Developing Sustainability Report and Visual Presentation

Assignment Summary

This assignment aims to develop and assess your ability to research, structure, develop and deliver an effective report and visual presentation, together with developing your ability to work effectively as part of a team and to plan and work to deadlines.  A further aim is to develop your awareness of the issue of “Sustainability,” with respect to the professional activity of engineers and technologists.

This assignment will be assessed by a summative group report and presentation for a chosen sustainability issue, based on a case study, addressing all appropriate group learning outcomes. The group’s recommendations will be assessed per individual group with equal weightings. Group composition will be decided and informed by the module leader.

Pass level for this group assignment will comprise evidenced and effective use of research, analysis and presentation methods, together with demonstrated verbal, written and technical presentation skills. Knowledge acquisition level will be confirmed through basic understanding and interpretation of sustainability concepts and issues, together with concept awareness in analysis of sustainability issues, preparation and analysis of appropriate data, and problem-solving in preparation of recommendations.

Knowledge and Understanding

1.Appreciate the broad role of the engineer and technologist, with respect to society, industry and the environment.

2.Be aware of and appreciate structured approaches to problem solving and the experimental method, in both individual and team environments.

Abilities

4.Work effectively in research and in the solution of problems both as an individual and as a member of a team.

5.Apply appropriate C&IT tools across a range of engineering/technical activity e.g. research, analysis of data, report writing, presentation, self-directed learning.

1.To develop a formal report to support your investigations, research and recommendations for an approved sustainability issue. The document must be in the form of an academic report.

The word count limit for this assignment is 2000 words. Anything written after this word count limit is reached will not be assessed. This is a School wide regulation and could have a significant impact on your overall mark.

Note that figure and table titles should be brief and should not include any information not already present in the main text. Annotations within figures should also be as brief as possible (one to three words).

2.To research and deliver a short, but formal presentation, based upon your group work and documented recommendations report above. Duration of the presentation will be 15 minutes (15 minutes for presentation, 3 minutes for questions).

3.The report and presentation must show evidence of use of spreadsheets for data calculation and presentation.

4.The appendices of the report must show evidence of team working, such as the use of a project management system (e.g. www.freecamp.com), notes of the meetings, Gantt Charts and so on.

5.A self-assessment must be taken individually before the submission; the appendices of the report must come with self-assessment sheets (based on Report Assessment Criteria) from all members of the team.

Your tutor must be given a copy of the presentation (a PowerPoint file) in addition to your formal report.

Expected Time Requirement:  Approx. 60 hours.

The topic will normally be one which relates to the courses being taken by the group members and must be such that it lends itself to consideration of the issue of sustainability.

·A review of the technology and/or engineering principals associated with alternative forms of power supply e.g. sustainability issues associated with the generation of power from wave energy.

·A critical review of mobile phone marketing, design and manufacturing developments over the last three decades.

·Trends in aircraft design for sustainability.

·A critical review of approaches to the automatic control of personal vehicles i.e. personal vehicles controlled remotely by some form of telemetry.

·Sustainability of diesel engines versus petrol engines and/or hybrid systems.