Syllabus

Courses 13.017 and 13.018 are the capstone design courses of the Ocean Engineering Department and they give you the opportunity to integrate your total engineering knowledge in the design, construction, and testing of a complex ocean system. Modern ships, submarines, offshore platforms and other marine structures are complex systems composed of many dynamically interacting parts. The function of such a system is critically dependent on the coordination of these parts or subsystems. For example, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) may have numerous sensors and actuators each of which may be a complex computer-controlled system in itself. The AUV's main computer must be able to interrogate the sensors, interpret the data streams and send the proper commands to the actuators, at the right times, in order for the vehicle to perform its mission while maintaining stability. To achieve this degree of coordination it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the individual subsystems, how they communicate with one another and their roles in the overall function of the vehicle. Course 13.017, and its companion course 13.018, will to give you hands-on experience with the analysis and design of such complex ocean systems.

Course 13.017 starts off with the design challenge in which we ask that you develop a particular marine system with specific performance characteristics. The course comprises three primary activities in support of the design challenge:

1. Lectures on specific technical topics that you may have not seen in your previous course work, on the principles of engineering design and engineering ethics.
2. Laboratory experiences designed to acquaint you with the technology you will be using in your system.
3. The analysis of the challenge and the actual design of your system. Initially all three activities will happen in parallel but as the semester wears on we will focus more exclusively on the design of your system.

Course 13.018 focuses on the fabrication and testing of your system and the ultimate test of determining if it meets the challenge.

Grade Breakdown:

Ocean Wave Energy Converters Written Report: Individual, 10pp max.: 5%
Ocean Wave Energy Converters Oral Report: Individual, ~10 minutes: 5%
Waves Experiment Written Report: Graded in Groups of 2-3, 20pp max.: 20%
Challenge Written Report: Graded in Separately-Authored Sections: 20%
Final Oral Presentation: Group Grade, ~45 minutes: 10%
Notebooks: Individual: 10%
Attendance: Individual: 10%
Innovation and Participation: Individual: 20%

Written and oral reports are graded on the following merits:

• Clarity of presentation
• Technical soundness
• Organization and cohesiveness
• English usage

Your basic grade will be a "B" if you adequately perform the work required of you in this course. If your performance is outstanding then you will earn an "A" If your performance is under par then your grade will be lower than a B. The following are specific examples of hypothetical students who earned a "C," a "B," and an "A." In all three cases the students produced the same physical product, cracked, taped-up fins. However each student ended up with this unhappy result following a different path. These scenarios stress that it is the WAY in which you approach your work that is important, not the technical quality of the physical end product.

"C" student -- Student X is charged with building fins for the vehicle. Student X ordered the fin stock and was given some references on how to hand fabricate an airfoil-shaped fin. Student X proceeded to not read the material, leave the fin stock on the shelf and go off and help other students do machining, which Student X liked better than building the fins. Near the end of the project Student X tried to make the fins. It turned out that the fin stock was too brittle and the fins cracked; there was no time to buy new fin stock so the fins end-up taped together.

"B" student -- Student Y has the same task as Student X. He/she ordered the fin stock and obtained information on how to build the properly shaped fins. Upon receipt of the fin stock student Y worked reasonably hard on trying to make fins out of fin stock that was clearly inadequate (too brittle). Student Y tried repeatedly and with great care to build the fins according to the given procedure but to no avail, end product was taped-up fins.

"A" student -- Student Z has the same task as Student X. Like student Y, he/she obtained the fin stock, read the information and attempted to make a fin. Seeing that the fin stock was inadequate Student Z started two parallel projects. The first was to modify the fin making procedure to enable the use of the fin stock in hand. The second was to find fin stock material that can withstand the fabrication technique. Unfortunately, both efforts failed despite a lot of hard work and experimentation on the part of Student Z. The end result was taped-up fins.

13.017 and 13.018 require a lot of self-motivation, we try not to tell you what to do, our goal is for you to discover the design process for yourselves as much as possible. Some students interpret this as meaning that they can "punt" the labs and lectures whenever they want. That is the wrong way to go in this course. As the semester wears on you will find yourselves becoming increasingly busy as your project develops and you will sorely miss the time you wasted at the beginning of the course. You are required to come to all the class and lab sessions and you are urged to make the most of them. The only allowed absences are for illness, family emergencies, or religious holidays. In the event of an excused absence it is your responsibility to make up any lost work. Missing class for any other reasons (e.g. sports) is not allowed and will result in the lowering of your grade.

Lab notebooks will be given to you but they will remain as part of the course records after the course is over.

The laboratory notebook should be a well-organized record of your work in the laboratory. At the beginning of each formal laboratory session you will be given a worksheet outlining the specific goals of the lab. This worksheet should be taped or pasted into your lab notebook at the beginning of the section on that particular lab. Following the worksheet should be the details of all materials and methods you used, all the data and the data analysis (both methods of analysis and results). Writing in your lab notebook does not stop once the lab session is over. In fact, probably most of the writing in your notebook will be done at home when you analyze your data. Don't forget, even though you may have done a lab exercise as a team, you must show all the data in your lab notebook and you must do your own analysis of the data.

Formal laboratory exercises will only take place in the first half of 13.017. For the remainder of the course, and for 13.018 you will use your lab notebook as a log of your own research into the design, development, and testing of your system. It is especially important to keep your lab notebook current and comprehensive as you do your work. If you find you are constantly referring to your lab notebook for data and other information then you are doing it right.

Lab notebooks will be checked periodically by one of the instructors. Lab notebooks do not have to be works of art but they must be legible and contain all worksheets, procedures, data, designs and analyses. It is very easy in this course to do technically excellent work but get a low grade due to a poorly kept lab notebook. A little extra effort spent in keeping a well-organized lab notebook will go along way towards getting a good grade. A good lab notebook will also help you in writing your lab report.

The recommended lab notebook is an AMPAD Corp. Model 22-157 Computation Book. All entries should dated and in pen. Do not erase mistakes, cross-out. Computer generated graphs, data printouts and other externally generated text or pictures may be taped or pasted into the lab notebook. Software printouts may be kept in a 3-ring binder, they should be dated and cross referenced to the appropriate section of your lab notebook.

The lab notebook should only contain material related to the laboratory activities you (and your team mates) performed; it should not contain lecture notes, handouts or other non-lab material. It is recommended that you keep 3 notebooks for this course: a lecture notebook, a loose-leaf notebook for all the course handouts, and a laboratory notebook. Only the laboratory notebook will be graded but it is in your best interest to maintain all your notebooks in an up-to-date and organized fashion.