Application Note-Purpose and Expectations

Purpose

An "Application Note" is a form of technical writing with the following purposes:

1. It has an instructional or tutorial style.
2. It is targeted to a specific audience of users.
3. It is typically a brief and focused description of how to do something, including an introduction to the topic as well as precise implementation details, results, and recommendations.
4. It often includes references to other manuals, documents, or books where the user may gain more or related information.
5. Additionally, in this course, there are two important purposes of an application note:

• A student will demonstrate his/her individual achievement in meeting the course learning objectives related to both technical skills and writing skills. An Application Note may indicate a student's individual contributions to  team-level or course-level deliverables. Individual accountability is critical to a team learning environment.
• A student will develop a piece of intellectual property, i.e., information and resources, that may be reused by others.

Expectations

1. This is not a team deliverable. It is completed by an individual or possibly 2-3 individuals working together. However, an application note may be attached as an appendix to a design-team report and referenced in the report.
2. The application note (AN) must be developed for web viewing, i.e., either as HTML or PDF format. The style of the document will be defined by the Document Preparation and Web Skill Teams. The documents will be accessible from design-team web site.
3. Each AN should begin with the following information: title, student name(s), date, executive summary (or abstract), and keywords. The body of the AN should be divided into subsections, beginning with an introduction to the topic and the objective of the note. Based on the objective, it should then describe the issues, steps, examples, hardware or software developed, etc. of the study undertaken. It should end with results, conclusions, and/or recommendations, as appropriate to the objective, and references. In printed form, the AN would typically be 2-5 pages in length, excluding figures, tables, etc.
4. A student may be asked to demonstrate his/her AN to a member of the instructional staff.
5. Examples of commercial and trade application notes are available.
6. Examples of application notes from a previous capstone course may be viewed under the following URLs. (Note: these may not adhere to SET formatting standards.)

• Example 1
• Example 2
• See also application note subdirectories
• See also design-team final reports in the Archive

7. The topic of the application note should be relevant to your design-team mission. Example topics are given in the following list; however, there are many possible topics.

Suggested Topics

1. Characterizing a system component (e.g., photodiode, photodetector, stepper motor driver)
2. Comparing the properties of one type of component versus another type (e.g., different types of sensors)
3. Specifying a system using a graphical formalism
4. Implementing a re-usable software routine to support function X on a microcontroller
5. Designing a control algorithm that satisfies property X
6. Demonstrating a new or useful feature of a software tool, hardware device, or equipment
7. Developing a model project-management schedule and guidelines
8. Developing a model team directory structure
9. Using features of LabVIEW
10. Timing or profiling of embedded applications (performance analysis)
11. Debugging embedded programs (special techniques, tools)
12. Testing digital/analog circuits using a logic analyzer and/or a PC-based tool
13. Synchronizing multiple sources of information to a single webpage
14. Developing solutions to concurrency issues using the Internet for control
15. Creating a form on the web, storing the data so that it can be imported into an Excel spreadsheet, and performing statistical calculations on data from a set of forms (alternatives using or not using Excel)
16. Designing product graphical user interfaces with high-level functionality for user-centered design/prototyping
17. Communicating between two microcontrollers
18. Applying a standard to a specific program (i.e., effect of using and not using a standard in the design of a software component)
19. Applying a standard to a specific circuit (i.e., effect of using and not using a standard in the design of a hardware component)
20. Applying a standard to a specific system (i.e., effect of using and not using a standard)
21. Other suggestions by students, the instructional staff, other faculty, the employers of our students, and others

NOTE: Use the following criteria to determine whether your application note represents work that is sufficiently your own:

1. You are a primary developer of the deliverable for your team.
2. You have "added value" to the deliverable in the application note based on your own individual efforts