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Final year project toolkit

Advice and guidance on how to approach your final year project and some of the things you should take into consideration.

Working in teams

Sometimes you may find that you are asked to work on a final project in a team. Believe it or not this can be harder than trying to work on something alone, as you need to find everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses and take advantage of them to make the project a success. On top of that, not all of us deal well with stress, so there is also the issue of keeping everyone happy and getting along together!


Use of literature, standards and bibliographies

Literature plays a strong role in any form of essay, dissertation or project. It can be a source of information for research purposes and therefore noted in your bibliography, but it is also used as proof of your arguments and therefore has to be referenced within your report.


Mind management

Struggling with your project? There are plenty of project management software tools out there to help. Andrew Wilcox explains how mind mapping and MindManager can help you improve communication, speed up project development and enable you and the team to access project knowledge.


Conducting meetings

If you are working on your final project as part of a team, then there will come a time when you will need to arrange meetings to discuss how the work is going, and how to move things forward.


Making an effective presentation

As part of your final project you may come across a time when you are asked to put on a presentation. Most people are not fans of standing up and talking in public, but as you are very likely to have to face putting on more than one or two of these during your career, its best to learn the basic skills of a successful presentation right now.


Final year project

Completing a project successfully is mostly a matter of planning and technique. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do any work, but rather that a good plan will make the whole process much simpler and easier


A code of honesty

When writing your final year project or research report you need to present evidence in support of your argument.Jane Fitzpatrick points us in the right direction, steering clear of the perils of plagiarism.


Writing reports

The ability to write a report clearly and in a form that is easy to understand is undoubtedly one of the most important skills an engineer can acquire.  These days it is expected that engineers will be IT literate and competent in word-processing packages, spreadsheets and presentations.  We have outlined some advice below for when you come to writing your final year project report.


Making time

It doesn’t matter how hard you try, sometimes it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Of course, during your final year of education, when you have masses of work to do in the form of your final project, you’ll be feeling this more than ever.


Log books

Your final project may be the first time you need to use an engineer’s log book, however it won’t be the last. So with that in mind, now is the time to master using it correctly.  You’ll come to find that the role of the log book is more important that you originally thought, as it plays an integral role in documenting your project.


Writing to inform and impress

The end is in sight, and you’re about to embark upon your final challenge: writing up your project. Writing can seem like a chore, but unless it’s clear and impressive, says Patrick Forsyth, it’s a wasted opportunity. So make sure that the way your project is written and presented is the icing on the cake.