get from the examiners will help you to improve this so that you can give it again at the oral presentation. • We cannot tell you what questions we will ask as they arise naturally in response to what you say in your presentation and in answer to earlier questions. • You may refer to your second report or draw sketches or write equations.

Report Writing • You may not have a lot of experience of writing text as you may have concentrated on scientific subjects and given up writing many years ago. • Employers expect new graduate engineers to write clearly and logically and to spell correctly. • So you need to develop and practice these skills. • If you carry out some exciting research and then cannot explain in written form or in oral form what you have done then no one will be able to appreciate your work.

Report Writing • An extended piece of writing cannot be written by just sitting down and writing it. • You must have a plan and a structure. • Everything must be placed logically so that later arguments build on the conclusions of earlier arguments.

Report Writing • You cannot expect the reader to sit down and read from the start to the end of your report without putting it down. • The reader may put it down for a few days and then pick it up again to continue having forgotten what came before. • You can overcome this by reminding the reader of the main conclusions that you would like them to remember from the previous sections. • However, if you do this too much you will annoy readers who do read from start to finish as they will notice this repetition.

Report Writing • Place ‘signposts’ in the text to tell the reader where he is, where he has come from and where you are going in the next section. • It is very common for students not to say what they are trying to prove or trying to show in that section. • The natural inclination is to hide the big climax until you have built up to it and then to reveal it in the hope that you will stun the reader with admiration. • However, this actually serves only to annoy the reader.

Report Writing • Every statement that you make must either be proved by you there or must have a reference to someone who stated that fact before.

Report Writing • The best way to start writing a report is not to do any writing of text. • Instead start by making a plan of the report structure. • A good way to do this is to write down a ‘skeleton’ of the report in the form of chapter titles, section and subsection titles. • You can show this to your supervisor and obtain advice. • Then add to your outline all of the points, graphs and figures that you want to include in each section and estimate the number of pages of each section. • This will help you to avoid leaving anything out and to decide the correct balance between sections.

Report Layout A standard report layout consists of • Title page using the standard format from the web. • Abstract • Statement of authorship and originality from the web. • Acknowledgements • Contents List • Introduction • Chapters reviewing background work and earlier similar work

Report Layout • Chapters describing how you carried out the project. • Chapters presenting the results of your work • Chapters discussing your work • Conclusions • References • Appendices • A full description of the report layout and how to write a report is given in a detailed document at web site http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~dselviah/ReportOutline.html which is one of the articles you will need to read during this summer.

Report Layout • Use standard forms for diagrams, symbols, references, etc. • http://bsonline.techindex.co.uk BS 4811:1972 The layout of reports BS 5555:1993, ISO 1000:1992 SI Units and their multiples BS 1629:1989 Format of references to published material BS EN 60617-4:1996 Symbols for components • Other standards for the format of references are • Harvard Standard http://www.busmgt.ulst.ac.uk/eru/harvard.html • Citation of electronic web sites http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html • IEEE standard

First Report Layout • The standard report layout will need to be adapted to suit the needs of the first and second reports. • The first report will describe the aims and how you intend to proceed in order to achieve those aims. • It will include a review of the books and academic papers that you have read during the summer. • It will include a detailed plan of the tasks that you need to perform and how long each will take and when you will start and finish them. • This is conveniently displayed on a ‘bar chart’ drawn using Excel or using a GANTT chart program.

Bar Chart Time Plan

First Report Layout • The first report will list the books and academic papers that you found during your literature search and that you refer to in the review chapters. • Although 2000 words sounds a lot it is usually too few to say what you wish to say. • So you will need to plan it carefully. • You need to submit two paper copies and one electronic copy of your report so we can electronically verify that there has been no plagiarism.

Plagiarism • Plagiarism is committed if you copy a paragraph, sentence, phrase or even an idea from someone else's text without acknowledging that it has been copied so that it looks as if you are trying to present it as if it were your own work. • If you must use a phrase or sentence from somewhere then put it in inverted commas and also make it italic and give a reference to where you copied it from. • Preferably you should rewrite it using your own words and give a reference to where you obtained the information. • It is very easy for us to identify plagiarised work. • We do not hesitate in treating plagiarism VERY, VERY SEVERELY similar to copying or cheating in exams.

Plagiarism • The need for correct acknowledgement also applies to figures, drawings and computer programs. • Each drawing that is copied must have a reference to where you copied it from in the figure caption. • Preferably you should redraw the figure yourself and still say that it was inspired by a figure in a quoted reference. • This includes copying from web sites, other students reports and earlier students reports.

Plagiarism • Read the posters around the department describing what constitutes plagiarism. • This also applies to copying data sheets or programs into the appendix of your report. • We ask that you include at the front of your reports a signed statement of authorship and originality printed from the project web page.

Report Assessment • The reports are marked on • Technical content • Presentation and Style • Structure • Originality and Independence • Effort and Dedication • Achievement

Oral Presentation • A few weeks before the presentation you will submit an abstract describing your talk. • At the presentation you stand and talk using powerpoint slides, to between 5 and 20 students and 4 or 5 academics. • A professor from another university may also attend to check on fair marking. • You will speak for 10 minutes and then answer questions from anyone for a further 5 minutes. • Three or more of the academics present (not your supervisor) will mark your presentation.

Oral Presentation • The chairman will stop you after 10 minutes whether you have finished or not. • He may give you a one minute warning before the end. • Then he will call for questions from the floor. • The questions may require you to defend your work and methods of achieving your aims. • It gives you the chance to impress the examiners with additional knowledge that you may have about the subject. • The questions may require you to go back to an earlier slide and then to explain it again more clearly. • So it is helpful to number the slides.

Oral Presentation • You will be marked on the following criteria: • Interest - Did you make the subject sound interesting and excite the audience to want to know more? • Presentation style - Did you avoid ‘ums’ and ‘errs’, have good body language, a loud clear voice well projected, clearly laid out slides with easily readable font without spelling errors, smart, clean and neat personal appearance?

Oral Presentation • Structure - Did you plan your talk well with a logical progression of ideas arranged for clear understanding? Was your abstract clear? • Achievements - What did you actually achieve yourself in terms of experimental results or computer output? • Content - Is your work of a high quality? Do you have a good depth of understanding of the subject? • Effort - Try to impress the examiners with the amount of effort involved in obtaining the results.

Oral Presentation • A typical layout for a presentation would be • Title slide listing the aims. • Outline of talk. • Background • Work Done • Results • Conclusions • If you use 20 powerpoint slides it means one every 30 seconds.

Oral Presentation • This presentation uses Dark Blue Times New Roman Font size: Titles Bold Italic 44, Text 24 on a white background with bright red square bullets. • You can choose your own fonts but they must be as clearly and easily readable as this. • Bullet points are a good way to put across information. • You notice that it is not possible to fit more than about 6 bullet points on a slide.

Oral Presentation • Try to concentrate on graphs, diagrams and tables rather than lots of equations as they can be quickly assimilated. • Avoid the use of too many graphical animation effects as it does not impress the examiners and tends to distract from the content of your presentation.

Oral Presentation • You will need to practice projecting your voice. • You need to sound interested if you want the audience to be interested as well. • Do not speak on a monotone and sound boring. • Do not reduce the pitch or volume of your voice towards the end of a sentence. • Do not try to hold your breath while speaking and then let it out in a sigh at the end of the sentence. • Try to speak in a loud resonant voice, this will sound confident.

Oral Presentation • Body Language and your posture is important. • Do not cross your arms or put your hands in your pockets. • Do not turn your back to the audience and talk to the board. • Do try to look at them in their eyes. • Look interested, alert and keen.

Oral Presentation • If you can perform a successful demonstration it will make your talk more interesting. • You might run a computer program, or control a robot, or demonstrate a remote control, or pass around a device you fabricated in the clean room. • Even if your project is a maths one you might construct a 3D model to illustrate the output.

Oral Presentation • Practice you talk • on your own • in front of a mirror • in front of friends • in front of your supervisor • in front of a video camera and voice recorder. • The best student who won a prize practised 20 times in all.

Literature Survey • All projects begin in the same way by carrying out a literature survey of the subject area. • This is a very precise search to find similar earlier work carried out anywhere in the world. • This is begun during your second year in the two weeks following your last exam before the end of term 3 so do not book your flights home until after the end of term. • During this period your aim is to locate and print or photocopy or borrow from the library relevant texts.

Literature Survey • Start by searching the Library Contents database of all of its books to find out which books are available which contain the required information and then borrow them. • Go to the Library web site at • http://www.ucl.ac.uk/UCL-Info/Divisions/Library/index.htm • Click on the Library Catalogue, eUCLid • Find out which books are available which contain the required information and then borrow them. • The library offers courses of 1-2 hours on use of e-resources, searches and databases. • Please ask the librarians for help.

Third Year Project