Engineering Strategies and Practice

APS 111 & 113

Team Assignment: Conceptual Design Specification (CDS)
Due date: must be submitted electronically in Google Docs and Turnitin by 12:10 p.m. in
Week 9 (Oct. 27-Oct 31) on your tutorial day.
Purpose: Write a document in which you clearly and credibly recommend a solution that
best meets your clients needs. The document must make a persuasive engineering
argument for your recommended design by:

iterating on the Project Requirements (PR) by incorporating feedback from the

teaching team, the client, and your own increasing understanding of the project,

generating a diverse range of alternative design solutions to the problem defined

by the PR,

and presenting evidence of the integrity of your design process and your teams
due diligence.

A. Required content list

Only one assignment is required per team. Each assignment must include:
Cover Page (template posted in the Assignment Folder on Blackboard)
Executive Summary (start on new page)
(Table of Contents (optional) (start on new page))
1.0 Project Requirements (revised from PR) (start on new page)
1.1. Problem Statement
1.2. Stakeholders
1.3. Functions
1.4. Objectives
1.5. Constraints
1.6. Service Environment
2.0 Alternative Designs, (include 5 feasible designs)
2.1. -2.5<Insert Name of Design 1, Design 2, etc.> (Use a descriptive name NOT
literally Design 1
3.0 Proposed Conceptual Design
3.1. Proposed Design - <Insert Name of Proposed Conceptual Design>
3.2. Metrics
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Reference List (IEEE format)
Appendices (optional)
Research Worksheets (one per student)
Attribution Table: Hardcopy completed in tutorial on due date

B. To write your assignment (rough and final drafts)

All assignments in APS111 must be both written (i.e., drafted and revised) and
submitted online (do not write your document offline and upload it.) Other forms of
submissions, hardcopy or digital, will not be accepted. Any variance from this process will
result in an incomplete submission and, thus, late penalties.

Write your CDS assignment in a single Google Doc file shared not only with your team,
but also with both your TA and CI. The required content for the CDS must be submitted
to your TA as a single shared Google Doc document before the assignment deadline.
Only one assignment is required and allowed per team. Use the same procedures for
creating and sharing a Google Doc as stated in the PR assignment except replace PR with
CDS in the file name.

Format:

No more than 3000 words excluding the Cover Page, Executive Summary, optional
Table of Contents, Reference List, Appendices, and Research Worksheets. Any
words beyond the limit will be crossed out and will not be considered as part of the
document.
Formatting must follow the Document Style Requirements in the Course Package
posted on Blackboard.
All rough and final drafts of your assignment must be written in a single Google doc
file so TAs can see your revisions!

Late Penalty: Standard late penalties apply. See the syllabus for details.

C. Required content description

Cover Page (template posted)
All fields MUST be filled in.
Note: It is not possible in Google Docs to remove a specific page from the automatic page
number tool, so you will not be penalized for having a page number on your Cover Page.

Executive Summary
An Executive Summary is a short, detailed synopsis of the material in your report, written
as an independent document. The final version should not exceed one page.
Because it is an independent document, the executive summary should not contain
internal (in-text) citations or references to the report itself.
Normally, executive summaries of one page are not assigned page numbers. However, it
is not possible in Google Docs to remove a specific page from the automatic page number
tool. Therefore you will not be penalized for having a page number on your Executive
Summary.

1.0 Project Requirements

Between 1.0 Project Requirements and 1.1 Problem Statement, you can introduce the
project, the client, and any high level contextual information that is not specifically part of
the problem. This introduction must be specific to your project.

1.1. Problem Statement

The revised problem statement should reflect your teams increased understanding of the
problem as a result of TA/CI feedback, further research, and generating alternative
solutions. Design is an iterative process.
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1.2. Identification of Stakeholders

This section should include all stakeholders (other than the users, design team, and client)
and identify their respective interests. Describe their interests independent of the design
first. After that, note how these interests may influence your designs functions, objectives,
and constraints. This should reflect any increased understanding of stakeholders and their
interests gained from additional research and work generating potential solutions.

1.3. Functions
Functions may reflect refinements gained from additional understanding of the problem
since the PR was written. This section should include:
Functional Basis (required)
Primary functions the design is to perform (required)
Secondary functions that enable or result from the primary functions (if
appropriate)
Unintended functions/uses (if appropriate)

1.4. Objectives
Objectives must be measurable and useful for comparing proposed designs. The
measurability should be demonstrated by indicating a supported goal. Objectives should
reflect an increased or changed understanding of the problem.

1.5. Constraints
Constraints must be measurable and useful for eliminating proposed designs. The
measurability should be demonstrated by indicating a supported limit. Constraints should
reflect increased or changed understanding of the problem.

1.6. Service Environment

The service environment describes the location conditions where the design will operate. It
is NOT to be written from the point of view of the design in this section. Any influence it
has on your functions, objectives, or constraints should be reflected in the FOC sections.
The service environment should consider the physical environment, living things, and the
virtual environment. See the PR instructions for more details.

2.0 Alternative Designs

Sections 2.1-2.5 present your top five alternative design solutions for the problem defined
in the project requirements. Use 2.0 to introduce the Alternative Designs segment and its
purpose to your readers and to explain and justify your idea generation and selection
processes. Flag any obstacles you encountered in your idea generation process and how
you overcame the obstacle.
2.1 2.5
Alternative Designs
Give each design a meaningful name (e.g., not just Design 1). Briefly describe each
design and then discuss its merits on the basis of the objectives and objective goals in
Section 1.4. (Note: All designs must be feasible, i.e., meet functions and constraints).
While you will use words to describe each design, help your readers understand them
better by using sketches, drawings, schematics, flow charts, etc., as appropriate. Add
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measurements where possible and useful. Use parallel organization to help your readers
compare alternative designs easily.

3.0 Proposed Conceptual Design

Identify the alternative design your team is recommending and--in a brief, persuasive
discussion--explain and justify your design selection process (i.e., show how your process
resulted in this recommendation.)
3.1 Proposed Conceptual Design - Name of Design <insert name of the
recommended design>
Provide additional information about your recommended design to show the client how the
way the design meets the functions, objectives and constraints (FOCs) will result in the
outcome they asked for. Support your explanation with evidence from your analysis
derived from your selection process.
You should include more graphic material (e.g., simple sketches, drawings, or flowcharts)
to communicate to the client how you envision the design. Add additional measurements if
appropriate. This design, if agreed to by the client, would be the one you develop in the
Final Design Specification (APS112 only). It is not necessary, or expected, that you will
have a fully detailed design at this point.
3.2 Metrics
Identify appropriate metrics (tests) a professional engineer would use to assess a
prototype, its functionality, and how well it meets design objectives. For this CDS, the
proposed metrics should be confined to the most critical objectives for the project.
Note: You are not expected to perform these tests, so dont worry if you dont yet have the
expertise to run certain standard tests. Your job now is to identify tests an engineer could
use.

4.0 Conclusion
You will no longer be working on this project. Your client will likely be supplying your CDS
to the new contractor they have hired. Bring the document and project to a close by
summarizing the key points. This is not a word-for-word repetition of earlier material, but
rather a way of bringing the document together and consolidating its main message(s).

5.0 Reference List

All sources you refer to in your CDS (except the client statement, lectures, and textbook)
must be cited using IEEE format and put in a reference list.
It is an academic offence to represent the ideas of others as your own, that is, to
commit plagiarism. Students who are caught plagiarising the work of others, will be
required to attend a meeting with a representative of the First Year Chair and will be
subject to sanctions that may include a zero on the assignment or worse. In order to
ensure that you are properly identifying your sources, you must follow BOTH of the
following two steps.
1) In the body of your report, wherever you have used information in any form
(including graphics) from anyone other than yourself, or ideas that are not your
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own, you must identify the source with an in-text citation, which is a number in a
square bracket, e.g. [5].
2) At the end of your document, list all cited sources in a Reference list using IEEE
referencing standards. The IEEE referencing standard can be found at:
http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf. Only IEEE referencing is
permitted in this course and it must be followed exactly.
Warning: If you have taken someones idea, AND their exact words, you must indicate
that these are not your words. This can be done with quotation marks (-) if the text is
short or by indenting and italicizing (block quote) if the text is longer.
A full explanation of how to cite a source can be found in Document Style
Requirements in Course Documents on Blackboard. If you do not document your
sources properly, you will face a charge of academic misconduct. If you are unsure
how to properly cite a reference ask your CI or another member of the ESP teaching
team.

Appendices
Material in an appendix is considered optional for readers and will be read only if they want
additional clarification (e.g., detailed calculations, your pairwise comparison chart with
introduction). Material integral to understanding the document needs to be in the body, not
the appendices.
All appendices must be clearly labeled (e.g., Appendix F: Drawings of Alternative Designs)
and referred to in the body of the report. Introduce each appendix with a short explanation
of the materials relevance.
Sources for all material included in appendices must be documented using IEEE format.
Put a number in a square bracket [#] next to the discussion of the appendix in the body of
the report. Then add the source to the reference list, as you would any reference material.

Research Worksheet (template posted)

One research worksheet per assignment per student. Research worksheets on the same
reference you have submitted previously, or a team member has previously or is currently
submitting, are unacceptable.

D. Submitting
To officially submit your completed assignment for marking, follow the two-part procedure
outlined previously in the PSQ instructions. If your Google Docs or Turnitin submissions
are late, standard late penalties apply. NOTE: editing your assignment after renaming
the file is considered an academic offence.