Lab 2 Writing Assignment
Methods, Results, Equations, and Tables
Writing Assignment
In this writing assignment you will learn to make high quality tables that follow the conventions of scientific writing In addition, you will write text to describe how you collected the data presented in the tables, describe the equations used to interpret the data, and make an argument based on the data presented in the table.
Statement of Work
Prepare an example methods and results section of a technical memo.
The methods section describes how you collected the data presented in the results section and should include any diagrams or figures needed to explain the data collection process. For this lab, the figures must include an electrical schematic of the voltage divider circuit and clearly show where the measurement was made. The figure should have a descriptive caption and follow the best practices outlined in the Lab 1 writing assignment. Your figure should include 150-250 word section of text describing the schematic and explaining how the measurement was made.
The results section should present the data you collected. For this lab, the results section will be tables presenting the measured and predicted output voltage values. You should present one table which demonstrates the impact of measuring different resistance values with the same instrument (e.g., the multimeter). Another table should contains data to demonstrate the influence of different measurement devices used on the same circuit (e.g., comparing data from a set value of Z1 and Z2 across the multimeter, both oscilloscope probes, and Teensy) The predicted values should be calculated using the appropriate model for the electrical measurement tools you used and the appropriate error bounds (i.e., your model should include the internal resistance of any measurement tool and the resultant loading effects.) A 100-150 word section of text should be included beneath each table describing the results and what they mean, along with noting any particular notable features or discrepancies (e.g., if the measured value is outside of the 95% confidence interval).
As usual in E80 writing assignments, these sections are going to be presented without an introduction, and therefore you need to exercise some caution in topic sentences to provide the barest introduction to the material. For example, don’t lead by writing “The robot navigated the course”. Instead, write “This data describes a robot navigating an obstacle course in an underwater test tank.”
Learning Objectives
By the end of this writing assignment you will…
- Learn how to create a high quality table which presents collected data
- Understand the information that should be included in a methods section
- Write equations in methods section to explain the data collection procedure
- Created clear circuit schematics for the methods section
- Write text to describe how the data presented in the table was collected
- Write text to explain what the data presented in the table means