Proposal Technical Report Guidelines

CREE is requesting a two-page proposal handout from each engineering company that summarizes the technical and aesthetic aspects of their proposed design. Professionalism in the formatting and written text is important, as this is being presented to your client who is tasked with selecting the winning company for the job.

Cover Page

The cover page does not count towards the two-page limit of this report (so technically it will be a total of three pages!)

The cover page of the Proposal Technical Report should include the following:

  • Appropriate title for the proposal report

  • Report company details including:

      • Company name & logo

      • Team number

      • Company member names

      • Date

      • "COSMOS Cluster 4, University of California, San Diego"

  • Jacobs School of Engineering logo

      • Download the JSOE logo here (PNG files have transparent backgrounds)

  • An image of your complete Wind Turbine Tower (could be real image or OnShape rendering)

  • Introduction: Short introduction of your company and a summary of your goals for the project (remember, CREE and Hala know the project criteria. They are more interested in how your company strives to meet that criteria and what engineering aspects you chose to focus on)

Page 1: Structural Design

The first page of the Proposal Technical Report should include the following:

  • Theoretical Relationships: Present the graphs that you created for the TOWER and BLADES using your experimental testing data. Remember the instructions for these were found here. Explain what your company learned from these calculations and how you used the knowledge to improve your design.

  • Structural Analysis: Present one calculation that you performed for either the TOWER or the BLADES. We recommend typing your calculations up or re-writing them neatly by hand for a photo image to insert in your report. Discuss the assumptions you made, why you chose to perform this calculation, and how it applies to your structure.

        • When explaining why you chose this calculation - don't use language such as "this is what I learned in class and the only calculation I felt applied to my design". Be professional, consider engineering explanations such as "this member in the tower is the longest member, therefore a buckling calculation was performed... "

  • Performance: Present your performance index variables in a table from both your prototype tests for both the TOWER and BLADES. Discuss what your team learned from the tests and how you made changes to your design to perform better and lead to your final design choice.

Page 2: Aesthetics & Construction

The second page of the Proposal Technical Report should include the following:

  • Aesthetic Intent: Describe the aesthetic goals of your Wind Turbine Tower and what your company was striving to achieve. Discuss any unique elements or specific details that you feel relates to the appeal of the Judging Committee.

  • Construction Techniques: Briefly explain how you constructed your Wind Turbine Tower, what materials you chose, and any techniques you used for building.

  • Project Challenges: Discuss for both the TOWER and the BLADES the various construction, design, and testing challenges you faced and the problem solving you performed while building your prototypes and final design.

  • Provide both real photo images of your final Wind Turbine Tower and rendered images from OnShape. The Judging Committee will use this report section and your photos to perform the Aesthetics Judging for the Performance Index, so make sure you include your best images!

Report Writing Reminders!!

Two-page means two-page only! We are not expecting long report paragraphs. It is an important skill to learn how to be concise yet detailed enough when discussing information. Don't be too long, but don't leave out important information.

Make images, tables, and graphs a readable size, they do not have to be huge or tiny. Remember text can flow around or be written in multiple columns.

Follow all the report formatting you learned in Science Communication, such as how to present tables, figures, and equations, in addition to proof reading and writing in the 3rd person. Keep in mind that this report does not follow the traditional Technical Report Sections for a formal report, so you do not need to include anything other than what is listed in the above requirements. You can review the Science Communication slides and links here.

Proposal Template Examples

We want you to explore creative freedom with this proposal report and make it something your client would be excited to read. See the links and examples below. Keep in mind, do not sacrifice the required content for report aesthetics. Some of these examples may utilize a lot of blank or negative space, which might be difficult to achieve with the content you need to include.

Refer to the proposal technical report guidelines taught to you in Science Communication here.

Canva is great free online tool for creating beautiful documents, flyers, etc. Keep in mind that it does not have all the formatting options as Microsoft Word, such as the ability to work with equations, tables, graphs, etc. Many of those elements can be formatting in Word and brought in as images if you wish to utilize this program.

Whether you use Canva or not, check out these examples of proposal templates to give you an idea of the type of creativity you can do with your report or cover page:

https://www.canva.com/templates/EADaojWaqhU-peach-modern-marketing-proposal/

Example images of other one-page proposal reports