Delete all guidelines under each heading once you have completed your Project
Report
PROJECT TITLE: …
SUBTITLE (if applicable) …
First Name(s):
Surname:
Category:
Sub-category:
Province and Region:
School:
Grade:
(Cover page: All project reports must have a cover page with the above details)
Engineering/ Computer Science
This is guide and template on how to write an engineering/ computer science
type project report to bring to the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists’ fair. It gives
detailed instructions, that you need to read and follow. Ask your
teacher/Regional Science Fair Director if you do not understand any part of this
section of the report guide.
Pages should have 2.5-cm margins. It is preferable to use 12-point Sans-serif
fonts that are easy on the eyes, i.e. Gill Sans MT, Times New Roman. Use 1.5-line
spacing. Include page numbers on the bottom centre or right corner of each
page. Spelling, grammar usage and punctuation should conform to the Oxford
English Dictionary for UK English (not US English).
Paragraphs are useful tools for separating and organising your ideas. Different
ideas should be split into separate paragraphs and common ideas should be
grouped in the same paragraph. Your paragraph should have a topic sentence
which gives the reader an indication of what to expect in that paragraph. If you
present two hypotheses/engineering goals in the Introduction, then you should
deal with those hypotheses/goals in the same order in the Methods, Results, and
Discussion sections.
Abbreviations
Use abbreviations sparingly and only if they will save substantial redundancy
throughout your project report. Adding abbreviations (particularly abbreviations
that are common in your choice of category) can make your writing more
concise, but overuse simply adds confusion. If you are to use acronyms in your
report, you need to tabulate the list of the acronyms along with the full names,
at the beginning of the report. Do not begin a sentence with an abbreviation.
Tables and Figures
Tables and figures form part of what you say in the paragraph(s). They are
accessories to the text. You cannot just put a table or figure anywhere and
always refer to them in text e.g. “Viscosity decreases with increasing
temperature as shown in Figure 1…” Whenever you refer to tables and figures in
the paragraph(s), you need to be clear about what you are determining from
them and why. Both should be able to stand alone and make sense to the
reader. Tables and figures should have an appropriate title/captions and labels
with correct units.
Tables have a title at the top and figures have captions at the bottom which
describes the purpose for which it has been presented (e.g. “Table 1:
Measurements of the width of the cylinder” and “Figure 1: The viscosity of oil at
different temperatures”). Table and figures are usually referenced by a number
and should be numbered in sequence, e.g. Table 1, Table 2… Figure 1, Figure 2,
etc.
Label your axes so that the reader knows what scale points are plotted on the
graph and specify units for quantities.
Engineering/ Computer Science
Delete all guidelines under each heading once you have completed your Project
Report
Engineering/ Computer Science
Introduction________________________________________________________________4
Literature Review_________________________________________________________________4
Problem Statement_____________________________________________________________________4
Aim__________________________________________________________________________________4
Engineering goals or Design goals__________________________________________________________4
Method____________________________________________________________________4
Materials________________________________________________________________________4
Procedure_______________________________________________________________________4
Results____________________________________________________________________5
Discussion__________________________________________________________________6
Limitations and errors________________________________________________________6
Recommendations for Future Research__________________________________________6
Conclusion__________________________________________________________________6
Acknowledgments___________________________________________________________6
References_________________________________________________________________6
Appendix___________________________________________________________________6
Engineering/ Computer Science
Introduction
In the introduction, present a brief overview sufficient enough to establish the
need for your research project. It sets the project in its broader context and
narrows it down by identifying and explaining the need/ motivation for the
project. It ranges between two to four pages. Never put your results or
conclusion in the Introduction.
Literature Review
Briefly review relevant literature (e.g. journal articles, books, technical reports,
etc.) to orientate the reader. You present an overview of what is known about
the research project. In doing so, you will read previous and recent research
done around your project report and write what is most relevant to it.
As you near the end of the literature review (i.e., at the beginning of the last
paragraph), identify the important gap that you are trying to fill. You need to
build up to why you are doing this research project.
Problem Statement
Based on the gaps/ knowledge you found in the literature review, you lead up to
the need. Based on the need you identified, state the problem statement/
phenomena, as clearly as possible.
Aim
Clearly and concisely state your aim.
Engineering goals or Design goals
Clearly state the engineering goal/ design goal. These are linked to solving the
problem and filling the knowledge gap identified.
Method
The method section describes what you did, why you did it and how you did it.
This section must explicitly explain how you went about testing the engineering/
Design goals, to solve the problem. Describe your methods in enough detail that
someone else could replicate your project. In other words, anyone should be able
to duplicate your methods to verify or refute what you found. Briefly explain the
rationale for the measures you made. This section is written in the past tense.
Materials
List the apparatus that you used for your project.
Procedure
In this section, you describe the series of repeatable steps that you took in
creating and testing a functional prototype/process/solution.
Engineering Type Method
Engineering projects include multiple designs, you build, test, find new problems,
make changes and test again (design-test-redesign-retest) before you can settle
for a final design. For a clear transition between the designs, you need to
mention the earlier designs (minimum two) and evaluations of the
Engineering/ Computer Science
prototypes/processes that you did to eventually get to the final one. However,
the full details of the initial prototype must be in the appendix.
In this section, we are interested in the final design details. The final
prototype/final process with the most desirable features, fewest negative
characteristics and stays within the limitations of the need you identified.
Planning
The prototype/process design must be appropriately presented in this section.
This can be done visually through drawings/ flow diagrams (these can include
circuit diagrams, system drawings, technical plans, drawing blueprints, etc.) and
must include all the necessary measurement units. Mention the name of the
program used for the visual representations.
Creating
A detailed step by step description of how you built your prototype/ developed a
process
Testing and Evaluating
Testing is the way a prototype/process under development is evaluated for
correctness and robustness and is proved to meet the stated goals. It is done at
each stage of creation and has characteristics unique to the level of the test
being performed.
This section includes the quantitative aspects of your project. The prototype/
process components are compared against requirements and specifications
through tests. The results from these tests can be represented graphically or in a
table. The results are then evaluated to assess the progress of design/ process
(performance, supportability, etc.)
If your project involves programming, the code must be in the appendix.
Computer Science Type Method
When computing data, you need to mention the type of programming language
you will be using for the different interfaces and the parameters/fields that will
help in fulfilling the need. Flow diagrams are useful for describing computational
designs.
Developing
A step by step description of how you are developing a model to meet a certain
need. The computational language used must be appropriate for what you want
to achieve; taking into consideration the parameters/arguments/features that will
determine whether the solution will meet basic requirements.
Testing
Engineering/ Computer Science
Testing is the way a model/solution under development is evaluated for
correctness and robustness and is proved to meet the design goal. It is done at
each stage of development and has characteristics unique (parameters/
arguments/features) to the level of the test being performed.
The parameters/arguments/features are very important in the testing of your
program/ solution. If any modifications are made on the parameters/arguments/
features, provide details on how they were changed and how this affected the
solution. This can be presented in a table/graph. It is necessary to analyse and
choose from two or more alternative approaches to test and evaluate the
feasibility of your program/solution.
Results
The overall purpose is to describe patterns, not to explain or interpret them.
Think of the Results section as telling a story about what you found when
conducting your tests. You need to set the context within which the data was
collected. That will help the reader to understand the data more fully.
Results should be presented in a way that it aligns with the engineering/design
goals. Begin by thinking about what information the reader will need to assess
whether you achieved your aim or not. It should be presented in a form that is
easy to read, which usually means putting it in a graph or a table.
Discussion
The discussion interprets patterns you found. Explain why you found what you
found, backing it up with relevant literature. This is done by reviewing and
comparing literature. Literature used must be cited and referenced. How are
they similar or different? Why might there be differences between your project
and others?
It explains what the patterns mean (i.e., why you found the results you did).
Emphasize the strengths rather than the weaknesses of your prototype/ solution.
Limitations and errors
Briefly discuss all the things that affected your measurement but which you
could not control because of certain constraints. This includes sources of errors
you have identified and how it affected your results.
Recommendations for Future Research
Make concrete suggestions about how this project could be extended.
Conclusion
Clearly state your conclusion, and briefly summarise your evidence for each
conclusion. Most importantly, be sure to address the significance of your work.
Write your Conclusion to address one all-important question: -So what? What is
the overall importance of the results? Why should anyone care? State whether or
not your engineering/design goal.
Acknowledgments
Any person who made a direct contribution to the project should be
acknowledged. If applicable, funding sources should be mentioned.
Engineering/ Computer Science
References
Referencing is a way to validate that you have done further reading, learning and
comprehension by using relevant sources. Eskom Expo for Young Scientists uses
the Harvard format for referencing. Formatting has to be consistent throughout
the report.
Appendix
An appendix is placed at the end of your report, because the full version is either
inappropriate or too detailed for the body of the report. There may be more than
one appendix, in which case the series is called the appendices. Examples of
material suitable for an appendix are a new computer program specifically
designed for the research, an unpublished test and its validation, or a list of
stimulus materials
Engineering/ Computer Science
