1
San José State University
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Put Title of Lab Here
Report Author:
Put report date here
Joe Mecha
Lab Team:
Joe Mecha
Jane Tronics
Lab Date:
XXSEP9x
Summary
Your summary should succinctly describe what you did, how you did it, and what you found.
It probably should not be longer than about 3 or 4 paragraphs. For example:
“This report describes how two common digital integrated circuits (IC’s), the 7490 decade counter
and the 7447 decoder, a photointerrupter switch, and a seven-segment light emitting diode (LED) can
be used to produce a simple counter. We built a counter from a schematic diagram given in the
instruction sheet for this experiment. We demonstrated its successful operation by cycling the count
from 0 to 9, several times.”
So on and so forth!
______________________________
Results/Discussion
Describe what you did in the lab and what your results were. Include enough figures, tables,
and/or description of what you did, so that someone who is unfamiliar with the lab could repeat
what you did. (Note the figure caption below. All figures must be numbered, have a title, and
have a descriptive sentence or two explaining the significance of the figure. See the ME 120
report writing guide for more information about figures and tables.) This section must answer the
questions, “What happened? Do the results agree with what I expected? Why or why not?” Also
answer any questions posed in the instructions for the experiment. Try to work the answers into
the flow of this section. For example:
“We built the counter according to the schematic diagram shown in Figure 1. The circuit did not
function at all until we discovered that we wired the wrong pins from the photointerrupter to the 7490.
We corrected that problem, and then we discovered that the 7-segment LED did not indicate correctly
when we reached the count of 2…”
+5V
+5V
5
4
1
Photo
Interrupter
5
3
2
14
2
3
6
7
10
1
16
3
4
13
a
12
b
Clock
7447
c 11
7490
(Decoder) d 10
(Decade Counter)
11 6
e 9
15
Q3
D
8 2
f
C
14
Q2
g
9 1
Q1
B
12 7
Q0
A
1
16
2
15
3
4
5
13
12
10
7
11
10
8
9
7
2
11
14
6
+5V
14
+5V
1
13
a
f
8
b
g
c
e
d
220 ohm
Resistor pack
8
7-segment display
Figure 1. Counter display circuit. Each time an object passes through the gap in the photointerrupter, the count
is incremented by one. The decoder takes the count and turns on the proper LED segments to display
the number.
San José State University
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
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So, if the lab manual asks the question, “Why is the sky blue?” Don’t restate the question
verbatim in your report, just work it in to the narrative.
“We determined that the sky is blue, because…
So on and so forth!
______________________________
Conclusions and Recommendations
Put your conclusions and recommendations for what should be done with what you learned in
this section. The conclusions should be your reflection on the major results from your
experiment. What happened, and what are the implications of what I learned in this lab? What
can I do with what I learned here? etc. Try to be specific in what you write. For example:
“We found that a photointerrupter can be used as a switch. It has important advantages over
mechanical switches in that no physical contact is needed, and it does not need to be debounced…”
“This experiment demonstrated the basic principles and components involved in digital displays and
counter circuits…”
“We recommend that voltage measurements be taken at pin 7 in addition to ...”
So on and so forth!
Don’t forget page numbers, references, etc. For more information on how to cite references,
see the ME 120 report-writing guide at:
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/bjfurman/courses/ME120/me120pdf/ME120labreportguide.pdf