Technical Report Guidelines

Professor Fiore, Mohawk Valley Community College

It is essential that individuals be able to express their ideas and defend their arguments with clarity, detail and
subtlety. Similarly, it is important that they can read and critique the ideas and arguments of others in like
manner. The creation of lab reports assists in this endeavor. All reports should be neat and legible. Standard
technical writing style is expected along with proper grammar and spelling. This means that active voice, first
person, personal pronouns, and the like should be avoided. For example, don't write “I set the power supply to 6
volts”. Instead use “The power supply was set to 6 volts”. Reports are an individual endeavor. Although it is
perfectly fine to discuss your data and experimental results with your lab partner, the creation of the report itself
is an individual exercise. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. A report should conform to the following outline, in
the order given:

1. General Info. Title, date, your name, partners name.

2. Objective (AKA Hypothesis). Answer the question: “What is/are the item(s) under investigation and
their proposed relationship(s)?” These are statements of the items that you are testing in this particular
exercise.

3. Conclusion. Answer the question “What was shown/verified?” These are concise statements of fact
regarding the circuit action(s) under investigation. Make sure that you have moved from the specific lab
situation to the general case. If all works well, these should match nicely with your Objective section.
Under no circumstances should you reach a conclusion that is not supported by your data, even if that
conclusion is stated in the text or in lecture. What matters here is what you did and your analysis of it. If
there is a discrepancy between your results and theory, state the discrepancy and don’t ignore your
results.

4. Discussion (AKA Analysis). Reduce and analyze your data. Explain circuit action or concepts under
investigation. Relate theoretical results to the lab results. Don’t just state what happened, but comment
on why and its implications. Derive your conclusions from this section. Any deviations from the given
procedure (lab manual or handout) must be noted in this section. The Discussion is the penultimate part
that you write.

5. Final Data Sheet. Include all derived and calculated data. Make sure that you include percent deviations
for each theory/measurement pair. Use Percent Deviation = (Measured -Theory)/Theory * 100, and
include the sign.

6. Graphs, Answers to questions at the end of the exercise, Other. All graphs must be properly titled,
created using appropriate scales, and identified with labels. It is suggested that graphs be created with a
plotting program or a spreadsheet. Alternately, graphs may be created manually but must be drawn using
either a straight edge or a french curve (depending on the type of graph) on appropriate graph paper.

Make sure that you leave sufficient space in the margins and between sections for my comments. Either 1.5 or
double line spacing is fine. Multi-page reports must be stapled in the upper left corner. Paper clips, fold-overs,
bits of hook-up wire, etc. are not acceptable. Below is the grading standard.
Grade of A: The report meets or exceeds the assignment particulars. The report is neat and professional in
appearance, including proper spelling and syntax. The analysis is at the appropriate level and of sufficient detail.
Data tables and graphical data are presented in a clear and concise manner. Problem solutions are sufficiently
detailed and correct. Diagrams have a professional appearance.

Grade of B: The report is close to the ideal although it suffers from some minor drawbacks which may include
some spelling or grammatical errors, analyses which may lack sufficient detail, minor omissions in tabular or
graphical data, and the like. In general, the report is solid but could use refinement or tightening.

Grade of C: The report is serviceable and conveys the major ideas although it may be vague in spots. Spelling
and grammatical errors may be more numerous than those found in a grade A or B report. Some gaps in data or
omissions in explanations may be seen.

Grade of D: Besides typical spelling and grammatical errors, the report suffers from logical errors such as
conclusions which are not supported by laboratory data. Analyses tend to be vague and possibly misleading.
Graphs and diagrams are drawn in an unclear manner.

Grade of F: The report exhibits many of the following deficiencies: Excessive spelling and grammatical errors,
missing sections such as graphs, tables, and analyses, blatantly incorrect analyses, wayward or incomprehensible
data, problem solutions tend to be incorrect or missing, and graphical data or diagrams are presented in a shoddy
manner.
 An Example Technical Report

What follows, starting on the next page, is an example of a technical laboratory report as required for my lab
courses including Circuits 1, Circuits 2, Linear Electronics, Operational Amplifiers, Electrical Circuits 1 and
Science of Sound. Read the example after reading the report guidelines above. This uses the non-formal style.

The experiment in question is completely fabricated, but the report will illustrate both the expected form and
content. The mock experiment involves measuring the speed of sound in various materials and whether or not
this speed is affected by temperature. In this exercise, the experimenter has affixed small transducers to each end
of a solid bar of the material under investigation (rather like a small loudspeaker and microphone). A pulse is
then applied to one end and a timer is used to determine how long it takes for the wave to reach the other end.
Knowing the length of the bar, the velocity may be computed. The bars are then heated to different temperatures
and the process repeated to see if the velocity changes. Appropriate tables and graphs are presented.

The report uses 12 point Times Roman font with 1.5 line spacing although 11 or even 10 point may be preferred.
There is no reason to “get fancy” with the appearance of the report. In fact, this will only serve as a distraction.
Sufficient space is left for the instructor to insert comments. The length of any specific report can vary greatly
depending on the amount of data recorded, the depth of analysis, added graphs, and the like.

As is sometimes the case, this mock experiment didn’t work perfectly.

 Speed of Sound in Various Materials

Science of Stuff, ET301 February 30, 2112

Name: Johan Bruhaus

Partner: Gail Faux

Objective
The hypothesis investigated in this exercise is straight-forward, namely that the speed of propagation of
sound depends on the characteristics of the material and that it may be affected by temperature. Three
different materials will be investigated, each at three different temperatures. It is expected that the
velocity in all three materials will be significantly greater than the velocity of sound in air (343 meters
per second).

Conclusion
The speed of sound in a particular material depends on the internal characteristics of the material. The
speed may either increase or decrease with temperature. The velocity at room temperature for the SB
alloy was approximately 2001 meters per second with a temperature coefficient (TC) of .01%. The GA
alloy was 3050 meters per second with -.2% TC, and the CCCD material was measured at 997 meters
per second with .1% TC. All values were within a few percent of those predicted by theory, and all
velocities were clearly much greater than the velocity of sound in air.

Discussion
To investigate the speed of sound, three bars of material, each one meter long, were obtained. The first
was “Sonic Bronze” or SB, an alloy of tin, copper, zinc, and porcupinium. The second material, “Green
Aluminum” or GA, is an alloy of aluminum and kryptonite, while the third, CCCD, is commonly
known as “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough”.

An acoustical transducer was attached to each end of the bar under investigation. A pulse was applied
to one end and a digital timer was used to determine how long it took for the wave to travel down the
bar to the pickup transducer. As each bar was one meter long, the velocity in meters per second is
simply 1/time delay. The bar was then placed in an industrial oven and the measurement repeated at
temperatures of 75°C and 125°C to compare to the nominal room temperature (25°C) results.
The room temperature results agreed strongly with the published data of the three materials. Comparing
Table 1.1 to the 25°C column of Table 1.2 showed a deviation no worse than 1.64% (final column,
Table 1.2). The variation between materials is approximately 3:1, indicating how strongly the internal
characteristics of the material influence the speed of propagation. The CCCD material, being the most
plastic, should have the greatest internal frictional losses, and thus, the slowest velocity of the group.
This was the case. The inclusion of porcupinium in the SB alloy was responsible for the modest
velocity of this material. The waves have to propagate relatively slowly through the porcupinium
compared to the GA alloy which is free of this ingredient. The speed of propagation for all materials
was significantly faster than the speed of sound through air. Even the slowest of the group, CCCD,
exhibited a velocity nearly three times that of air.

The temperature coefficients also showed tight agreement, and appear to be within just a few percent of
the established values. Generally, the velocity increases with temperature, although the GA alloy
produced the opposite affect. It is assumed that the inclusion of kryptonite in the alloy may be
responsible for this. See Graph 1.1 for details.

There was a practical issue involving the CCCD material. The measurements at 25°C and 75°C were
satisfactory, however, when the CCCD bar was removed from the 125°C oven it had changed texture
and color to a crispy golden brown and produced a strong, pleasing odor. Consequently, one member of
the lab group ate approximately 10 centimeters of the bar before the velocity could be measured. To
correct for this, the measured time delay was adjusted by a factor of 1.11 as the bar had been reduced to
90% of its original length.
Data

Temperature Coefficient (%
Material Velocity (m/s)
change per degree C)
SB 2000 .01
GA 3000 -.21
CCCD 1000 .105

Table 1.1
Published Theoretical Velocities and TC

Velocity Velocity Velocity Temperature %Deviation

Material
25°C (m/s) 75°C (m/s) 125°C (m/s) Coefficient at 25°C
SB 2001 2010 2021 .01 .05
GA 3050 2750 2440 -.2 1.64
CCCD 997 1049 1097* .1 -.3

Table 1.2
Experimental Velocities and TC
* See Discussion for explanation
 Velocity vs. Temperature

3500

3000

2500
Meters/second

2000 SB
GA
1500 CCCD

1000

500

0
25 75 125
Degrees C

Graph 1.1
Variation of Velocity with Temperature, by Material

Answers to Exercise Questions

1. Is the velocity of sound unaffected by temperature?
No. Graph 1.1 shows that in some cases (SB and CCCD) the velocity is directly proportional to
temperature although it may be inversely proportional (GA).

2. If the CCCD material had also been subjected to 175°C, what would you expect?
It is unlikely that a velocity at 175°C could have been measured as the entire bar probably would have
been consumed by the lab team before the transducers could be applied.