ethics and sustainability

Sustainability – Component and overhead costing

The full cost breakdown of components used in the Micro Mouse project amounts to £198.56. This includes all the components and materials such as Veroboard that we needed for prototyping. The most expensive item we used was the Raspberry pi Pico and the adjoining board as this cost £55.65 with delivery in 10 days, which made up a quarter of the overall expense for the project.

Another cost that wasn’t included in the above total was the overhead cost for the lab use and the academics that we had help from. Basing the costing on minimum wage we expected the lab technicians and academics to be paid £1372.80. I came to this cost as the project took roughly 20 weeks to complete, with 120 hours of labour equating to 6 hours per week. Of course this is the base minimum they would be paid and for their hard work I would hope it is higher.

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EDI statement from Ethan

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) are extremely important in a group work project as people from different ethnicities and backgrounds bring new and interesting ways to think about a solution to a problem. Within our team for the Micro-mouse project, we have had a lot of diversity, as our team includes people from different ethnic backgrounds and genders. I think this allowed us to work well as a team as each of us had a different solution to problems when doing the Microhouse that other people may not have thought of. Also having an inclusive group meant no one felt left out so everyone in the group was motivated leading to a higher productivity.

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Ethics in Engineering statement from Ethan

Honesty and Integrity

The first point in the joint ethics statement that was put out by the engineering council is about honesty and integrity. I will uphold these values and principles throughout the project by communicating openly and honestly with the rest of the team, as well as being respectful of the other teams and their micro mouse. I will also be striving to avoid deceiving the other teams with false information that may affect their progress on their micro mouse.

Respect for life, law, the environment and public

Upholding the principles of being caring and understanding of how the materials I will use in the micro mouse will be important to me, especially with all the news at the moment about the widespread damage being done to the environment. Also, I will be communicating to the team about wanting to reuse components from the lab bins as well as from previous projects that are no longer used. To keep myself and others safe I will be adhering to the lab rules set out by the lab technicians and lecturers.

Accuracy and rigour

During this project I will be striving to ensure the safety and proper operation of the lab by making sure that I have received or am receiving the proper induction from the lab technicians. I will also be making sure to uphold some of the values also mentioned in the Honesty and Integrity heading which include the accuracy of information and data that we put on our webpage and to only give other teams honest answers if they ask me for help.

Leadership and communication

While I am not in a position of leadership within the team, I will still strive to promote equality, diversity and inclusion within the team as this would allow for multiple different viewpoints and solutions that can be put across by people with different backgrounds. I will also be challenging any statements made by team members or other teams that could damage the professionalism of our team to make sure our team will only be seen in a positive and friendly way.

IET rules of conduct

I make the commitment to upholding and understanding the IET rules of conduct to the best of my ability. This includes making sure all the information and content in the web page is correct and valid to my knowledge as well as keeping my skills up to date. This code of conduct’s provides a detailed basis for ethical practices within engineering.

To further improve my own knowledge and understanding of ethics in engineering I have watched some YouTube videos from channels such as CrashCourse(Engineering Ethics: Crash Course Engineering #27 – YouTube) which provided some other ethics and situation which are applicable. Another source of ethics which I have been interested in is the Engineering Commons Podcast (Episode 12 — Ethics | The Engineering Commons Podcast) which is an interesting listen.

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