Practical Assessments

How assessment works on this course

The course is assessed by four practical assessments and an individual final project. Each has a set brief - a realistic job with exact requirements - and a list of criteria. Every criterion is marked Competent or Not Yet Competent on the evidence you show: there are no percentages and no partial marks.

Open the brief before the assessment session, print it if you want a paper copy, and start your planning evidence early. Lesson 12 teaches every document the briefs ask for.

Competent or not yet competent

Each criterion on the grid is marked Competent (C) or Not Yet Competent (NYC). The overall result is Competent only when every criterion is Competent.

Criteria marked with a star are critical: they cover safety and the core purpose of the task, so strong work elsewhere cannot make up for them. An unsafe circuit is Not Yet Competent even if everything else works.

A Not Yet Competent result is not a fail. You receive written feedback listing the criteria still to meet and a reassessment date, normally in the next buffer session. Only those criteria are reassessed.

Evidence every assessor expects

A demo that mostly works is not enough. For every practical task you should be able to show:

1. Success criteria and planning produced before wiring 2. Safe wiring: series resistors, common GND, drivers for heavy loads 3. A test table with condition, expected, observed and result 4. At least one fault found and how you fixed it, plus honest unresolved limits 5. An explanation of your decisions when the assessor asks

Use the Lesson 13 habits: measure, do not randomly rewire.

Code-correction exercise

You are given a faulty door-bell indicator sketch. Write a fault inventory before changing anything, repair the sketch, prove it on the bench and explain the five fault classes: capitalisation, semicolons, braces, = versus ==, and pin mode versus wiring.

Practise first with Code Along Finding & Fixing Faults and with the practice sketch pair on this page.

Practical Task A - Extractor fan speed selector

Two debounced buttons select OFF, LOW (40 % PWM) and HIGH for a fan represented by an LED. A running LED shows when the fan is on, and Serial reports each speed change once. You measure the PWM duty cycle on the oscilloscope as evidence.

Practical Task B - Cabinet over-temperature alarm

A thermistor measures cabinet temperature, the LCD shows it to 0.1 °C, and a transistor stage drives a buzzer and LED. The alarm switches on at 30.0 °C and off at 28.0 °C, and a disconnected sensor must switch the alarm on rather than hide the fault.

Practical Task C - Greenhouse vent controller

A DHT11, an LDR, a servo vent, the I2C LCD and a mode button combine into one controller. You prove each subsystem alone before merging, keep the system responsive with millis(), and inject a sensor failure during the demonstration.

Final project

Design and build a microcontroller system of your own for a user you can name. It must have at least two inputs (one analogue), an actuator driven safely, a user interface, state logic and non-blocking timing. The extension lessons - ultrasonic, keypad, RFID and SD, interrupts, libraries - are there to help. Each milestone is signed off in your logbook.

Wiring and safe build sequence

1. Before any task: pin table, power note and wiring diagram checked by the assessor
2. Common GND across the Uno, modules and any external supply
3. Series resistors on LEDs; buttons from the pin to GND with INPUT_PULLUP
4. Drivers and flyback diodes for motors, relays, solenoids and heavy buzzers
5. Short-check with the multimeter before the first power-up

What this sketch is for: Five fault classes in one short sketch. Write your fault inventory - line, fault, class - before you fix anything, exactly as the assessment asks.

// FAULTY PRACTICE SKETCH - repair before comparing with the fixed reference.
byte InputPin = 2;
byte outputPin = 13;

void setup() {
  PinMode(InputPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(outputPin, OUTPUT)
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  if (digitalRead(InputPin) = LOW) {
    digitalWrite(outputPin, HIGH);
  else {
    digitalWrite(outputPin, LOW);
  }
}