Reg. No.
Evolution of the Project
My project involves the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to supply electricity for rural and domestic use. The title is ‘Renewable Energy: Environmental-friendly Sustainable Solution.’ Solar and wind power are solutions to the problems identified since they are best for sustainable power generation with no pollution (SNERL, n.d.). The objective is to conduct a feasibility study to obtain a renewable substitute for the current electricity supply. Since TMA 01, there has been tremendous progress in m project. First of all, I wrote and submitted m proposal for review. It has since been returned with a number of comments which I need to address. In the proposal. My current work consist of project proposal, description of the project, engineering, procurement, construction, schedule of the project, results and outputs of the project, and references. The proposal contain a description of the title of my work and a brief description of how I shall conduct my study. The proposal contains all the major parts of a typical project including introduction, problem statement, objectives, literature review, and methodology that I shall be using to conduct the studies.
After the project proposal, there is a description of the project where I presented an overview of what the project involve. It describes the alternative renewable energies that are very likely to be utilized at the site. It also highlights the kind of fossil fuel power that is currently existing and why they were not considered for generation of the energy at the site. The description of the project culminated in the choice of solar as a viable option for generating power at the site. This identification is followed by a series of requirements necessary to set up a solar power plant.
The following is am initial work breakdown structure of the project indicating key milestones. However, based on the IE and tutor’s comments, these are subject to change.
A breakdown of all the constituent parts is listed and described in the WBS above. It is a 2-year projection of activities. As time goes by, it is expected that certain changes will be made. The changes shall be made depending on the comments by the IE and the tutor and how the project unfolds. Engineering section involves a technical description of the findings at the site including but not limited to the aspects of resource assessment such as availability of wind, wind speed, solar intensity, and the demographic factors such as population and population intensity. Procurement merely describes the parts of the power plant that can be sourced for assembly of a small wind power plant and/ or a small solar power plant. The list include some of the major items required. The section on construction is a description of the general steps required for successful construction of the wind power plant and/ or solar power plant. It also describes some of the major equipment that may be required at the site. The schedule section is a layout of the plan in which it is to be followed till the completion of the report. It contains a description of the activities to be carried out, when each activity being expected to start and finish and total time taken in terms of days. The results of the project is a general overview on the benefits of the project to the community. It also describes how the current setup is different from the traditional sources of power that were majorly powered by fossil fuels although a few such as nuclear is slowly losing ground due to safety concerns (Poumadere et al, 2011). Last is the reference section, this is where all the materials I used in the research are listed alphabetically. The list is a compilation of various sources including books, journals, similar research done in the past and other electronic media.
Based on the comments by the internal examiner (IE), my main area of concern is the title and objectives of the project. Similar comments had earlier been made by my supervisor. The comments say that the title together with the objectives are at best over-ambitious. There appears to be confusion in my proposal. The IE feels my proposal is not consistent with the title. That means progress of my project is hampered by lack of sound title and clear objectives. Progress is not possible with the current status of the proposal. As a matter of urgency, my next course of action is to modify my title of the project and rewrite the objectives in such a way that they not only reflect SMART concept but also remain consistent with the modified title (Coles, Duval, and Shaw, 2013). My objectives should also lead to a project that can be completed within the academic calendar. These comments will also affect other parts of my proposal including problem statement, introduction, literature review and the overall methodology of approaching the solution. Furthermore, my schedule that I had drawn initially will also be affected. To conclude about the impact of these comments, would rather start working on the project afresh but with slight modifications of the whole document. However some parts might require a total overhaul such as a new schedule with different milestones shall be developed. But I have to move with speed.
I submitted my proposal for review and the IE and tutor has gone over it. They has made numerous comments in the whole proposal. The first one involve the titling of my work. According to the supervisor, the title plus the objectives is very overambitious. His suggestion to me is to consider fixing the parts highlighted so that the project can appear presentable and remain within realistic boundaries. As it stands now the title of my work and the objects cannot qualify for academic presentation. As a matter of urgency, the tutor who went through my work suggested that I look for another title immediately and forward him. The comment is also positive in that the project I intend to do is in line with the T450 and is acceptable. The reason why he finds the project to be overambitious is because it he fears it might not be completed within the allowed time. If fact, according to his estimates, the project might drag for three years if implemented the way it is currently. It might take more time if I proceed as it is now. The tutor further added comments about the need to stick to the SMART concept of project; the project ought to be very clear for it to be acceptable by T450. Besides the tutor’s comments, IE was also concerned about the description my project. To him, it is like my project is a glossary of terms with a possibility of offering solution but not in an academic context. His advice is that I should clearly describe my proposal and particularly a clear statement of the kind of engineering analysis I am going to use. All these comments call for a serious revision of the proposal. For a start, I have amended the major parts including the title, objectives and problem statement. I am therefore going to do another literature review and methodology to be in line with the changes I have made so far. Furthermore, I will invest more time furnishing my project description including a clear description of analysis I am going to use that demonstrate my understanding of engineering principles. And instead of carrying out a feasibility study in this proposal, I would go for design of a product.
In the immediate future, the most important thing is to address the comments the tutor and the IE made in the proposal. This include clearly defining the scope of my project , correcting timescale errors in my work breakdown structure (WBS) including target completion date, and presenting WBS in a Gantt chart. I would also have to include preparation of TMA’s, the EMA and the Poster. This shall be followed by drafting a good contextual background of the proposal before I restate the problem statement and objectives. I will also have to identify good sources for literature review. As I write my literature review, I will be working on the methodology. Overall, the purpose of doing this is to make sure I come up with a sound T450 Innovation and design project, a true engineering project while sticking to the theme: engineering design or redesign of a product.
Part 2
I have learned so many things about projects in the academic context which I did not know before as described by Chakrabarty (2012). First of all, the fact that academic projects follow a certain format and structure. I have also learned that academic projects are about finding a solution to an existing problem or coming up with a new knowledge in a particular field. Academic projects also have specific timelines. They cannot proceed indefinitely unlike other research works which can take very many years. That is why my tutor and IE were very concerned when they found that my proposal lacked clear description and scope. The module had prepared me well and I was ready to commence the project. My aims were motivated by a need to find a solution to a problem existing in the community. I took a global view of the whole issue and considered many alternative solutions before I picked the best one overall. The overall aim was to pick a solution that promotes sustainable concept. However, the solution I chose for the problem was too large to be implemented in the context of an academic project. As such, I had to go back and amend the project proposal. I am also required to work on the title, scope, problem statement, and methodology of my proposal to reflect the structure of a project utilizing engineering concepts with a theme of either to design or redesign an product. All these are lessons learned regarding how to do academic projects.
(i) I conducted literature review for the first title. However, it appears I have to do more regarding literature review. Based on the tutor’s comments, I need to use a different approach that what I used earlier. The idea is now to use materials that are very credible including journals, information such as database of relevant organizations, and most important also is to consider using the latest journals and other resources (Creswell, 2013). So far, the first literature review served a little purpose as far as this project is concerned. I will start a fresh the literature review in line with the new topic. I will also incorporate the tutor’s and IE’s comments as I do the next literature review. Anyway, the first literature review served a purpose in that the tutor’s comments further reinforced my understanding on how to do a good literature review.
(ii) Aspects of the review that have proved difficult according to the tutor is setting of the limits of literature review, effectively exploring the topic and picking relevant information, choosing information sources, and using sources systematically.
(iii) The best way to carry out a good literature review in future is to incorporate tutor’s comments inn my review. This shall include setting the limits of review, exploring relevant parts of the topic, choosing information sources wisely, and using the sources systematically (Paul, 2012). Looking back at what I did before I just picked sources randomly and write anything that I found in paragraphs. This resulted in a literature review that lacked smooth flow. In addition I did not pay special attention to the variety of sources, credibility of sources, and most important also is date of publication. These mistakes have given me vital lessons for future literature review.
(i) To be able to carry out my project to successful completion I would require good reading skills such as previewing, predicting, skimming, guessing, and paraphrasing (NCLRC, 2004). I will also need to be good in summarizing information. Last time I wrote literature review I did not summarize the information I obtained from sources correctly. The literature review was also not flowing smoothly. Therefore I also need to apply good writing skills. Even the formatting of my proposal was not that satisfactory. I would in future apply good formatting skills. Besides formatting I would like to acquire skills in excel sheet, data analysis software like SPSS and power point. Power point shall be very useful during my project presentation.
(ii) The skills I would like to learn and apply in the near future would most likely go to literature review and the data collection and interpretation. These skills include readings skills, typing skills, summary skills, and skills on how to format work like automatically inserting of page numbers, effective titling, and so forth (Keybr, 2014). I am not quite conversant with the use of excel and I would like to apply excel in the data analysis and presentation. The other part that shall benefit much from enhanced skills would be power point. I am not that good in PowerPoint and I believe I will require it for presentation and posters. Project ideas would eventually need to be communicated to various stakeholders. Bradbury (2006) pointed out that presentation is all about communication. I would therefore invest in learning more about effective communication skills. There is also a need to revisit the concepts I learned in previous studies in T307 and T357 to gain some confidence in application of engineering content to support my design decisions as IE emphasized.
References
Bradbury, A. (2006). Successful Presentation Skills. London: Kogan
Chakrabarty, P. 2012. A Guide to Academia: Getting Into and Surviving Grad School, Postdocs and a research job. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Coles, T. Duval, D.T. and Shaw, G. 2013. Student's Guide to Writing Dissertations and Theses in Tourism Studies and Related Disciplines. New York, NY: Routedge
Creswell, J. W. 2013. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. London: Sage publications.
Keybr. 2014. Practice Typing. [online] Available at: http://www.keybr.com/#!game [accessed 23 April2015]
NCLRC. 2004. Strategies for Developing Reading Skills. [online] Available at: http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm [accessed 23 April 2015]
Paul, O. 2012. Succeeding With Your Literature Review: A Handbook For Students: A Handbook for Students. New York, NY: Open University Press
Poumadère, M., Bertoldo, R., & Samadi, J. (2011). Public perceptions and governance of controversial technologies to tackle climate change: nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, wind, and geoengineering. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(5), 712-727.
SNERL. n.d. Renewable energy sources. [Online]. Available at: http://snerl.com/ [accessed 23 April 2015]
