Artifacts

Artifact Overview

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.

Design Artifacts

The team's design must be documented well enough that it can be fabricated or reproduced, tested, and operated by someone other than the Capstone team. This is generally done with written documentation, including inline and block comments and docstrings for software.

The specifics of needed documentation will vary by project. 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 documentation, passes the Capstone design reviews, and provides your sponsor with the information they need to use your work.

Artifact Formatting

There are different levels of formality in documentation, from rough sketches to final documents, drawings, and code. As you prepare for design reviews, the content of your documentation is obviously critical, but a well-formatted, clear document 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.

Additional Artifact Guidelines

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

Engineering Drawings

A design package for a project with mechanical elements will likely include 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 your pod instructor know you are doing so. In all other cases, please follow the Capstone standards.

Requirements Documents

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 Documentation

Current standards for documenting software code aim to ensure that the code is understandable, maintainable, and usable by other developers. Refer to the Software Design Package section for details about common documentation to include in your final design package. For help with documenting your code, see the Documenting Code section.

Test Documents

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.

Project Files

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 Files. It is better to review this earlier in the project so you know what will be expected at the end.