MECH 203 – End-of-semester Project

You are required to complete the project on your own, without any 

collaboration or assistance from others, other than the instructors and teaching 

assistants.

You must submit a signed statement which clearly states that

the work that you submitted is entirely your own.

Due date:

 Design Project Final (Due Friday, April 4, 11:59PM)

Grading & Weight: This assignment is out of 23.5 marks, as further specified in the mark breakdown for 

each question, and in the rubric below. The assignment is worth 23.5 marks your overall final grade in 

the course (out of a total of 85).

Late Penalty: Late submissions will be penalized at 10% each day for up to 5 days, in which case a grade 

of zero will be given. 

1. Overview 

The goal of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your mathematical and computational method skills in an 

applied context by designing a model for an idealized structure. Your assessment will be based on the following, as 

further specified in the rubric below:

 Physics model soundness

 Statistical analysis 

 Local optimization

 Vibrational analysis

 Probabilistic assessment of building response

 Soundness of design objectives (cost, resilience, architectural qualities, etc.)

 Quality of Code 

 Readability 

 Overall scope of the project 

This assignment directly aligns with the following Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs):

 CLO 1: Solve systems of linear equation analytically and numerically with Python

 CLO 2: Explain random processes, including Gaussian, Poisson and binomial

 CLO 3: Analyze random processes, including Gaussian, Poisson and binomial

 CLO 4: Apply various interpolation and fitting methods using Python and discuss numerical 

errors

 CLO 5: Explain local optimization algorithms

 CLO 6: Apply local optimization methods, coding in Python

1.1 Time for completion

This assignment will take approximately 16 hours to complete (8 hours per week). You are required 

to complete the project on your own, without any collaboration or assistance from 

others, other than the instructors and teaching assistants.

The time constraint of the project is important: in many engineering work environments, you can 

only bill a certain number of hours to a certain client/project. This project is similar: limit 

yourselves to the prescribed number of hours, and deliver the best modelling project that you can 

produce during that timeframe.

1.2 Instructions 

 You are provided with two documents that provided instructions and data to help get you 

started.

 The first two parts of the project are similar to a standard Jupyter Notebook assignment: 

you are given data, you analyze it, and you implement a computer model that uses it, based 

on a relatively simple example. These two parts are there to help you get started, but are 

not graded per se.

 Afterwards, it’s up to you! You decide what structure you will design, what design objectives 

you will include, and which analyses you will prioritize. In part I and II, you are given a basic 

framework and dataset to get started. It’s up to you to decide in which direction you want 

to go. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your creativity, curiosity, and modelling, software 

development, and computational skills.

 You will submit a PDF report (4.5-5 pages) containing the following sections:

o Introduction (~0.25 page)

o Design objectives (~0.5 page)

o Computational Methods and Model (~2 pages)

o Computational Results and Analysis (~2 pages)

o Conclusions (~0.25 page)

 You will attach a Jupyter notebook containing your code and model output.

 Attached, there is an article by Konstantinos Keremides et. al. ; some ideas of this project 

are based upon it. Feel free to use it for inspiration. Take note, however, that the scope of 

that paper is well-beyond what we are expecting of your two weeks of modelling. The article 

is the result of one year of work of a first-year graduate student (albeit that student took a 

few courses at the same time); you should view it as a source of inspiration and motivation.

Your assignment will be evaluated using the following criterion and weights (out of a total of 23.5 marks):

Criteria Mastery High Quality Developing Marginal Not Demonstrated 

Statistical Analysis 2.5 2 1.5 1 0

Soundness of 

physical model

2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Local Optimization 2.5 2 1.5 1 0

Vibrational analysis 2 1.75 1.5 1 0

(eigenvalues/vectors)

Probabilistic 

assessment of 

structure response

2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Soundness of Design 

Objectives 

2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Quality of Code 2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Illustrations, graph 

and/or movies

2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Readability of report 2 1.75 1.5 1 0

Overall Scope of the 

Project 

4.5 3.5 2.5 1.5 0

1.3 Ideas for you 

 Use various materials, based on data from the literature

 Add rotational springs to capture bending/connections

 Model a 3-D structure.

 Evaluate effect of variation of structural material’s properties on vibrational properties

 Evaluate response to a shear load.

 Find the lightest/cheapest structure that can support a given load.

 Design a bridge/house/car/rocket/prosthetics.

 Evaluate (maybe using a bootstrap method), how changing the material’s properties (spring 

constant, equilibrium length, etc.) changes its resilience.