The problem is that some students are terrible at exams, and exams aren't necessarily a good test of knowledge or ability. Engineering relies on group projects

The problem is that some students are terrible at exams, and exams aren't necessarily a good test of knowledge or ability. Engineering relies on group projects and assignments a lot for your grade, because engineering isn't just about remembering some facts and writing them on paper. Then there's the problem that people have good days and bad days. Different people are more capable in different areas of assessment, so I think that the most fair way to assess students is to give them a range of different types of assessment, so that even if they struggle with one type, they can pull through the other. For instance, I always did really well at large assignments and tasks, especially group assignments (not because I rode on coattails, but because being in a group motivates you to do well), I was mediocre at exams, and I was terrible at small, individual assignments (<5% of final grade). You can see a direct correlation in my transcript between papers with lots of graded homework and small tasks, and poor grades. I did 200-level Algorithms the semester before I took 100-level Algorithms, and managed to get a better grade in the 200 level paper, because it had less homework assignments, despite being the second year version of the same paper.