成人大片

On completion of the course, students should have sufficient knowledge to:

Managing in excess of 250 students, 200 potential projects and 25 supervisors is time consuming and logistically difficult. Consequently a custom web-based database was developed. Staff can enter project information using an online proforma, and manage students who wish to undertake the project. Students can view project information, what special skills might be needed, and who is currently selected for the project. The database also serves as a repository for electronic copies of the theses (final reports) and posters (presented at MechExpo) for the benefit of future students. For more information on the database, please see: https://projectselect.mecheng.adelaide.edu.au/

It is essential that the information on this database remains up to date as it is used as a feed to populate the booklets for the seminar and MechExpo.

The following book contains useful advice on planning and carrying out a student project:

• The Management of a Student Research Project, Howard, K. & Sharp, J.A. (1983), Aldershot: Gower. (Copies are available in the School Library and in the Barr Smith Library.)

The following electronic resources will also be available for download through MyUni.

• NASA - Systems Engineering Handbook available for free download from
• NASA - System Engineering Toolbox for Design Oriented Engineers available for free download from
• NASA - NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Handbook available for free download from
• NASA – Prometheus Project Final Report available for free download from
• Nancy G. Leveson – A New Approach To System Safety Engineering available for free download from
• A range of recommended tools, introductory videos, primers and hints and tips for assignments will be provided to students at the commencement of each topic

Students will be provided access to the lecture notes, recordings of lectures, assignments and reference material from MyUni.

Teaching Method

Weekly meeting with supervisors, preparation of oral and written presentations. Workshops throughout the year to assist in the management of the project and its deliverables.

Supervisors

The supervisor's role is to provide advice and guidance, and to ensure that the project proceeds in a fruitful direction. You should not expect your supervisor to do your thinking for you, or to tell you exactly what to do. You are expected to generate your own ideas, to seek out information for yourself, and to make your own decisions about what to do and how to do it. You should make arrangements with your supervisor for WEEKLY CONSULTATIONS at which progress may be reported, discussed and assessed. All workshop drawings must be countersigned by your supervisor before submission to the workshop.

EMPP

Students will be expected to weekly workshops and lectures in order to be able to complete the required EMPP coursework within their own (extra curricula) time.

Students will complete EMPP assignments within their final year project groups with most assignments contributing directly to their FYP deliverables. Students, in their FYP groups, will act out integrated project team roles for each assignment so that they can relate the lessons of the course to real-world applications and examples.

Time Management

Design and research always take longer than you first imagine. It cannot be rushed, so don't leave it all until the week before the submission deadlines. What you get out of the project will be directly related to the effort you put into it. Each of you is expected to put in a minimum of 360 (45hrs/point by 8 point subject) effective hours on the project, that’s over a day/week including mid-semester breaks; the proportions of time and effort spent on other parts of the course should reflect their relative importance.

Clearly you will need to manage your time efficiently - and will have to learn to juggle several activities simultaneously. Do not use projects as an excuse for not getting on with some other parts of the course. If there are serious clashes see your supervisor as soon as possible.

Procedure for Projects with External Clients

1. Meet with client in week one to discuss the project, view the plant/facilities and meet and get to know your contact person.
2. Think about the problem and refine the task specification with the client's and supervisor's help. The specification is extremely important as it clarifies and quantifies what has to be achieved and within what boundaries. Also draw up a schedule of the activities for the project, with deadlines.
3. When you have a clear understanding of the problem use literature search and lateral thinking to formulate a number of possible solutions. Evaluate each solution in terms of pros and cons, remembering function, cost, ease of manufacture, reliability, safety and the environment. These solutions form part of the preliminary report and you will present them, with your recommendations, to the client.
4. After discussion with client and supervisor, one or two solutions are then chosen for more detailed analysis and testing during the remainder of the project. Regular consultations should be arranged with the client.

In sponsored projects the supply of any hardware is the client's responsibility.

EMPP

Students will be challenged to complete the EMPP assignments within the real world constraints of completing final year subjects and their FYP. Effort equivalent to a 3 point subject loading will be expected of students to complete EMPP assignments to at least a pass standard.

To ensure the workload between groups and students working on individual projects is balanced the assignments are structured appropriately. Students concerned with work overload, particularly those working on individual projects, are encouraged to seek clarification from the EMPP coordinator earlier rather than later if they feel that any assignment is likely to cause an issue.

Final Year Project Workshops

There will be a series of workshops organised throughout the year to assist the students in managing their project and meeting the deliverables. Topics of the workshops include:

• Project expectations and organisation
• Reference search and literature review tutorial (organised by the Library)
• OH&S and Risk Assessments
• Intellectual Property and Good Practice Workbooks
• Project planning including, creating a Gantt chart as well as strategic decisions and resulting consequences in project development
• Design and technical drawing for manufacture
• Report writing
• Seminar presentation
• Organisation of exhibition
• Poster presentation

An essential part of the Preliminary Report is a critical survey of existing published material relating to your project investigation. This involves locating, reading and analysing the relevant material.

To help you locate such material a Literature Search Tutorial will be arranged with the Engineering Course Librarian, Barr Smith Library, at a time and date to be advised. You will be required to assemble at the Barr Smith Library Information Desk at the appointed time.

When writing your reports you need to use a standard and consistent referencing system. You can use the SA Uni guide "Referencing using the Harvard system (author-date system)" which is available online at:

EMPP

EMPP will be taught as a series of intensive workshops (Semester One and Two) on Project Management and Risk Management, and a series of lectures in Semester Two.

The Project Management and Risk Management intensives will cover:

• Project Management and Risk Management, with a focus on Project Charter preparation
• Problem solving
• Progress reports
• Skills for change management
• Benefit management
• Communication with impact
• Project Completion Report
• Post Implementation Review

The Semester Two lectures will cover:

• Financial Accounting
• Business for Engineers
• Marketing for Engineers
• Human Resource Management
• Ethics
• Law for Engineers

Students will be expected to conduct self-paced assignment work equivalent to a maximum of approximately 4 hours for every 1 hour lecture.

Students, at their discretion, may also need to undertake additional activities including independent research, or by seeking clarification of assignment issues and deliverables via communications with the EMPP course coordinator or lecturers.

The assessment is split 67% to the Project and 33% to EMPP.

Project assessment is comprised of written, oral and visual forms of communication. This is comprised of:

EMPP is assessed entirely through coursework composed of project-related deliverables plus independent assignments. The EMPP marks constitute 1/3 of the final Design Project course marks. The assessable items are listed below:

All assessment, with the exception of the Preliminary Report (a predominantly formative assessment), Student Achievements and the Workbooks, are assessed by at least two staff members. The Final Report (typical of a traditional honours thesis) and Project Outcomes are assessed by the supervisor and another academic staff member not related to the project. If the two staff cannot agree on a mark, then this goes to a third staff member to moderate.

Assessment of the Public Seminar is undertaken by a panel of at least 4 staff members. It is conducted like a conference, spanning three days in two parallel sessions. 

The assessment of MechExpo (the project exhibition) is conducted by both academics and external judges. The external judges consist of practicing engineers, patent attorneys, managers and entrepreneurs. Each project would be typically assessed by at least 8 assessors. The assessment if the external judges and academics are similar to within 10%. MechExpo is characterised by intense and enthusiastic competition for the prizes for excellence that are sponsored by local industry.

Note 1:

The deadlines will be strictly enforced with the appropriate penalties.

Note 2:

All written reports must be handed in both in hard copy to the School Office and electronically via Turnitin. The written documents will incur a 5% penalty for each day late.

Note 3:

Other deadlines will result in a penalty of 1% if late. No exceptions will be made under any circumstances. Deductions will be made against Student Achievements. If the deadline for submission of the abstract is missed, then your abstract will not appear in the book of abstracts.

Note 4:

At least TWO COPIES of the Final Report must be submitted (one copy for each supervisor and second copy for the School). These only need to be in black and white unless the supervisor recommends otherwise. For the Preliminary Report, only a single copy needs to be submitted unless otherwise requested by supervisor(s) or sponsor.

Note 5:

Technical drawings must be supplied to the mechanical workshop before the end of week 11 in order to provide adequate time for construction. Drawing submission must be preceded by a preliminary design review and critical design review phases.

Note 6:

In an attempt to encourage a focus on quality, rather than quantity, a word limit has been set in place for all reports. The number of pages allowed is as follows:

• Preliminary report: 4000*(n+1) pages, where n is the number of students in the group.
• Final report: 5000*(n+1) pages, where n is the number of students in the group.

The page limit does not include frontmatter including title page, acknowledgements, table of content, and so on, nor does it include backmatter including references, appendices, etc.

Self and Peer Assessment

In groups of more than two students, self and peer assessment is used to redistribute the marks according the effort and outcomes achieved by individuals. For more information please see the discussion in the appendix as well as the Self and Peer Assessment Form. These forms should be used on all group assessed components except the seminar presentations and the exhibition.

Assessment Quality Assurance

The traditional model of an honours project in Engineering in Australia is for students to work as individuals on a research-based project, and the main assessment is the final thesis. This differs a considerably from the model employed in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the 成人大片, where the final thesis, although still the largest individual assessment, only accounts for 40% of the final mark awarded for the course. In addition, group projects are actively encouraged and research-based projects typically only account for 20% of projects, with the majority being of the form of design, build, test and evaluate. Despite the significant differences in assessed deliverables, in 2009 the School was involved in a program to benchmark the quality of the assessment of the final theses. This involved exchanging ten theses, representing each decile from the annual cohort, with an engineering school at another Group of Eight (sandstone) university that employed a traditional research based assessment. The theses were then assessed based on supplied marking criteria. Moderated marks were on average within 2% of the mark awarded by the source institution.

Lecture and tutorial attendance is compulsory. While formal records of attendance will not be captured (professional behaviour equates to trust) there will be hints and tips related to the assignments that will only be available during the lectures / tutorials.

Students will need to cope with incomplete and conflicting information and to make judgements which demonstrate professional, ethical and logical behaviours. The time constraints of this course, compared to actually working as a graduate engineer in a multi-disciplinary role, limit the amount of detailed deliverables students can deliver. Quality of deliverables is far more important than quantity. 'Less is more'.

Students will primarily be assessed on their ability to think and act professionally and to demonstrate initiative as reflected in the quality of their deliverables. Students are advised to approach this course as if it was an extended job interview. Don't hesitate to ask questions. ('In a learning environment there are no wrong questions')

Students are also required to provide an assessment of the contribution of their own and their group members’ contribution to each assignment. This peer review may be used to alter group marks to reflect a greater or lesser contribution by an individual to an assignment. Further information will be provided as each assignment is issued.

Listed below are some of the factors which will be considered in the assessment

1. Report Presentation

2. Approach to Project

3. Design Approach (where applicable)

4. Research Approach (where applicable)

5. Deductive Ability

6. Exhibition

7. Seminar

PAPER SUBMISSION

At least TWO COPIES of the Final Report must be submitted (one copy for each supervisor and second copy for the School). These only need to be in colour unless the supervisor recommends otherwise.

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION

All assessment requiring electronic submission must be submitted to both the Turnitin and ICC links provided under the Electronic Submission sidebar link on MyUni. For group reports, only one team member is required to perform the submission.

EMPP

Assessment for the Project Management portion on EMPP, comprising of the Project Charter, Progress Reports and the Project Completion Report are to be submitted electronically.

Assignments for the other EMPP components are to be submitted as assignments in paper based format, in the EMPP marked drop box in the School of Mechanical Engineering, with an appropriate coversheet. Printed submissions are to be formatted in a professional manner. As a minimum assignments are to be on A4 size paper stapled top left with a standard coversheet. Formatting of documents shall be biased to enhance readability and no special binding is required. All assignments are to include the publishing date and either the group number and name, for group assignments, or the student name and student ID in the header of each page. The page number and page count is to be included in the footer of each page. This requirement will be discussed further as each assignment is issued. The hard copies will be marked and handed back with a marking rubric sheet which explains the breakdown of marks and summarises the markers comments. Copies of the marking rubric sheets will be available on MyUni as each assignment is issued.

Late submissions will incur a 10% penalty per day. Students may request an extension to any EMPP assignment provided reasonable notice is provided to the EMPP coordinator via email correspondence. Substantial leniency is provided to students who can demonstrate professional behaviour expected of a graduate engineer. Leaving things to the last minute or forgetfullness are not considered professional behaviour.