Requirements for Proposal, 2-Part Project Plan, Data

ChE130, Spring 2015
Guidelines for Reports, Presentations & Updates
Requirements for Communication
During the term, each student must:
• participate in a 5-10 minute pre-proposal meeting;
• submit a one-page project proposal;
• write a two-part project plan;
• submit a data summary for the tutorial;
• two oral project updates with the instructors;
• in a final presentation, present results, findings, interpretations & conclusions for the project;
• in a journal-style written report, write about results, findings, interpretations & conclusions for
the project.
Pre- Proposal Meeting
In this 5-10 minute meeting with instructors, you will discuss your preliminary project objective,
constructs and rationale. Our feedback may cause you to revise your objective, prelim design and/or
plans, so YOU SHOULD NOT DESIGN PRIMERS. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN THE RATIONALE FOR
THE CONCEPT AND JUSTIFY THE NUMBER OF CONSTRUCTS AND THEIR LIKELY SEQUENCES.
Shortly after we assign you a suitable project area that matches your skill level, experience and interests,
you must ideate your own specific project objective. On Wednesday, April 1, 2015, Michael presented a
few project concepts as examples, but you can pursue other objectives. First, you should identify what
you want the system to accomplish, how you want a system to change its behavior, or what attributes
you want to investigate. Then, you should identify which constructs will allow you to evaluate the
system in a rational way. Although this assignment is not graded, we’ve found that performance on the
next assignment is highly correlated with performance/effort for this pre-proposal meeting.
To the meeting, bring one sheet of paper with your objective, rationale, and prelim list of constructs that
focus only on the region of interest – the RBS or the promoter region. We don’t need the entire map.
One-Page Project Proposal
In this one-page project proposal, you should briefly describe your project and why it’s important, your
objective, your design strategy, your characterization strategy, and expected results. You can use a font
size no smaller than 11-point, and use a font that’s acceptable for scientific work. You should use
top/bottom and right/left margins that are no smaller than one inch. You may use single spacing within
a paragraph, but use double spacing between paragraphs. You may not use a second page or the back
side of the first page. Everything must fit on a single side. YOU MUST ATTACH A SINGLE PLOT/FIGURE
THAT SHOWS YOUR EXPECTED RESULTS.
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Last Updated: April 1, 2015
ChE130, Spring 2015
Guidelines for Reports, Presentations & Updates
Project Plan
The project plans should be of a length sufficient to completely specify the information required of your
system. For instance, plasmid systems should include all genetic elements on the plasmid so that it is
clear you know what plasmid backbones you are cloning into and the complete set of components that
make up your system. Primer sequences should include the sequence name, the sequence (in an
orientation going 5’ to 3’), and a report of the melting temperature of the binding region of the
sequence and an indication of the homodimer / heterodimer energies of the sequences. A construction
timeline should provide a detailed outline of all the tasks that need to be performed each week in order
to finish the construction by the indicated date. The outline of the characterization assays should include
details on what assays will be performed, under what conditions, and on what constructs (including all
controls).
We will provide Word templates for both parts of the project plan.
Data Summary for Tutorial
Instead of writing a tutorial report, you will instead focus on generating excellent figures and captions.
You will include figures and captions for the following items:
• Gel image of PCR product;
• Plate images showing colony growth;
• Gel image of colony PCR product;
• A graph showing the effects of arabinose on fluorescence.
Each figure should have its own caption, and each figure/caption should be on a separate page.
Project Updates
You will have two, five-minute meetings with Prof. Tirrell and Dr. Vicic to receive individualized feedback
and guidance to achieve project success. You should come prepared to discuss all details of your project
and bring any data, images, figures, or plots that might be useful. You will either provide two handouts
or submit an electronic version of what you presented.
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ChE130, Spring 2015
Guidelines for Reports, Presentations & Updates
Final Presentation
Each student will make a final, 15-minute, conference-style presentation about his/her project, followed
immediately by a five-minute period for questions. You should assume that the audience has a basic
background in biomolecular engineering, but does not know the details or your project or your design.
We provide a laptop (Windows 7 with MS PowerPoint 2010) and a projector.
Even though you email your presentation to us, you should put your presentation file on a USB jump
drive or on the network. If you use a Mac, you should check your presentation before your session to
make sure special symbols and graphics appear correctly.
Written Report
Students will write one report for the project.
This report should include no more than 10 pages of text and include no more than five figures. To meet
the requirement of ‘no more than 10 pages of text,’ you must tell a clear and concise story about your
work and results. To meet the requirement of ‘no more than five figures,’ you will have to carefully
select and create a few meaningful figures and you should not include figures for all data that you
collect. You should only present data and figures that are critical for your story. (NOTE: Tables do not
count as figures. A figure with multiple panels of related data is counted as a single figure.)
Remember, in the discussion section of your report, you should focus on why something did, or did not,
occur. You should not just state trends. You should not just state facts. You should provide sufficient
evidence, including trends, facts and data, in a logical fashion to support your claim.
We will provide you with a sample report that you should use as a template for structure, writing style
and language. We will also provide an accompanying handout that highlights important aspects of the
sample report, including detailed helpful hints about writing (and presenting). Both of these documents
are available on the course website as single downloadable file with the link title, “Project Report:
Sample & Notes.”
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Last Updated: April 1, 2015