Exercises: Dissemination and technical communication

Explain what project technical documentation is and name three different documents that are typically produced, indicating who each one is aimed at.

These sections of a project report are out of order: (a) budget, (b) introduction and objectives, (c) conclusions, (d) description of the chosen solution, (e) analysis of alternatives, (f) bibliography and references. Put them in a logical order and explain in one sentence what each one contains.

The diagram shows the stages a technical document goes through from being drafted to reaching its readers, but one of them is covered up. State which stage is missing and explain what is done during it.

Explain what a technical drawing is and what minimum information its title block contains (title, scale, author, date, drawing number). Why should a workshop never manufacture parts from a drawing without a title block?

Distinguish between a rough sketch, a detail sketch and a standardised drawing: what level of detail and rules does each follow, and in which project phase is it used? Which of the three has contractual validity?

Explain the purpose of a glossary and list of abbreviations in a technical report, and write two example glossary entries for an automatic irrigation project (for example, "solenoid valve" and "wetting").

A technical document passes through several reviewers. Explain what document version control is, what fields its revision table contains (version, date, author, description of change), and what risk exists if two people edit different copies at the same time.

Explain why figures and tables in a report are numbered and given a descriptive caption, and how they are referenced in the text ("as shown in Figure 3"). Why should a figure be understandable without reading the accompanying text?

In a technical report, the following sentence appears: "according to the internet, steel holds a lot". Point out two technical rigor issues with it, rewrite it correctly using a reasonable value with units, and explain how the source would be cited in the references section.

For a signal-controlled junction project, explain the difference between the technical report, the specifications and the system user manual: what each contains and who uses it (the contractor, the commissioning authority, the maintenance team).

You have five minutes to give an oral defence of your final-year project to a panel. Propose a presentation structure with timings for each block and three style rules for the accompanying slides, justifying each decision.

Rewrite this project objective to make it measurable and bounded: "improve the irrigation of the school garden". Formulate the corrected version with clear criteria (what will be built, for what surface area, with what maximum water consumption and within what timeframe) and explain why an objective without metrics cannot be evaluated.

In a report, you have a table with $300$ temperature measurements and a graph showing their daily evolution. Explain what goes into the body of the document and what goes into the appendices, what general rule determines the location of each item, and why cluttering the body with raw data hinders readability.

Explain how a technical standard (for example, a UNE-EN ISO) is cited in a report's references: what details identify it and how it differs from citing a book or a website. Why is the date of the cited standard relevant in engineering?

Write the executive summary (maximum ten lines) for a project of your choice, following this outline: problem, proposed solution, technologies used, result achieved and a key figure. Then, justify why the summary is written last even though it appears at the beginning of the document.

Correct the style of these sentences from a report, applying an impersonal technical register: "I think the structure easily holds", "we have seen that the battery lasts a ton", "the part is made as explained on the internet". Explain the rule you apply in each correction.

During a technical audit of a solar pumping system for irrigation, the following note is found in the specifications sheet: "The tank is large and holds plenty of water. The pump kicks hard to lift the water to the upper terrace". After installing a 1,5 kW pump without any further data, the PVC discharge pipe (PN 6) has burst due to overpressure, and the pump enters cavitation whenever the tank level drops below 0,5 m.

1. a) Demonstrate which quantitative technical variables (quantities, SI units, and tolerances) were omitted in the original specification and how that ambiguity caused the mechanical failure and the overpressure in the installation.
2. b) Rewrite the complete technical specification for the tank-pump-pipe assembly using standardised hydraulic engineering terminology (defining total dynamic head, nominal flow rate, required NPSH, nominal pressure rating, and usable volume), so that it constitutes a binding and unambiguous technical requirement.

During the destructive testing of a truss structure designed by your team, the bridge collapses at just 180 N, whereas the calculation report predicted a strength of 450 N. When performing the failure post-mortem, it is found that:

1) Critical nodes were butt-jointed with adhesive instead of incorporating gusset plates.

2) A team member reduced the cross-section of the diagonals halfway through assembly to save material, without communicating it to the person who developed the structural model.

3) The shop drawing used on the workbench corresponded to an obsolete preliminary version.

Design a formal document management and change control protocol (Engineering Change Order - ECO) for the project: determine which minimum document records ensure bidirectional traceability between calculations, drawings, and tests; define the mandatory validation milestones, and explain how this document workflow would have prevented the discrepancy that caused the collapse.

Your team designs a modular sorting robot for a technology competition and publishes the project repository with three elements:

1) The microcontroller firmware source code, which dynamically links to a motor control library licensed under GPLv3.

2) The parametric CAD models and STL manufacturing files of the structural parts.

3) The technical report and the assembly guide with original schematics and photographs.

Since no license file was included in the repository, a company downloads the project, commercializes the robot with closed-source software, and demands that you remove the images from the internet, claiming commercial rights over the product.

1. a) Analyze the legal and exploitation situation of each of the three components in the absence of an express license (default copyright under Spanish legislation).
2. b) Design a combined licensing strategy (selecting and justifying specific and compatible licenses for hardware, software, and documentation) that contractually requires any derivative to remain open-source, guarantees acknowledgment of your authorship, and allows the public to freely reproduce the hardware.

The draft of the Technical Specifications Document for contracting the off-grid photovoltaic installation for the Technology classroom contains this clause:

«Top-tier solar modules type SunPower or equivalent shall be installed, generating sufficient energy so that the supply is not interrupted in winter. The winning company will be the one offering the most robust and economical solution at the center's discretion, and must begin work immediately».

1. a) Identify and justify three legal and technical vulnerabilities of this wording (lack of open competition/covert brand names, subjective metrics, and temporal and penalty indeterminacy) that would invalidate the tender under public procurement regulations.
2. b) Fully rewrite the technical clause and the evaluation criteria: formulate objective and verifiable technical specifications (peak power, minimum efficiency, calculation autonomy in design days, electrical protections) and define a mathematical formula or weighted award scale with quantitative criteria (technical and economic) free of arbitrariness.

Users of an automated school weather station are reporting two recurring critical failures:

1) Anemometers and wind vanes are mounted rotated 180°, recording inverted wind directions.

2) When connecting the auxiliary power supply from the solar panel with a lithium battery, several microcontrollers have been destroyed due to reverse polarity or overvoltage.

The development team provided, as a user guide, an excerpt from the technical report containing the PCB track layout and C++ code snippets.

1. a) Justify why directly transferring contents from the technical report to the end user constitutes a documentation design error, defining the purpose, legal scope, and target audience of both documents.
2. b) Design the critical assembly section and the troubleshooting table for these two failures by applying Poka-Yoke documentation principles: incorporate visual design guidelines to prevent orientation errors, diagnostic codes based on observable symptoms (without requiring a multimeter), and the logical cause-solution sequence aimed at non-technical personnel.

In an automated cell controlled by a programmable logic controller (PLC), the single-line diagram and the maintenance manual correspond to version 1,2 of the project, but the PLC is running program v3,0. During a technical shutdown, an operator presses an emergency stop button: the main pneumatic actuator does not halt its stroke, resulting in an entrapment accident. The technical investigation reveals that in version 2,1 the emergency stop input was reconfigured via software from normally closed (NC) to normally open (NO), but the electrical schematic and the safety manual were not updated.

1. a) Evaluate the technical liability and the consequences of this «documentary debt» under the framework of machinery safety and industrial maintenance.
2. b) Design a standard procedure for version control and engineering change management (ECN) for mechatronic projects. Specify how to link code versioning (e.g., semantic versioning), wiring schematics, and safety instructions within the documentation, establishing the blocking condition that prevents pushing code to production without prior documentation validation.

You are acting as a technical auditor responsible for issuing the validation report on the documentation package of a dual-axis solar tracker before authorizing its release for workshop manufacturing. The documentation presents the following deficiencies:

1) Mechanical drawings dimensioned solely with nominal dimensions, lacking dimensional and geometric tolerances (ISO 2768 standard) and with a bill of materials (BOM) without commercial part numbers or steel grades.

2) Functional electrical schematic without standardized terminal identification, without conductor cross-section calculations, and without specifying the breaking capacity or tripping curve of the miniature circuit breakers.

3) Omission of the type-approval testing protocol and prototype acceptance criteria.

1. a) Demonstrate the direct consequences of each of these omissions in terms of machining costs, spare parts interchangeability, and fire risk during commissioning.
2. b) Draft the technical non-conformance report: specify the normative requirements (UNE/ISO/IEC) that must be demanded in each section so that the project can be reproduced by an independent manufacturer without requiring consultations with the designer.

The installation drawing and control panel of a fluid treatment pilot plant feature the following graphic characteristics:

1) Three-phase power conductors and control lines are only differentiated by green, brown, and blue colored lines, without alphanumeric coding.

2) Concentrated acid dosing pipes and demineralized water pipes are represented with continuous lines of the same thickness, distinguished only by line color (red and dark gray).

3) Emergency stop and reagent shut-off instructions consist of two dense blocks of text in Spanish without diagrams or iconography.

1. a) Analyze the operational safety and accessibility flaws introduced by this graphic design for operators with dyschromatopsia (color blindness), reduced vision, or lack of knowledge of the local technical language.
2. b) Redesign the graphic representation convention for the three elements applying strict technical standards: specify the alphanumeric coding according to IEC 60445, the identification of fluids and flow directions according to UNE/ISO standards (using hatching, line weight contrasts, and text labels), and operation signage compliant with ISO 7010.

Unit challenge. As a future technician, you must transform complex data into understandable and visual information for the public, applying criteria for effective technical dissemination and communication. You will analyze actual electricity generation and communicate your findings through an informative infographic created with LibreOffice Draw or Impress.

1. Data extraction: Access the Red Eléctrica de España (REE) website or its e·sios platform. Download the demand and renewable generation data for the mainland electrical system over the last $24\text{ h}$.

2. Technical processing: In LibreOffice Calc, organize the data by hourly slots and calculate the percentage of renewable penetration applying $C_{\text{renov}} = \frac{P_{\text{renov}}}{P_{\text{total}}} \cdot 100$. Generate a chart identifying the day's valley and peak (for example, peaks of $68,4\,\%$ or valleys of $31,2\,\%$).

3. Dissemination and layout: Produce a one-page infographic report aimed at domestic users. It must translate technical data into clear language, explaining when it is most sustainable to schedule high-power appliances, integrating the chart and practical recommendations.

Evaluation criteria:

• Accuracy in processing, calculating, and standardized graphical representation of the REE data.

• Communicative effectiveness and adaptation of the linguistic register to the general public without losing precision.

• Technical quality of document design: visual hierarchy, legibility, synthesis, and correct use of units.