This section provides information to help you prepare excellent artifacts that reflect your excellent design. Use this section as a reference as you work on your project. Following the guidelines presented here will maximize your grade and should also allow you to convey project details more effectively to your sponsor.

During product development, the design evolves as decisions are made. These decisions must be captured in a transferable way, i.e., so other engineers can follow our work. We call the means used to make design decisions transferable product development artifacts, or artifacts for short. Artifacts are a fundamental part of good engineering design. Artifact Overview, helps you learn more about artifacts,when to make them, and what they should contain.

The design must be defined with sufficient detail for the project sponsor to be able to replicate the work, i.e., the design must be well enough documented that it can be fabricated, tested, and operated by someone other than the Capstone team. This is generally done with written Design Artifacts and appropriate computer files.

The specifics of the needed design artifacts will vary by project and by stage. However, there are a number of general types of information that are needed to sufficiently define the design. Following the Design Artifacts requirements and guidelines will ensure your team generates professional quality artifacts, passes the Capstone design reviews, and provides your sponsor with the information they need to use your design.

There are different levels of formality in artifacts, from rough sketches to final documents, drawings, and code. As you prepare for documentation reviews, the content of an artifact is obviously critical, but a well-formatted, clear artifact reflects your level of professionalism and care for your work. Capstone has provided some Artifact Formatting guidelines to help you. Your artifacts must reflect careful and professional work and presentation. Note that templates in both Microsoft Word and LaTeX formats are available on your Box drive in the Class Documents/Templates folder.

The following sections will help you to address common questions that arise when creating artifacts specific to your project.

An Engineering Design Artifact package will largely consist of engineering drawings and their associated CAE files. Many companies have drawing standards they want all employees to follow when creating engineering drawings. This section describes the Engineering Drawing Standards for Capstone. Note that in some cases sponsors may express the desire that teams follow the sponsoring company's standards. If they do, please follow the sponsor standards, and let the Capstone office know you are doing so. In all other cases, please follow the Capstone standards.

Every project has requirements that must be documented. These guide the project and are revised as project information is obtained throughout the process. Refer to Requirements Artifacts for more information.

Software is increasingly important in all aspects of engineering. Refer to the Software Artifacts section to find information about how to document your software components.

Everyone needs to do testing to ensure that your product meets requirements and performs well. We expect that each project will have a set of Test Artifacts documenting efforts to characterize your design.

Every project will generate a vast amount of project information. It is essential that you document your work. Sponsors have come back years later to request items from Capstone teams. To preserve and transfer your design information, you must plan to place all of your design information in a Project Data Archive. It is better to review this earlier in the project so you know what will be expected at the end.