A step by step guide on how the lab works

Planning reports

Written reports

Revision of the written reports

Oral reports

Lab rules and guidelines

Notes on group work

I. COURSE OBJECTIVES AND OVERVIEW

Goals: The goals of the Chemical Engineering Laboratory are to develop your ability to conduct research and to deepen your understanding of chemical engineering principles. It is also our intent to improve your ability to communicate technical material; you should therefore review any notes or texts you have on technical writing and public speaking.

The specific course objectives are:

To learn to deal with open-ended, team assignments found in practice

To plan and carry out safe, efficient experiments involving typical ChemE unit operations

To analyze experimental results and make appropriate conclusions and recommendations

To write informative, persuasive technical reports.

To present effective oral reports.

Your role: Your role is to act as a professional engineer involved in an experimental program. Equipment and support personnel are limited. We expect you to 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 have tried to spread out the work, but some peak periods are unavoidable.

Grading: The class will be divided into teams consisting of three students. Teams will perform three experiments, spending two laboratory sessions on each. Before each experiment , the team will meet with the instructor assigned to the experiment to present a planning report. A planning conference is required before you can perform an experiment. You will prepare one individual written report for either experiment 1, 2 or 3. You will also give two group oral presentations with the team member that is not producing a written report. There are no homeworks or final and you will be graded on the basis of the above deliverable. Attendance to all lab sessions and all oral presentations of your section is mandatory. The course will be graded on a point system with a maximum of 300 points per student, distributed as follows:

Planning reports (3 at 25 each)	75
Written report	100
Oral report (2 at 50 each)	100
Other	25
Maximum possible score	300

Other includes safety, promptness (5 pts. deduction if more than 10 minutes late to the lab), leadership/teamwork, knowledge of fundamentals, enthusiasm, and experimental skill. We also expect you to make full use of each 4-hour laboratory session.

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

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 your written report (not a planning report).  In so doing, you may recover up to 75% of the deductions (not including deductions for lateness). For instance, if your original report received a 50 (out of 100 maximum) and your revision earns a 70, your final score will be  50 + 0.75(70 - 50) = 65.

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II. A STEP BY STEP GUIDE ON HOW THE LAB WORKS

Week 1 (3/26-3/30): Introductory week

Go to BNS 115 (or AND 008 for AC), get team assignments, receive experimental assignment 1. Go to BNS 035 to familiarize yourself with your experimental set-up and sketching it.

Week 1 or 2

At least 24 hours before your lab session, schedule a 30 min Planning Report (experiment 1) with the appropriate instructor. Go to meeting at scheduled time.

Week 2 (4/2-4/6): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and perform the first part of experiment 1.

Week 3 (4/9-4/13): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and complete experiment 1.

Week 4 (4/16-4/20): Oral week

Go to BNS 115 (or AND 008 for AC). If you are not presenting, turn in your written report. Listen to Oral Report 1. Receive assignment 2. Go to BNS 035 to sketch and evaluate the set-up for experiment 2.

Week 4 or 5

At least 24 hours before your lab session, schedule a 30 min Planning Report (experiment 2) with the appropriate instructor. Go to meeting at scheduled time.

Week 5 (4/23-4/27): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and perform the first part of experiment 2.

Week 6 (4/30-5/4): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and complete experiment 2.

Week 7 (5/7-5/11): Oral week

Go to BNS 115 (or AND008 for AC). If you are not presenting, turn in your written report. Listen to Oral Report 2. Receive assignment 3. Go to BNS 035 to sketch and evaluate the set-up for experiment 3.

Week 7 or 8

At least 24 hours before your lab session, schedule a 30 min Planning Report (experiment 1) with the appropriate instructor. Go to meeting at scheduled time.

Week 8 (5/14-5/18): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and perform the first part of experiment 3.

Week 9 (5/21-5/25): Lab week

On your lab day, go straight to BNS 035 and complete experiment 3.

Week 10 (5/28-6/1): Oral week

Go to BNS 115 (or AND008 for AC). If you are not presenting, turn in your written report. Listen to Oral Report 3.

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III. PLANNING REPORTS

The Group must arrange a planning conference with the appropriate instructor at least one day before the first laboratory session for the experiment. A written Planning Report must be submitted at this time (see Planning report guidelines). It should be a formal outline indicating the information to be obtained and the required measurement methods. It should include appropriate equations for data analysis with order-of-magnitude estimates of key quantities, sketched figures indicating (qualitatively) the trends expected, schematic(s) of the equipment to be used, and a section on safety considerations. At the conference, all students may be asked to "walk through" the plan and to answer questions. There will be no revisions of the planning reports.

Be sure to meet with the instructor at the scheduled time. A missed conference will result in a grade of zero for that planning report. The conference will then be held during the lab, but only after all the other groups have gotten under way. Instructors responsible for the various experiments are listed in the Laboratory Schedule section.

IV. WRITTEN REPORTS

Detailed instructions for written reports are available on separate links.

V. REVISION OF THE WRITTEN REPORT

After the written report is submitted and graded, you will have the option to revise it for additional points. The amount of work required depends on the quality of the original report. An excellent original will need little revision, but may not bring in a lot of additional points. On the other hand, we strongly recommend that you revise a report for which your grade is low. Instructions for revisions are available on a separate link. Revised written reports must be turned in by 5 pm one week after the day they are handed back to you. Please inform the appropriate instructor if do not choose to turn in a revision.

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VI. ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Each student will give two oral group presentations with team member that does not produce a written report. Power point versions of your presentation must be E-mailed to the TA handling your section by 5PM one day before you are scheduled to talk. Presentations will be 10 minutes in length and may involve up to 4 minutes of questions. They must be well organized and should be rehearsed; timing will be strict. Guidelines for the oral reports are available on a separate link. Presentations will be given in BNS 115.

VII. LAB RULES AND GUIDELINES

Each group member will be questioned on aspects of the experiment, either in the Planning conference or in the lab, and will be expected to be completely informed about it.

The team is to maintain a record of the data collected in ink (no pencils). At the end of the laboratory session, each page of the data log will be signed by an instructor. A copy of raw data sheets must be included as an appendix in the written report of the team member that will produce such document. This allows us to track back calculations to the original data.

You may only be in BNS 035 during your assigned lab period or when consulting with an instructor. In the latter case, the instructor must give first priority to the students assigned to that period, so please be patient. There are no make-ups, and the lab will close promptly.

Eye protection must cover the eyes completely and must be worn at all times while in the lab regardless of what you are doing or where you are. Shoes must completely cover your feet. Wear a lab coat, or at least wear clothes you do not care about! It is not a pristine environment.

Be creative. Experiments are open-ended. There is no set procedure, and you are encouraged to explore. When in doubt about safety or damage to the equipment, however, ask the TA first. You are not allowed to make any permanent markings. However, any labels, tapes... that you may have put on the equipment must be removed at the end of each session.

Tools, stopwatches, and other accessories are kept in the white cabinet in the SW corner of the lab. These are for your use. Return them immediately when done (don't wait until the end of the lab).

A professional attitude is expected. Pranks are not tolerated. Anyone found to have willfully (a) tampered or misused equipment, or (b) acted in a way that threatens safety or damage to equipment will receive, as a minimum, a zero for that experiment.

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VIII. NOTES ON GROUP WORK

In industry you will work on team projects and will often write reports as a team. One of the course objectives is to give you experience in team projects. On the other hand, we must assign individual grades. Thus, we expect you to observe certain guidelines.

The following are allowed for students within a team:

Discuss the experiment prior to the Planning report

Share data taken in lab

Discuss its interpretation

Work together in generating a complete power point presentation (including figures production, data reduction and data interpretation) for those two team members giving an oral presentation.

However,

Written reports must be done independently. This means that graphs, figures, data analysis and recommendations cannot be shared between oral presenters and the team member that writes the report

You are not allowed to discuss the lab or share data outside your group unless specifically instructed to do so.

Please ask the instructors if you are in doubt about these guidelines.

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