Final Report
The final report is due in Canvas at midnight on Friday, December 6. Please also email your final report in PDF format to kathleenmariekelly@mines.edu for posting on the course website, or state that your client does not wish for your report to be posted.
The purpose of this report is to:
- Provide a comprehensive record of your accomplishments as a team.
- Document the significant design aspects of your project for your client.
- Develop writing skills.
The final reports will be posted online, so good quality is important. Please check with your client to ensure they do not object to having the report posted. (We will respect your client's wishes if they do not want the report posted.)
Be sure to read this entire page, which includes:
Report Reviews
To ensure quality, final reports will be reviewed as follows:
- Report should be sent to evaluation team members by noon on Thursday, November 21.
- Each student should read the report carefully and fill out the rubric (pdf or Word).
- Reviews should be completed by midnight on Friday, November 22.
- Review documents should be sent to the report team AND to your advisor.
- Changes should be made to the report based on the reviews.
- To ensure feedback is taken seriously, when you submit your report for grading, also submit your feedback forms and for each change either put a big check mark (feedback addressed) or a brief comment why you chose not to address. Ask your advisor if you have any questions.
- Completing and responding to these reviews is one component of the advisor evaluation.
The following teams will swap reports for review:
- 5 Star General Contracting 2 & Walker Water 2
- AI Arrive 1 & Stratom
- AI Arrive 2 & Salesforce
- Applied Research Team 1 & Rocky Mountain Lab Rescue
- Atomic Cartoons 3 & Ricoh
- Boss Ventures LLC & Qualcomm 3
- BPX & Qualcomm 2
- BrightSpot Automation & Qualcomm 1
- BurstIQ & Perennial 3
- Colorado Education Association & Perennial 2
- Corporate Power Inc & OreCode
- CSM Bodeau & NREL 2
- CSM Bridgman 1 & NREL 1
- CSM Bridgman 2 & Longhopes Donkey Shelter
- CSM Economy & Keeping Labor Safe 2
- CSM Hildreth & Groundwater Project 1
- CSM Liu 1 & Free Time
- CSM Student Hanov & Lunar Outpost 1
- CSM Student Thompson & Longhopes Donkey Shelter
- Longhopes Donkey Shelter & CSM Walton
- CSM Walton & CSM Student Thompson
Report Sections
Each report should have the following sections:
| Section | Description | Approx. Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Cover page | Team member names, client name, date and (optional) logo. | 1 |
| Introduction | Brief description of your client and the product vision. | 1/2 to 3/4 |
| Requirements | Functional and non-functional specifications. | 1 |
| System architecture | Description of architecture. Update diagrams from your design document to match actual implementation and add descriptions of the components. | 2 |
| Technical Design | See below, this does not correspond to a working document. | 2-3 |
| QA | Update your software quality plan. | 1 |
| Results | Update your results document. | 1 |
| Future Work | See below, this does not correspond to a working document. | 3/4 to 1 |
| Lessons Learned | Extracted from results document. | 1/2 |
| Acknowledgements | See below, this does not correspond to a working document. | 1/4 to 1/2 |
| Team Profile | See below, this does not correspond to a working document. | 1/2 to 1 |
| Appendices | Depends on project | Varies |
This outline is intended as a guideline. If you think a different format would work better for your project, check with your advisor.
Most of the report sections were written as working documents. You should take some time to a) change verb tense where needed, b) modify details to reflect how you actually implemented your product, and c) ensure the document flows and does not sound like reports just clumped together. You do not need to keep the original design details, what's important is to describe the final system.
Page counts are just estimates. Take as many pages as you need to adequately describe your system. Final reports with 15 to 25 pages are common.
TECHNICAL DESIGN
In this section you will describe one or two interesting aspects of your final project design. This section should normally be about two to four pages in length and should include at least two figures, which might be UML diagrams, database schema, flowcharts, finite state automata or other relevant figures.
Some example descriptions, excerpted from previous reports (note that the descriptions in these documents won't correspond to exactly what we're requesting here, as the writing requirements have changed from prior sessions - the goal is to give you some ideas of how to incorporate different types of figures and design discussions).
If you aren't sure what to include in this section, talk to your advisor.
FUTURE WORK
In this section you will discuss how your design could be modified in the future. Some topics this section may include:
- Could a component be swapped out with a newer/improved version? How easily can this be accomplished?
- Could additional components be added to provide new features? How easily can this be accomplished?
- What artifacts did you leave in place that a future developer could successfully continue the project?
- What are some additional features that could be added to your developed product? How easily can they be added in?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Provide a short blurb where you thank your client and your technical advisors.
TEAM PROFILE
Provide a short bio, the role, and professional headshot of each team member.
APPENDICES
Use the appendices to include any other information that your client may need to take full advantage of your product. Possibilities include:
- Product installation instructions
- Development environment description
- Calculation details
- Explanation of modeling technique
- Coding conventions
- Acceptance tests
Document Format/Style
Style guidelines for the final report:
- Should be single-spaced with reasonable margins (e.g., 1 inch).
- Do not put in a binder (reports will be recycled after grading).
- Electronic copy should be submitted in .pdf format if possible (.doc/x is accepted).
- Paper should be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.
- All figures should be labeled and referred to within the text. Do not just put all figures in an appendix! Figures should be included in the document after they are referred to.
- All documents should have page numbers.
Rubric
Your document will be graded based on the following rubric.
| Document contains all the required sections. | 1 point |
| Document has adequate detail. | 5 points |
| Document is formatted correctly, including figures | 3 points |
| Document complies with style and grammar guidelines | 5 points |
| Review and submission process complete | 1 point |
| Total | 15 points |
