FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

Computer Programming (ECE431)
Mini Project Guidelines

AIMS
Each student will have to undertake a mini project that carries a mark of 40%. A sample of topics is given in
the table below. The student can also pick their own subject matter, but it has to be engineering related.
The purpose of performing a mini project is to ensure that the third Course Outcome (CO3) namely,
Present solutions to selected engineering problems is achieved, as well as to realise the fifth Program
Outcome (PO5), Ability to create, select and apply appropriate techniques, resources and, modern
engineering and IT tools, including prediction and modelling, involving complex electrical engineering
activities.
The objectives of the mini project are to give students the experiences on how to design and develop a fully
functional C++ program in solving a problem. Students are required to perform the following task:
1. A proposal report of the intended project.
2. Develop the flowchart and program.
3. Demonstrate the program.
4. A report on the finished program along with program code and a few sample results.

ASSESSMENT
1. Project Proposal Evaluation - 10%
2. Project Presentation Evaluation - 10%
3. Project Report - 20%
The three Evaluation Forms are attached.

FORMAT OF THE REPORT

1. Title Page This part include the title of the report (which should give a
precise indication of the subject matter), the students name,
student ID, course name and code, group, date and name of
lecturer.
2. Introduction This section describes what the project is about and why this
subject was selected to be the topic of the mini project. Other
relevant information can be included. However, the length of the
introduction must only be about a page to 1 page.
3. Flowchart/Pseudo code This part shows the flowchart/pseudo code of the program.
4. Program Code The students full program code shall be placed here. External
functions, functions that are not written by the student, do not
have to be shown. Comments within the program code are
encouraged.
5. Sample Results Some sample results will be shown here. More than one sample
result is encouraged.
6. Conclusions and Recommendations This is the section of the report that summarise the work that
was done with any contributions and deficiencies. It should be
written clearly. Include recommendations that can improve the
program.
 EXAMPLES OF MINI PROJECT TITLES

Write a calculator program that works with Roman numerals. The arithmetic operators for this program
1 are addition, subtraction and multiplication.

The use of heat sinks on electrical device is to remove heat before the heat can damage the sensitive
parts. If we were to design a new heat sink, we need to know whether the new heat sink is able to
absorb enough heat from the device when the device warms up.
T2
Q
m T1
The following equation c dT can be used to design such a heat sink;

where Q/m is the heat absorbed per unit mass (calories/gram), T1 is the initial temperature of the
device, T2 is the final temperature of the device, and c is the specific heat constant pressure
(cal/g.degK). The value of c can be a function of temperature; and we take it as:-
2
c = (1.59E-11)T4 (1.5E-8)T3 + (3.49E-6)T2 + (4.72E-4)T (9.34E-3)
Write a program, using trapezoidal rule, which takes as input the initial and final temperatures of a
device and the number of calories of heat that this heat sink must absorb, and computes both the heat
absorbed by the heat sink per unit mass and also the heat sink mass needed to absorb the desired
number of calories.
Note that the sign of the heat into the sink is opposite of the sign of heat out of the device.
Use this data for test 1: T1= 330 K, T2 = 300 K, Q = 30 calories and for test 2: T1= 110 K, T2 = 100 K,
Q = 15 calories.

3 Repeat Question 2 using Simpsons rule.

b
( x )
The surface area of a certain material is given by A y dx where y is given as (9 x )e
2 3
and
a

4 the limits of x are from -3 to +3. Write a program using Simpsons rule to numerically integrate A to
find out how many square centimetres is the surface area for the given limits. Also display the exact
( x )
results computed using the indefinite integral e 3
(3x 2 18x 27) .

5 Repeat Question 4 using Simpsons rule.

A popular method of solving differential equations is using the fourth order Runge-Kutta Method.
Given the differential equation below, solve it using Runge-Kutta Method.
6 d2 d
2
y( x) 2 y( x) 5 y( x) 9 Assuming zero initial conditions.
dx dx