Labs

Lab Reports

For each lab session of class you will be required to complete a lab report that documents your activities. Lab reports are a kind of formal technical writing. You will be graded not only on what you did, but how well you documented it according to the guidelines for writing a report. Lab reports are to be done during class as you are working, not written up after the fact. For this class we will be using an electronic version of the lab report form by making posts to the class blog.  They do not have to be long (250-500 words) but do have to be complete, with each of the following components.

TITLE:  The title says what you did. It should be in the following format “LAB REPORT WEEK X: Brief Description Goes Here” where X is the number of the week the lab happened, and the brief description is a short (ten words max) description of what you are doing in your own words. Do not just copy my words back. Part of the assignment is to formulate a clear description of the work you are doing.

OBJECTIVE: This a a brief description of what it is you want to accomplish by doing whatever it is you are doing.Write this at the beginning of the lab before you start doing any work.  If you are working on a group project you need to be very clear about what part you are doing. This should be primarily “I” statements, not “We” statements. Example: “My goal was to make python logic bricks that responded to UDP messages from the server.” not “We worked on the network code for the multiplayer game”

MATERIALS: This is a list of all the things you used to do your lab. These can be physical things (wii remote, head mounted display,etc) or software components (python libraries, external tools, rendering engines, etc). Be specific. The goal is that someone who wanted to duplicate your work would be able to find everything they needed to know by reading your report.

METHODS: This is where you write down what you are doing to try to reach your objective. Write down every technique as you do it, even if it doesn’t work the first time.

DATA: This is optional. If you are making measurements this is where you would write down all the numbers you are recording from whatever measurement you are doing. If you aren’t making any measurements you can ignore this part.

ANALYSIS: This is also optional. This is where you would do any calculations based on your data. If you aren’t making any measurements you can ignore this part.

RESULTS: This where you write down what happened as a result of your methods. Make certain to clearly indicate if you achieved your objective or not.

DISCUSSION: When you have completed your lab write up a brief discussion of what went wrong, what worked, and what your next steps would be if you were to continue.

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