CHEM E 436 Course Description

Objectives

You will learn to:

Your role

You are a professional engineer involved in an experimental program. Equipment and support personnel are limited. Exhibit a positive attitude and make the best of available resources.

Effort expected

This is a 3-credit class.  According to UW guidelines you should average about 9 hours per week.  There are about 50 hours of in-class time (labs and lectures).  This leaves about 50 hours for planning and report preparation, i.e., about 17 hours per experiment.  We've tried to spread out the work, but some peak periods are unavoidable.  

Grading Policy

Scoring

You'll perform three experiments, preparing written and oral reports.  There are no exams.  We'll grade you on the following deliverables:

Experiment 1 is a "warm-up."  We require a written planning report and will give you feedback on its quality, but it won't contribute toward the course grade.  Grading of the memo and oral reports will focus on technical content, but we'll also give you feedback on the communication quality.

Experiments 2-3 require written planning reports as well as oral or memo  reports.  See  the above table.  Our expectations and grading schemes for these are explained in the sections on planning, memo, and oral reports.

Other includes safety, promptness (5 pts. deduction if > 10 minutes late to lab), leadership/teamwork, knowledge of fundamentals, enthusiasm, and experimental skill. 

We will grade "on the curve." In the past, the mean grade has been 3.0 plus or minus 0.3. A grade below 1.5 is rare (except for those who fail to meet deadlines). There is often at least one 4.0 grade.

You must complete all reports and assignments to pass the course.

Late Reports

Failure to meet a ChemE 436 deadline has devastating consequences. Reports submitted 0-24 hours after the due date will be penalized 20% of the maximum points available. If a report is more than 24 hours late, a further 20% will be deducted for each 24 hours or fraction thereof (including weekends and holidays). For example, if a report is worth 100 points, is due at 1:30 PM on a Tuesday, but is submitted at 4 PM the following Thursday, the penalty is 60 points.

We'll grant exceptions in unusual circumstances (e.g., a death in the family, a certified medical condition, unavoidable travel). If possible, discuss the situation with the instructor in advance of the due date.

Computer problems (hard disk crash, no computer available, printer out of ink, etc.) are not  an accepted excuse for lateness.

Revisions

You may opt to revise and resubmit any memo report (not a planning report).  You may recover up to 75% of the deductions (not including deductions for lateness).  

Example:  your original report received a 30 (out of 70 maximum).  Your revision earns a 62.  Your final score is  30 + 0.75(62 - 30) = 54.

Requirements:

1. Submit your revision no later than one week after your received the graded original.  Give it to the person who graded the original.
2. Return the revision and the original report.  The original must include the grade sheet and have all pages intact.
3. Respond to all comments in the report and the general comments on the grade sheet.  Don't assume that simple re-wording will suffice.  Some sections may require a complete change in form and/or content.
4. Make your revisions easy for the grader to reward.  Attach a short note documenting your changes.  Where appropriate,  note -- with a highlighting marker or margin comment -- the elements you've improved.  (Don't highlight minor changes, such as grammar or spelling corrections.)
5. Be careful not to revise in a way that creates inconsistencies elsewhere (for example, changing figure numbers but forgetting to change the text references).

Academic Misconduct

Don't plagiarize! If in doubt about the rules or the consequences of a violation, please ask or review the Engineering College Policy on Academic Misconduct.  

It's OK to discuss the details of the experiment within your team.  We encourage team members to cross-check data analysis in order to minimize the chance of an error.

It's also OK for team members to share plots, spreadsheets, data tables, and other items generated by the team as a whole.

Do not

Safety

The UO lab is safer than a typical chemical plant, but beware of the following hazards:

You must know the current location of the following safety-related items:

We will quiz you on this when in lab the first time. You must pass the quiz to proceed in the course.

See additional safety policies below.

Background Reading

We expect you to find most of the background for the experiments on your own.  See Perry's Handbook, your ChemE course texts, etc.  If we provide background information, it will be given to the team at the same time as the assignment memo.

Team Organization

We will assign each student to a team of two (one team of three if necessary).  You will plan each experiment and collect data as a team.   

Each experiment requires a written planning report and planning conference.  These are group deliverables.

For experiment 1, each team prepares a group written and oral report.  

For experiment 2, one team member prepares a written report and the other an oral.  These roles reverse in experiment 3, i.e., the person who prepared the oral now prepares the written, and vice versa.

Miscellaneous Remarks & Lab Policies

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