Should I do this subject or not? [Australia]

[Tommei]

Hi everyone,

Ive joined physics forums because I am going to make a very important decision that can potentially affect the paths of my life.

I am currently studying in Victoria, Australia as a VCE student in year 11. I am not sure what the equivalent in the USA is but its the second last year in high school/college where you have to compete to quality for your specified university.

I am trying to decide whether I should undertake the subject Systems Engineering next year... For fellow countrymen, you should be familiar with what this subject is. It is basiclly a subject of basic mechanical engineering combined with practical work such as building systems containing mechanicals and circuit boards.

Apparently, next year's whole year assessment in Systems Engineering is 70% based on your practical work/your folio, 30% end of year exam.

The problem I have is, the practical work is free reign...You choose what type of system you want to build; whether it be a robot, catapult, speaker system, etc. The teacher will assess this and score you. A detailed folio of the project must be produced to compliment it.

The thing is, depending on what youre making, if the teacher is not exactly satisfied that its a system you wholeheartedly created, you could get marked down, so I wouldn't consider the subject very fair from school to school.

I plan to do something not too hard, not too easy. I want to build a series of automotive modules/gadgets (probably 5 or more individual modules) and line them up in a plexiglass box (like how circuit boards are mounted in an amplifier), install and wire them up to the car, then make a video (that will be part of my folio) demonstrating how my gadgets are being applied to a real life car. Heres some examples of potential kits I might construct; http://autospeed.com/cms/A_0828/article.html

The potential problem with this is, the kits are pre packed in loose pieces and you can buy them at electronic component stores, you have to solder, connect etc. I am afraid this might be used against me to lower my study score, since I might be accused of using a 3rd party's system design and I did not design the system myself.

Anyone with experience with this subject in year 12, please inform me of your experience and what you built back in school.

Regards, Tommy

 

[AlephZero]

I think you should get some advice from your teacher about what is OK, before you spend a lot of time thinking about the details of your project. The more time you spend "living with it", even if you haven't "officially" started the project work, the harder it will be to change to something else if you need to.

Obviously if you are doing a design-and-build project, nobody will expect you to make every mechanical part yourself, let alone the electrical/electronic components. But "building a kit" probably doesn't demonstrate any design skills in itself. That would only come from how you used the kit in your complete project - for example modifying it to do something different from what it was originally meant to do.