The purpose of this project is to allow you to engage in the kind of research that you might be expected to do professionally and present the results of that research in a documented report, using an acceptable format.
You should choose an engineering problem (or opportunity) in your field and investigate that topic for a real organization, one that you might hope to work for someday (or one you are already working for). That organization may be a large company or a small business, or a government agency, either federal, state, or local. The subject you choose to investigate must be real and of real interest to your audience. However, this subject may not be one you have already researched in another class.
Your investigation may include looking into the feasibility of producing or purchasing new products or technologies, looking into advances in technologies related to you career and into how they could be applied by your audience, or determining and recommending a specific solution to a particular problem concerning your readers. Your investigation should rely primarily on information that you can obtain from secondary sources such as published reports and interviews with experts in your field, and not on information gathered through experimentation and design. A secondary purpose of this project is to allow you to become familiar with the literature of your profession.
