Research in

Undergraduate Projects
By
Dr. Salman Amin
Assistant Professor,
EED
UET, Taxila

Sequence of Presentation
Defining undergrad project and listing some good projects
Defining research
How everyone is doing research un-intentionally
What is most needed attribute for research
Some thought provoking Videos
Phases of Research
Some Research Topics
How to present your and other work
Types of research papers
Components of research papers

Part 1

What is research,
and how to do a
research based project

Define an undergraduate project

The minimum requirements for an undergraduate
project are
Solving a known problem with a known technique
means
Developing a known circuit/machine/
hardware/software with known design/algorithm.

Examples of some good undergraduate

projects (Not research based)
Electrical & Electronics
Build a solar panel from solar cells, build circuits like a charge controller, dc-dc,
dc-ac, ac to ac and ac-dc converter, control circuits to control temperature ,
humidity, smart buildings, cars, aviation , high voltage generators of different
kinds, make devices like induction furnace, dielectric heating, electronic bomb,
wireless energy transfer coils, a simple robot and many more like this
Mechanical
Fabricate a heat exchanger, build a solar heater, build an engine, build a gear
box, make a turbine, make a siphon action water pump, make a hydraulic press,
make a hydraulic damper, fabricate a hydraulic governor for turbine etc.
Civil
Develop a siphon type water dam, make a sewage treatment plant, fabricate
concrete breaking machine, fabricate a soil testing machine, fabricate a smart
mixer for construction materials etc.

Examples of some good undergraduate

projects (Not research based) contd
Computer
Develop a microcontroller or computer operated CNC machine, robot, glove box, motor
controller, valve controller etc.
Software
Develop a software for store inventory, student registration record in department, hostel
registration, admission process, e filing system for an organization, software for big firms
record keeping like NADRA, METRO, Passport Office etc.
Telecom
Develop telecommunication systems to transfer date over guided, unguided media, air and
vacuum using different approaches etc.
Industrial & Environmental
Build an charge precipitator, make a boiler, make a sterling engine, make a ball mill, roller mill or
any other grinding system, make a heating system utilizing solar energy or any other waste
heat within an industry, make a waste management system for factory or a sewage treatment
plant etc.

Define the research

Re-search could be defined in many ways, there is no single line definition
which is complete
So I define it in many ways..
Thinking on a problem(research or project topic), thinking on a behavior
(student, child), reporting a problem, suggesting a solution to problem(idea),
trying to solve a problem(solution), trying to reduce the cost of system(LED,
meter, driving style) or behavior (wapda 48 hz) or response (child, milk,
pamper), removing a fault from any thing(bus window), suggesting an
improvement in an existing system(engine efficiency), trying an experiment
to demonstrate or prove your idea, finding the effect of a particular
medicine on patients, creating new ways to use resources or even waste
materials efficiently(bio gas), creating a new application for an existing
product(plasma), finding a new way to solve a problem which is already
solved(transfer heat from roof to room using electricity), surveying among
people or over internet to get opinion about something(mobile review) or to
create a new problem(literature review). Applying technique of an area to
another area, developing new techniques for speeding up the existing
systems, checking the ultimate threshold of a system and analyzing data
collected from it to estimate its life/performance and many more like next

How people do research

A college student
Finding ways to attract the beautiful girls and avoid RAQEEB (in urdu)
A graduating student
Something I wish my teacher taught me when I first started the
projects.
A PhD student
A way to find out what's already been written on my dissertation
topic, or what areas provide opportunities for study.
A great journey of investigation, full of surprises, loaded with fun and
pain and nerve-wracking with all those computers.
A mature Person
Finding a way to make decisions about big things like healthcare,
investments, major purchases, learning the behavior of people and
how to deal with them

How people do research contd

A Pakistani Medical Doctor
(A machine shown on right which never does its work even after getting coins)
Finding fastest ways to kill the disease or person with disease (allopathic),
or to cure it slowly so that continuous income source is not lost (homeopathic),
or finding new ways to pull out more and more money from patients
A common Pakistani man
Finding a way to stop electricity meter. Finding a way to reduce the make up and clothing
cost of wife, finding a way to fulfill the needs of children, or finding a way to earn other
than salary

Savour Foods (Blue Area)

Finding ways to get cheap bones from waste to make PULAO cheap and earn
more

Milkman
Finding methods to increase the amount of milk by additives
(booster injections, adding water and other things )

Malik Riaz
Finding a way to launch BAHRIA TOWN on MARS after earth is full

How people do research contd

An Engineer
Finding a way to make people life easier and make money. Finding ways to enhance the life of
machines(manufacturers e.g Toyota Japan), or to reduce the life of machines (Suzuki Pakistan)

A University Teacher (Type A)

Finding Ways to avoid teaching by insulting the students or using downloaded slides and question
papers or
finding ways to reduce the number of students in class with threats
A university Teacher (Type B)
Finding ways to keep in pace with good and weak students and creating fun to avoid boring
lectures. Teasing students with difficult question papers. Brainstorming the students with
vivas presentations and projects. Promising students to give time but never be available in
office

A university Teacher (Type C)

Finding ways to keep the students away from learning while still getting good grades and making
them feel happy with their smiles and looks.

What is Scientific Research

1. To search or investigate exhaustively
2. Inquiry, examination, investigation or
experimentation aimed at the discovery
and interpretation of facts
3. Revision of accepted theories or laws in
the light of new facts, or practical
application of such new or revised
theories or laws
4. Collecting information about a particular
subject (Literature Review)

Here comes a question

What is most needed
attribute that you must
have or develop in
order to do research?

Answer

Curiosity

What is Curiosity
Curiosity
Mars Rover (launched in 2012 reached at
mars in seven months.
Let see it look carefully

Now ask yourself a few questions

Why a parachute was opened in above video?
It was to slow down the speed.
But how it worked as there is no air outside in space?
There is dark matter in space which has same effect as that of air.
Search yourself
What is this dark matter?
Has anyone sensed dark matter on earth?
Why was the curiosity rover given a spin as it enters the orbit of
mars?
And so on
This is curiosity, that finding one answer leads you to another
question.and your mind is always in search of more and more
knowledge .. And ultimately you find a point where no research
has been done and you can do that or even suggest to someone
to do that.

What is Curiosity
Its the habit of thinking and wondering on every thing
you see.
Some people are gifted from ALLAH with it since their
birth. They are the excellent researchers.
But others can also become a sufficiently curious to
perform reasonably useful research.

How to produce Curiosity

Start thinking about everything around you
How it is there?
From where it came?
How it is made?
What's inside it?
How it works?
What would happen if it is not there?
How can I use it?
How can I improve it?

For Example think

What would happen if the sun disappears from the solar
system ?
Think ? Could it happen or not?
No. but still think if it happens?
We will die
Earth will become cool
Oh Our solar panels will go wasted
What else could happen
Lets See..a thought provoking video

When I was 3 years old

I thought I could make a light bulb, how?

I observed that it just contains a twisted wire, so I
did it with a bare copper wire, holding it in hand
and put it at 230 volts outlet, breaker tripped, wire
disappeared, no light bulb except for a spark. I
dont get any shock even for a second..
Now think
Why I did not get shock?
Where the wire went after spark? Burnt wire must
be there
I Got the answer after 12 years of wondering
How much time you would require..

How high a structure we can build on

earth
A very high structure could go in space and reduce the
speed of earth ? Is it possible to build a such structure?
If possible what would be the problems and advantages
Lets see
Videos\How High.mp4

Lets think another curious thing

What would happen if the earth was flat
Is it possible?
May be we have been misguided till now
There is flat earth society which believes
earth is flat and all the people over earth
have been misguided by false pictures and
videos from NASA Space shipsyou can
visit
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
but let see what if this is true

Why these videos were shown

The purpose of showing these videos here is not to
increase your knowledge
They are meant to show you how curious people think
and to motivate curiosity inside you.
When you start thinking abnormal things, you become
clear about normal things.

Let see another option

What if can drill a hole through the
Would we able to travel across it by passing through it
How would be the gravity during that fall
Lets see
Videos\hollow earth.mp4

Speed of light is known

Then What is speed of darkness
Lets See
another thought provoking video
Videos\speed of dark.mp4

What would happen if we hammer

A lithium Ion Battery
Lets see
Videos\Lithium Batteries Explosions Compilation_Poking
a phone battery knife_ .mp4

Thinking is start
of research

Now I put some questions which you

should think ..
What is resolution of human eye?
How high a structure we can build on earth?
What would happen if we all on earth jumped together?
What would happen if earth stops spinning?
What would happen if moon is replaced with Jupiter?
What is total cost of earth?
What is color of a mirror?
What is color of water?
What would happen if we put huge water on sun?

You dont need to be able to answer all questions in order

to become researcher.
You need to be able to create new and new
questions.yes
This is what called creating a problem, which is first part
of research.

Purposes of Research
Whenever you conduct Research it has at least one of
these three purposes or any combination of these
1. Description
2. Explanation
3. Exploration

PURPOSES OF RESEARCH
Description, for example you conduct a surveys like
how many students think that a certain teacher is good or Or how
many patients think a certain medicine is bad
Research often has the aim of explanation. In addition to knowing
which teacher is good or which medicine is bad we also want to know
reason why it is so?
Exploration: After knowing why a certain medicine is bad we want to
investigate further to improve it or if a teacher is good we want to
make some work on how he could be excellent one.
In this phase of research we get familiarity with a topic, discovering
some of its main dimensions, and possibly planning further, more
structured research.

Types of Research
1. Bibliographic research
2. Empirical research
3. Oral research

1. Bibliographic research
This is also called literature Survey.
This is any research in which information is gathered
from published materials.
This information gathered could be presented in form of a
paper called review paper
Traditionally, it included books, magazines, journals,
newspapers and various specialized documents over the
internet.(This will be more discussed in part 2)

2. Empirical research
Empirical research is any method of collecting
information from direct experience,
observation or experimentation.
A laboratory experiment involving any thing
practical is an example of empirical research.
The results gathered could be presented in
form of a original research paper, For example
you test a solar panel in different light
intensities to analyze output variation and
report it.

3. Oral research
Oral research is any type of research which
involves gathering information by directly
talking to people, or getting survey .
Examples of oral research include interviews,
surveys, polls and questionnaires.
This kind of research is most popular in
medical science , management science and
social sciences field. But can be done in
engineering field also. The research paper
reporting this kind of results is sometimes
called short note.

What to do at undergraduate level

Most of the research done at the undergraduate level is
bibliographic research,
But other two methods of research can be incorporated
into your overall research project.
For example, personally interviewing an expert (your
Supervisor must be) about a research topic on which
you are working can often give you insights and
information you might never find in published sources.

Stages or Phases of Research

Stage 0 Start Thinking, develop curiosity in yourself, develop interest in things
other than facebook
Stage 1 Decide a tentative subject or area of interest
At this point, you just have a very general idea of what you'd like to pursue. For example, you may like to
work on alcoholism, freedom of speech, computer networks, astronomy or Engineering. Or form
Engineering you may like Power, Electronics, Thermal, Energy, Computer hardware, software etc.). But
each of these subjects is far too broad for a single research project.

Stage 2 Narrow down your area

After you choose a subject area, your goal is to narrow and focus your subject until, you come up with a
research topic, which is often stated in the form of a question.

Stage 3 Select a Topic

A subject is a broad area of interest from which a more specific topic can be chosen. A research topic,
therefore, is a relatively narrow area of interest that can be thoroughly researched and discussed.
A major Role is to be played by supervisor at each stage otherwise hundreds of such workshops could not do anything.
This is the major problem which student face. If supervisor is not guiding properly you should divorce that supervisor.
Or you have to do extensive literature survey which is not possible at undergrad level because you have never learnt
or taught about how to do literature survey.

Stage 4 Do Research based project (This stage needs step by step guidance
from supervisor)
Stage 5 Report Research

(Discussed in part 2)

Examples of some engineering research topics are given next

Now I give you some

examples of
projects which you
can think to do and
are research based

Electrical & Electronics

Building free energy generators, energy trapping
from atmosphere, zero energy lighting devices,
zero energy buildings, soft starter, regenerative
shock absorber, regenerative breaking, static
switches for high voltages, pump inverter for
solar, energy harnessing exercise machines.
Developing new applications from plasma. Making
fifth state of matter in lab. MHD Propulsion,
electric weapons and a lot more

Mechanical
Develop a Vapor carburetor
Five stroke, six stroke or eight stroke engines for improved efficiency.
Storing the energy in thermal form instead of chemical form
Solar Cooling
Solar thermal power plants
Develop new applications using pneumatics
Develop smart materials for medical and energy applications
Develop engine noise and acoustics control with minimum restriction
Enhance the efficiency of compressor using some waste heat
recovery mechanism
And many more ..

Civil
Finding a mixing ratio of concrete which is most durable for
Pakistani roads.
Develop a passive solar building
Find a way to prevent fraud done by Civil Contractors
Develop some low cost earth quake resistant structure
Develop a driver support and traffic behavior analysis system
for highways
Aging of Atmospheric Organic Species
Rehabilitation of RC structures by FRP Plate Bonding
techniques

Computer, Software
Develop a computer with more than two digital states
Chip based Engines
Chip based dc generators
Chip based motors
Increase security of computer systems
Develop a software which can interact with people
without human intervention, like researcher do at
Microsoft and face book

Industrial
Increasing boiler efficiency
Using solar heat in industry to reduce energy bills
Increasing safety of Automotive and industrial systems
Developing industrial standards for different
manufacturing processes

Environmental
New Fuel reformation methods
NOx capture from various exhausts (cars, factories)
Develop some catalytic converter with less restriction
Intelligent waste Collection and utilization
And many many more could be