All the core topics (safety, ethics, research, planning, design, verification and innovation) need to be expressed and documented in order to communicate project to the team members and other stakeholders. Within the framework of the capstone project, two main documents are required:
The project proposal should persuade the the reviewer that the proposed work has a reasonable chance of meeting the objectives, is innovative, not routine, and the team has (or can obtain) know-how and resources suitable for the task. This document is also a record for the team to refer to during the execution phase. The proposal should contain a detailed description of the problem and goals, a literature search, methodology and models, detailed planning (team members, tasks, timeline), a detailed account of the product design (including analysis of alternatives, limitations, risks, costs etc) and planned testing procedures.
The final project report documents the finished product in such a way that is valuable to stakeholders. It should repeat the information provided in the proposal with emphasis on what was actually done, include key design decisions, verification and validation procedures and results, a conclusion about the success, and any other useful information such as user manuals, raw data, code etc.