Project Work and Industrial Exposure
What the exam tests
Project Work and Industrial Exposure tests your ability to plan, build, document and present a small electronic project, and to describe basic industrial practices. Marks come from the logbook, block diagram, testing evidence, cost sheet and viva-not only from whether the circuit works.
Core rules
- A project follows identification of need, specification, block diagram, circuit design, prototyping, testing, enclosure, documentation and presentation.
- Keep a dated logbook of changes, measurements and faults. A project that failed but was systematically diagnosed can score well; an undocumented success scores poorly.
- Industrial exposure topics include 5S, ESD precautions (wrist strap, grounded mat), lock-out/tag-out, PPE, and component storage by moisture sensitivity.
- A cost sheet lists components, PCB, enclosure, labour and contingency; a block diagram shows signal flow, not every wire.
- Test against the specification: measure output voltage, current, response time and range, and record tolerances.
Worked example
An automatic night lamp uses an LDR in a divider with a 10 kΩ fixed resistor, feeding a comparator with a 2.5 V reference. In darkness the LDR is about 1 MΩ, so the divider output is 5×1M/(1M+10k)=4.95 V-above 2.5 V. In light the LDR falls to about 1 kΩ, giving 5×1k/(1k+10k)=0.45 V-below reference. The comparator output changes state and drives a transistor-relay stage. The 2.5 V threshold sets the switching light level; a preset makes it adjustable.
Traps
Presenting a tidy block diagram that does not match the built circuit; omitting test data; and ignoring safety in the report. Also do not claim mains-powered project work unless isolation, fusing and enclosure ratings are documented.