Guidelines for writing the Lab Reports
Each group of two students has to submit a report for each session. This is separate from the notebook. The main purpose for the report is to communicate the results to others and to enable others to duplicate the work in a straight forward manner. On the other hand, the lab notebook is for your own benefit and record keeping.
When preparing the lab report you can use a word processor (it may save you time to have a template that you follow for each lab, according to the guidelines described below). You have to include printouts of all logic schematics and simulated waveforms. The lab report does not need to be step-by-step detailed, but should show that you have a good understanding of the lab. Also, the lab report should be complete, where all information requested should be in the lab report. The listing of the report requirements can be found at the bottom of each individual labs page.
Reports are to be either neatly hand written or typed (or a combination of both) and should contain the following information. A report should be concise but thorough. The length of a typical report should not exceed 5 pages. The lab report is due at the start of the next lab.
1. Title, date and name of the students.
2. Follow the following format (The report counts for 75 points out of a total of 100 points per lab)
For the questions which are not submitted online include schematics (if appropriate) and derivations (or optimizations/simplifications, K-maps if applicable) to the questions. However, questions which were submitted on-line need not to be included in the report.
2. Introduction (15 pts)
Give the goals of the lab experiement, and a brief discussion of the theory of operation (if applicable), equation used, etc..
3. Experimental results: (65 points unless otherwise indicated)
a. Brief description of the lab experiment.
b. Schematics of the circuit (from Xilinx schematic entry tool). Put your name and date on each page.
c. Simulated waveform
d. Discussion of the results indicating that the circuit functions properly. You can for instance give a truth table and indicate that for each entry the logic simulator give the right results. Feel free to label the waveforms to indicate the proper operation.
4. Conclusion. (15 points, unless otherwise indicated)
This is an important part of the report. The conclusion should contain a summary of the results. Are the goals of the lab fulfilled? If not, explain why.
5. Sign and date the entry.
For an example of a lab reports, click here:
More extensive reports (mini project): Lab 6
Lab Proceedures; go to Lab Notebook guidelines
Jan Van der Spiegel jan@ee.upenn.edu
Created: September 12, 1997; Updated: September 13, 2005