MEC5882/6882 Instrumentation, Sensing and Monitoring - S2 2025

Lab Reports Instructions

For the last two laboratory experiments, you need to complete each experiment by attending two lab sessions, and then submit a lab report as a group by the end of the following week on Friday:

Each student is required to thoroughly read the lab handout before coming to the lab session, to be familiar with the experiment and theory. At the beginning of the session, the lab supervisor will provide you with lab equipment and you must complete all the tasks mentioned in the Lab Handout by the end of the lab session. You will then be required to collect the data from your experiment. Successful lab completion requires the full 120 min allocation; therefore, it is important that all students arrive on time.

Workflow

The report

The report must be styled as a technical report. Remember you are reporting results of an experiment. Reports such as these deliberately avoid ambiguity. The biggest challenge is to achieve both brevity and clarity. The assessment is based on quality, not the length of the report. The Monash Online website has good information on writing academic reports.

•    Each group will submit one report for each lab - in Week 9 for the Micro Servo Experiment and in Week 12 for the Temperature Control Lab via Moodle submission link. Late reports will not be accepted.

•    Reports may consist of a maximum of 6 pages (excluding the title page, cover sheet, table of content, and appendices).

•    Raw data may be included in an appendix.

•    Marks for each section of the laboratory report will be based on the clarity of presentation and language, as well as the technical content. It will be marked as a report, not simply a compilation of results.

•   All data sheets are to be attached as appendices to the report.

•    Lab reports will be marked as soon as possible.

Lab reports MUST be structured as below:

•   Title page - shown contain the following information

o Laboratory Experiment Title

o Course name and lab supervisor

o Group Number

o Names and ID numbers of all the group members

o Date of the lab session

o Date report submitted

•   Standard Monash assignment cover sheet

•   Table of Contents

•    1. Introduction

•   2. Materials and Methods

•   3. Results and Discussion

•   4. Application Question (refer to lab handout for specific instructions)

•   5. Conclusions

•   Appendix - Original data-sheet for the experiment

Please  refer  to  the  individual  handouts  for  more  information  on  what  should  be presented in the report for that particular experiment.

Submission

Each group will submit one report for each lab:

- By the Tuesday of Week 9 for the Micro Servo Experiment

- By the Tuesday of Week 12 for the Temperature Control Lab via Moodle submission link.

Submit the followings through Moodle (only one submission per group) within one week of completing the whole experiment:

•   A single PDF of the full report, named as “Group ID Experiment Name” (for example: GROUP Z Micro Servo LAB.pdf).

•   Your LabVIEW file and a single Excel file showing the details of all your data, calculations, and plots (if required).

•    If you use MATLAB/Python for your data analysis/reporting, then include the script/function files in the appendices.

Assessment criteria, Lab Report 03

Assessment criteria, Lab Report 04