Just hear me out: You are making it, not taking it. Your final project will be completed as a self-selected group comprised of four members. You will be constructing a comprehensive final exam and the answer key to go with it.
Get Organized
Build your team. Do this as soon as you can. You need a reliable team, one where every single member pulls equal weight. This is not a project where three people do the work and one member stands back and watches.
Plan your strategy before doing anything else. Seriously, you need to have an iron-clad plan. This is not a difficult assignment, but it will have many moving parts. You need every single team member to know what they need to do, when they need to do it, and then to actually do it.
Read this entire handout first. If you don’t read the whole thing, you’re not going to know how to get organized. And that way lies madness. And not just madness, but a sub-par and very possibly unfinished project.
Follow the steps as outlined below. You can get started any time you want, as soon as you form a team. This won’t be an overwhelming time commitment—unless you wait until the weekend before it’s due.
Step 01: Select Appropriate Problems
Select eight problems. Because this is meant to be a Final Exam, your problems must represent the full range of topics, skills, and techniques you have mastered over the semester. Obviously, you do not have to demonstrate the topics/sections we have not covered in class. Do not choose any problems from Chapter 01.
Work together. Decide together what types of problems you need. For example, do you need a problem specifically from Chapter 02 to demonstrate how to construct a unit vector, or can you show that skill in a problem from a later chapter? (Hint: you may not need any Ch 02 problems, since the skills are very liberally applied in subsequent chapters.)
Map it out. Before anyone starts creating problems, you should have a basic list or outline of problems: Chapter, topic, who’s going to create the problem.
Two problems each. Each team member must create two problems, one each from two different chapters. Make absolutely certain that each person knows exactly what they are responsible for.
Use the textbook. Or not. You may choose problems from the book, or create problems from scratch. However, creating the actual problems is a solo endeavor!
You must edit any problem you select from the text. Change the dimensions of the structure, the magnitudes of the applied forces, the objective of the problem. For example, if the problem you chose uses the method of sections to find the force in three truss members, choose three different members to analyze with a section, then choose two different joints to solve as well. That way, you have demonstrated both the methods of joints and sections in a single problem.
Stick to the plan! If your group is expecting you to create a friction problem from Ch 08, don’t go rogue and prepare a virtual work problem from Ch 11. Do the thing your group is counting on you to do.
If you created it, you’re not analyzing it. You will be responsible for analyzing two problems that were created by someone else on your team. Again, a solo task. Agree as a team and in advance who will analyze which problems.
Identify the skills. You should list the skills and techniques that are necessary to solve the problem. For example, a 3-dimentional moment problem might require you to create a unit vector to resolve the components of a force vector, perform a vector cross-product, use Pythagorean theorem to find the magnitude of a resultant vector, and use direction cosines to find the direction angles.
Be thorough! You are not solving the problem numerically, but you should be able to think your way through the necessary steps. This process is meant to make you aware of all the concepts, skills, and methods that you have been mastering.
If you created it or analyzed it, you’re not solving it. You will solve two of the problems numerically. Once again, agree in advance who will solve which problems.
This is a solo task. You will not consult with either the person who developed the problem or the one who analyzed it. Your job is to solve the problem as if you were taking a test. Solve it as neatly and completely as you possibly can.
Go ahead and get it wrong. Not on purpose, but if the person who created the problem has done their job properly, there won’t be any way to look up an answer. Your task is not to solve it perfectly (although you might, and that would be great!), just to solve it.
If you created, analyzed, or solved it, you’re not checking it. You will check two of the solutions that someone else has prepared (for problems that you have neither created nor analyzed).
This is a solo task. Do not consult with the creator, analyzer, or solver of the problem.
Go ahead and get it right. Check the problem very, very carefully. You have a lot of experience now in tracking errors, so use it. The solver may have gotten the correct answer, but you have no answer key to check—so you have to be the answer key.
Work on a copy. Make detailed annotations and corrections on a copy of the solution (make sure that the project retains an original copy of each problem solution). You’re done when you either verify that the provided solution is correct, or have shown how to correct it.
Whole team participates! Surprise! The last step is to determine if the problem is successful.
Compare the analysis with the solution. Does the solution use/demonstrate the methods put forth by the analysis? Does the solution employ any techniques not suggested by the analysis?
Compare the solution with the correction. Has the problem been solved satisfactorily? If you find any mistakes in the solution that the checker missed, or any new errors in the checker’s revision, note them! You do not have to correct them.
Evaluate the problem. Is the problem as written suitable for an exam? Does it accomplish what the creator and analyzer thought it was going to accomplish? Do the solution and correction suggest any ways that the problem should be edited to better accomplish its goals?
Step 07: Summarize
Once the test is complete (all problems created, analyzed, solved, checked, and evaluated), come back together as a group. Now look at the big picture: the finished exam.
Have you created a final exam that would appropriately test a semester’s worth of accomplishments?
Are there any specific concepts, skills, or techniques that you could have included (because we covered it), but did not? Do you have a reason for skipping it? For example, if you did not include any problems involving distributed loading, that would be a major oversight. But if you did not include a particular category of friction problems because they are easily solved by applying a formula, that would be an acceptable reason for the omission (because there is not much skill required to jam numbers into a formula).
Do you have any problems that you should revisit and revise? Which ones? You do not have to perform any revisions, but comment on what specific aspect(s) of the problem(s) should be modified.
Step 08: Put It All Together
This is going to be a massive submission. Each individual problem will have at least five pages: problem, analysis, solution, check, evaluation. Your final summary should be brief, no more than a page. Because of the scale, we’ll handle it differently than your exams.
There will be a Final Project folder for your team in the shared Google drive. Within the folder, there is a subfolder for each problem. You should upload all your work in the proper folder. All of your contributions should be uploaded no later than 6:00 PM on Monday, 09 December. No late work will be accepted, and your access to the folder will end (the folder will be moved out of the shared drive for grading).
One Last Word About Organization
Decide on dates and stick to them! You’ll need a fixed date for the completion of each stage of the process, and everybody has to stay on track and on task. You obviously do not need to assign the tasks or dates as I have illustrated below.
