ENRP20001 Planning Thesis:

Presentation Marking Criteria

Engineering and Scientific Methods

Dr Narottam Das

Senior Lecturer – Engineering (Electrical)

School of Engineering and Technology
Office: Room 3.03, Melbourne Campus
E-mail: n.das@cqu.edu.au
Phone: 03 9616 0691, Ext. 50691
 Grade:
Project advisor marks the assessment item for an
Next Assessment: Presentation acceptable or unacceptable level only.

Presentations which are marked unacceptable by the

project advisor will be assigned zero marks regardless of
the marks allocated by reviewers.

Presentations that are approved by their project advisors

as acceptable will be marked by the reviewers and other
academics present in the presentation (except the project
advisor). Final marks will be the average of the marks
from reviewers and other academics which may be above
or below the pass marks.

Week 10 Friday (21 May 2021) 11:59 pm AEST

What is engineering method?

• The engineering method is the use of heuristics technique to

cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the
available resources.
• As an engineer you are expected to approach the problems or
projects using engineering method.
• This problem solving method can be applied to solve any
problem.
Example of the problems

• What energy supply will be required in 20 years time?

• Can a bionic eye be made to work?
• What options are available to manage Melbourne traffic and how it can
be implemented?
• How complex it is to dismantle the Fukushima Nuclear plant?

• Considering that coronaviruses can technically refer to illnesses

ranging from the common cold to something as serious as SARS, what
makes this particular coronavirus strain significantly concerning?
• Why do some people get really sick, but others do not by Coronavirus?
Murugan Sundaramurthy’s water business
is buoyant. His fleet of tanker trucks have
been fanning out across the countryside
around Chennai for two decades, sucking
water from boreholes and delivering it to
homes to quench the city’s thirst.

But demand today is as high as he can

remember, prompting him to add 500 more
vehicles to his existing fleet of 4,500.

The public water supply, the supposed

alternative for his customers, has been
reduced to a trickle by a withering drought.

But the shortages also reflect a pervasive

problem across India: water management
by the authorities that has been
inadequate for years.

Rain or shine, Chennai depends on water

trucks because officials have neglected to
invest in water infrastructure while allowing
developers to build on wetlands.
Decisions to make
There is a severe water shortage in Chennai. The sources supplying water to
the city are drying up due to prolonged drought.

What could be done?

Can desalination plan be an alternative?
Desalination is very expensive. Can it be afforded?
What about recycling the wastewater and recharge the aquifer? Or even treat it to potable
quality and use for domestic purpose?
Are these good engineering choices?
What other alternatives are there?
How can decisions be made? Who will be affected by them?

Engineering method is such a process that will guide through such difficult
decisions.
Steps of Engineering Method

1. Explore the problem

2. Explore the available solutions
3. Evaluate alternative solutions
4. Make a decision about the preferred solution
5. Communicate the solution
1. Explore the problem

• Establish the problem and need for the solution.

• Understand the performance criteria i.e. what is a successful
outcome ? How would you define it?
• Understand the constraints.
Problems Performance criteria Constraints
Traffic congestion Reduced travel time Cost
Water shortage No need to travel for water Sustainability –
long term
New feature in mobile phone with New feature with minimum Lower material
minimal increase in weight weight increase usage
More efficient wind turbine Increase in efficiency Noise level
How to explore the problem?

• Data, information and reliability

– Primary data- collect by yourself e.g. Lab experimental data
– Secondary data- Data collected by others such as river flow, rainfall etc.
Data should be reliable and you need to do assessment of its reliability.
• Learning
– Literature review. Search what others have done to solve the problems
closely similar to yours.
2. Explore the available solutions

• After clear understanding of the problem, you should start looking

for all the available solutions. This again comes from literature
review.
• All problems have multiple solutions.
Wastewater Treatment
Traditional method
Micro filtration
Nano filtration
Reverse Osmosis
Oxidation
Ultraviolet disinfection
3. Evaluating alternative solutions

List all the alternative solutions and evaluate them against the
performance criteria
For example if the criteria is to be a strong material, check shear
strength, bending strength, tensile strength, compressive strength
etc..
Material Compressive Tensile strength
strength
A 20 MPa 2 MPa
B 18 Mpa 2.5 MPa
C 15 MPa 5 MPa
Engineering Decision Making

• Monitor, check and review your results.

• You should be careful on the errors and state those possibilities of
errors in your results.
• Meet with your supervisor and discuss the result in a regular
basis.
Communicate your results

Communicate with engineering and scientific community on your

findings.
You need communicate not only the final finding but the entire
process of your work.
Scientific Method
Scientific method is slightly different than engineering method.
The goal of the scientific method is to find out the truth.
Scientific method

• Science is a process of creating a new knowledge in a systematic

way.
• Evidence must be observable, measurable and reproducible.
• Scientific method requires a research question to be answered
whereas engineering method requires a problem to be solved.
Scientific Method steps

• 1.Observe and Ask Questions

• 2.Research
• 3.Formulate a Hypothesis
• 4.Test your hypothesis
• 5.Analyse and Conclude
• 6.Share Results
1.Observe and Ask Questions

Observation helps us formulate challenging questions that you will

be able to test. A good question converts the natural sense of
wonder into a focused line of investigation.

For example: For example if you observe black clouds bring more
rains. You might ask why do black clouds bring more rains?

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC

BY-SA
2.Research

Find out if other people have asked the same or similar questions.
Read as much about your particular subject to see what you can
find out about. It is very likely that you will get something to start
reading.

For example, Cloud pattern and rainfall. Science of cloud. Cloud

colour and rainfall
Identification of Gap

• You may get some of the answer to your question but you feel
there is something missing. For example:
– There is no clear relationship of intensity of cloud colour and rainfall
amount.
– Or
– Cloud colour in different months and the amount of rainfall in those
months are not established.
3.Formulate a Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a theory that you can test to see if your prediction is right
or wrong.

From your observation, You have noticed that black clouds bring more
rains.

You formulated a research question: Why do black clouds bring more

rains?

Here is a hypothesis:
Darkness in the cloud is due to the water particles so black clouds bring
more rains.
4.Test your hypothesis

When you test your hypothesis, you want to make sure to do this in a fair way and that the
conditions are constant.

For this hypothesis, you can design a test where you take an photograph of cloud everyday and
measure its darkness. You should also measure the rainfall amount from ground station.

Is it a good test?
But
Which part of the sky should you take the photo?
What time should you take the photo?
So clearly, we would need to be much more careful.

Remember, there should be multiple ways of testing a hypothesis and you should explore more
than one method.
5.Analyse and Conclude

You should design an experiment, controlling as many variables as possible.

Having many controlled variables help you to find the effect of a particular variable.
After the experiment you should analyse your data to see if your hypothesis is correct, or
incorrect.

Depending on your findings, you may want to change your hypothesis or change the design of
your testing. This stage of the scientific method can be repeated as many times as necessary
until you find just the right hypothesis and test method to find accurate results.

For example: The results may have shown only the black cloud in the northern sky is important
for rainfall.

Here is a revised hypothesis:

Darkness in the cloud is due to the water particles so black clouds in the northern sky bring
more rains.
Biochar and infiltration : Effect of nitrogen fertilizer application rates on
corn yields (bushel/acre) with and without biochar additions *.
Nitrogen Fertilizer 0% 50% 100%

No Biochar 139 174 173

Biochar A 164 213 279
Biochar B 170 194 201

Nitrogen 0% 50% 75% 85% 100%

Fertilizer
No Biochar 139 160 173
Biochar A 213 279
Biochar B 194 201
6. Share Results

• When you are satisfied that you have proven or disproven

something important, report your results. In science, it is important
to detail your methods so that your peers can review your work
which is a critical step to get your work accepted.

• If your results are solid, your experiment can be repeated by other

scientists. Such reproducibility is a sign of good scientific work.
Important points to note when making conclusions:

• Correlation is not Causation

• Avoid Selective Windowing
Comparison
Engineering Method Scientific Method
Problem Research question
Define criteria of the best solution Define the boundaries
Alternative solutions Alternative answers to the research questions
Which water treatment method is best for Melbourne? e.g. Why the climate change is happening?
a) Reverse Osmosis Answer1- Climate change is induced by human activities such as burning
b) Traditional Treatment fossil fuels.
c) Ultra violet disinfection Answer2- Climate change is a naturally occurring process that has been
observed through the life of the planet

Evaluate the solutions against criteria Evaluate solutions against data and modelling tools
Select one or more suitable solutions Select the best supported hypothesis (answer)
Make a recommendation Make a recommendation
Research Methodology and Methods

Dr Narottam Das

Senior Lecturer – Engineering (Electrical)

School of Engineering and Technology
Office: Room 3.03, Melbourne Campus
E-mail: n.das@cqu.edu.au
Phone: 03 9616 0691, Ext. 50691
Methodology and Method
Methodology is "the collection of methods or rules by which a particular piece of research is undertaken” Somekh and Lewin (2005)

Research methodology is a way to work in a systematic way to answer the research question.
You shall formulate all the steps that you are going to adapt and explain reasons behind them.

It is not enough to know how to do statistical analysis, tri-axial test, liquid-limit/ plastic limit tests. You should know and explain why and
how the certain research technique or methods are more relevant to answer your research question.

Research methodology has many dimensions and research method is only a part of the research methodology.

So your research methodology should answer the followings and similar more questions

1. What is your research method(s) and what are the logic behind selecting the method?
Empirical
2. What data are to be collected? Why are they important? Theoretical
3. What particular method has been adopted to collect the data? And why? Qualitative and Quantative
Action Research
Case Study
4. How are you going to analyze the data? Why that technique?
Ethnographic
5. …. Experimental
Interventionist
Phenomenological
…
Experimental research

• Why?
Experimental research are done to determine casual relationships or
testing cause-effect hypothesis.

• Experiments can be done using standard or non-standard procedures.

• To measure variables using established procedure, standard procedure
should be used.
• To measure variables that cannot be measured by standard procedure
or to develop alternative procedure itself, non-standard procedure can
be used.
Important considerations in experimental research
1. Dependent and Independent Variables
– Dependent and independent variables are present in all experiments.
– The variables should be first identified so that experiments can be designed to show the cause-effect
relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
– You will systematically vary one dependent variable while keeping the other dependent variables
constant.
An independent variable is the variable that is changed or
controlled in a scientific experiment to test the effects on the
dependent variable.

A dependent variable is the variable being tested and

measured in a scientific experiment.

The dependent variable is 'dependent' on the independent

variable. As the experimenter changes the independent variable,
the effect on the dependent variable is observed and recorded.

The value of the independent variable is controlled by the

experimenter, while the value of the dependent variable only
changes in response to the independent variable.
What are the variables to measure?
Important considerations in experimental research
2. Sampling method and sampling bias
Sampling method should provide a sufficient number of unbiased samples for testing.

3. Reliability of the result

A controlled experiment should show that the effect is due to the cause (independent variable) and no other
causes can explain the effect.

4. Repeatability and reproducibility

The experiment should be repeatable and reproduceable.

Repeatability: obtaining the same experimental results under the same test conditions.
Reproducibility: obtaining the same experimental results when the test is conducted by another person or at
another time.
5. Accuracy and Precision:
This shows reliability of the measurement.
Accuracy refers to the measurement error between the measured value and the actual plan.
Precision refers to the closeness of two measurements.
Good experimental data should have both attributes: Accuracy and Precision.

6. Estimation of Uncertainty
All measurements involve some error which is called uncertainty. An experiment should provide some
measurement of the uncertainty.

7. Ethical issues
Ethical issues are involved when dealing with living subjects and sensitive data or when the outcome of the
research leads to harm to human, animals or the environment.
Materials and Methods section of your presentation.
It is an explanation of the data collection process and consists of three components in chronological order:
A) Methodology description
B) Experimental Setup
1. Add diagram if possible.
2. Description of equipment and materials
3. Validity and reliability measures taken
4. Identify dependent, independent and controlled variables
5. Study description
• Location of the sample
• Size of the sample
• Context of the samples
• Ethical issues of sampling
C) Required Data
D) Experimental and Data Collection Procedure
1. Describe steps in the data collection process
2. State the purpose of the specific steps
3. State the result of specific steps
4. Highlight advantage and disadvantage of specific steps

E) Data Analysis Procedure

1. State analysis procedure
2. Justify the data analysis procedure
3. Preview the results
 Grade:
Project advisor marks the assessment item for an
Next Assessment: Presentation acceptable or unacceptable level only.

Presentations which are marked unacceptable by the

project advisor will be assigned zero marks regardless of
the marks allocated by reviewers.

Presentations that are approved by their project advisors

as acceptable will be marked by the reviewers and other
academics present in the presentation (except the project
advisor). Final marks will be the average of the marks
from reviewers and other academics which may be above
or below the pass marks.

Week 10 Friday (21 May 2021) 11:59 pm AEST

References

• Somekh, B. and Lewin, C., 2005. Research methods in the social

sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage.