Senior Projects

Fall 2009

Meeting 1

August 24, 2009

Welcome

• Capstone course– What is a capstone?– Why a capstone course?– Your goals for the course?

• Ancillary activities– Job search and other next steps– Fun with computing– Fun without computing– Breadth of knowledge

Course Web Site

• Central repository for information and instructions

• Linked from “My Courses”

• Check it now

Systems

SEL (aka MSC 158)

• Hawk– Userid/pswd: LDAP. Make sure it works– Rational suite– Visual Studio–

• Macs• Room access• Remote access

– Remote login– FTP

UNIX

• Sun cluster– Userid/Pswd: – Tools

• Awk• Perl• Grep

• Remote access– Secure shell– FTP

Special Systems

• Freeware– Can be downloaded and installed

• Costware– Department or other funds may be available

• Small systems– iPhone, iPod Touch

• Interesting interfaces– Multitouch table

THE Project

Time Commitment

• 3 credit course

• Project class implies 4-5 hours per week per credit outside of class

• 15 calendar weeks

• 3 x 4.5 x 15 = 202.5 person-hours

Project Log

• Due each Monday, 10:00 a.m.• Submitted as a Word document attached to an

email– File name is <last name><mmdd>.doc– Example: beck0824.doc

• Documents in four sections – Team meetings: time, place, results (if applicable)– Individual effort, either as a team member or as a

single person, including time estimate by task to nearest 15 minutes

– Next week’s plans—starting at 1:20 p.m. ET of the submission day

– Obstacles to progress

Interim Project Reports

• M, 8/31: Initial Project Description

• W, 9/16: Sprint Review 1

• W, 10/7: Sprint Review 2

• W, 11/4: Sprint Review 3

• M, 11/23: Sprint Review 4

Final Project Presentations

• Senior Projects Fair, Reading Day: F, 12/11

• Final Sprint Review and Code Release: M, 12/14, 1:30 – 4:00 p.m.

• Sigma Xi Research Day

• Research conference

Modified Agile Development

• Describe the agile development process

Forgetfulness

For the next few minutes,

FORGET

about the project that you think you want to do, that you planned for all summer.

Software Development Project

• Team-based

• Complex software system

• Identifiable customer for inclusion in the participatory design process

• Based, perhaps, on software engineering requirements document

Research Project

• Substantial research project

• Results suitable for publication and judging for awards

Collaboration

• TWISTZ: Team Work in Several Time Zones

• Partners– University of Uppsala, Sweden– American University of Science and

Technology, Beirut, Lebanon– and others as projects evolve

Publication

Print

• Survey article

• Research paper

• Requirements document

• User’s manual

Print Tools

• MS Word– Which version?

• PCTeX– Essential for well-produced mathematical

expressions

• EndNote– Handles bibliographic material

Oral

• Presentation with supporting visuals

Poster

• Conference presentation

• Hall display

• CS style, which will be defined later.

Web-Based

• Web site

• Wiki

• Blog

• Social network group

Competition

• Sigma Xi poster• CCSC meeting• ACM Student Research Poster

Competition• NCUR conference• CRA undergraduate research • Google• Microsoft: Imagine Cup