VCE Systems Engineering Unit 1 — Electrotechnological systems design · Stage 6
Weeks 14-17 · Producing and implementing
Build the system, test each part as you go, and record what you changed and why.
Open this deck on the projector and press F for full-screen. N toggles speaker notes. The accompanying teacher guide is at /curriculum/vce-systems-engineering-unit-1/teacher/lessons/9.
Before this lesson:
Set a documentation routine from day one — last ten minutes, every lesson. It will not happen otherwise.
Producing and implementing
What you will be able to do
Build the system, test each part as you go, and record what you changed and why.
Set a documentation routine from day one — last ten minutes, every lesson. It will not happen otherwise.
What we're covering
Make the connection
Follow your work plan, and record where you depart from it and why.
Test each subsystem on its own before you connect them together.
When something does not work: state what you expected, measure what is actually happening, and change one thing at a time.
Photograph the failures as well as the successes.
Record every modification and repair, with the reason.
- Production runs for three weeks. Expect the plan to survive about one of them.
- Insist on subsystem testing before integration. Students who wire everything and then power it up cannot find the fault. Sensor working, then output working, then the decision between them.
- Teach troubleshooting as a method, not as luck: what did you expect, what did you measure, where do they diverge, what is the smallest thing you can change to test one hypothesis.
- Enforce OHS compliance for the tools each student is using, against the risk assessment they wrote in sequence 8.
- Require progressive documentation: photographs of the version that did not work, the measurement that prompted a change, the modification and why. Ten minutes at the end of each lesson, alongside the work plan review.
- Run a weekly design review in small groups: each student explains their current problem to three others and takes suggestions. It costs fifteen minutes and it is the most reliable way to unstick a student who has been quietly failing at the same thing for a fortnight. Students record whose suggestion they took, which is both good practice and useful evidence.
- Watch for the students who quietly abandon their design and copy a PRP. Redirect early — a smaller original project is worth more than a copied larger one.
Quick check
Show your reasoning
My record shows the version that did not work, the measurement that made me change it, and what I did.
Students integrate everything then debug. Test subsystems first, or the fault could be anywhere.
Before you pack up
Explain what you learned
What is the one thing you would build differently if you started this again on Monday?
Progressive record of evidence: photographs, measurements, modifications with reasons.
End of lesson 9
Explain it. Apply it.
Next lesson: Diagnostic testing and evaluation.