Posted on July 24, 2018 by Gabriel Parmer and Rahul Simha
Mentors:
Instructors:
Each semester, you’re expected to spend at least:
You should have already received an email with a survey about project topics and teams. If you haven’t, contact us immediately. When discussing and thinking about projects, please keep in mind the project criteria.
Piazza. We will be using Piazza as an online class forum. Don’t hesitate to ask general questions here, but please do not include code (see Academic Honesty below).
Trello and Github. We will be using Trello and Github for project and code management. Please carefully read how we will use them in this class. It is your responsibility to abide by the conventions spelled out here for their use.
Please see the email that has gone out to all SD students in August and fill out the form therein.
You must have a webpage for your project. We are using Github pages as detailed on our page about how to use Github for SD. You must have your webpage up and running by the first Writing Assignment deadline to properly submit that assignment.
Week | Tuesday | Wednesday | Sunday Deadlines |
---|---|---|---|
Aug 26th | Intro to SD | Project Discussion/Planning | |
Sept 2nd | Project Update | Design I | |
Sept 8th | Presentation Workshop (Saturday), SPM | ||
Sept 9th | Project Update | Design II | Writing I |
Sept 16th | Project Update | Developer Tools | Group Feedback (Opt), Equipment Requests |
Sept 23rd | Sprint Planning Meeting | Design III | |
Sept 30th | Project Update | Presentation I | Writing II |
Oct 7th | Fall Break | Human-Computer Design I | |
Oct 14th | Boot-Camp Demo | Presentation II | Group Feedback (Optional) |
Oct 21st | Sprint Planning Meeting | Human-Computer Design II | Writing III |
Oct 28th | Project Update | Demo Review | Cover Letter and CV |
Nov 4th | Project Update | Mock Interviews | |
Nov 11th | Project Update | Presentation III | Group Feedback (Opt), Interface Design Doc |
Nov 18th | Project Update | Thanksgiving Break | |
Nov 25th | Sprint Planning Meeting | Design Review | Writing IV |
Dec 2nd | 40% Demos | 40% Demo | Final Design Document |
Winter Sprint! | …lotsa progress… | …to be had! | 😊 |
Jan 13th | SPM | Coding++ | |
Jan 20th | 70% Demo | Applying HCI | Group Feedback (Opt) |
Jan 27th | Project Update | HCI Huddle | |
Feb 3rd | Project Update | Mock 100% demo | |
Feb 10th | SPM | Final Presentation v1 | |
Feb 17th | Project Update | Money Management | |
Feb 24th | 85% Demo | 85% Demo | |
Mar 3rd | Project Update | Final Presentation v2 | |
Mar 10th | Hacking Intensive | ||
Mar 17th | SPM | Senior Focus Group | |
Mar 24th | Project Update | Final Presentation Practice | |
Mar 31st | Project Update | Life after College | |
April 7th | N/A | Final Presentation Practice | |
April 14th | N/A | TBD | |
April 21st | Final Presentations | Final Presentations | |
May 7th | Final Package Due | ||
May 17th | Senior Design showcase @ 11:30-2pm |
Submit all deadlines in your shared drive with the exception of Group Feedback. Submit Group Feedback by email to your mentor (see “Group Feedback” below).
Please note that SD Sprints span fall break, thanksgiving break, and winter break, and that demos and presentations are due soon after many of these breaks. Correspondingly, you are expected to make consistent progress on senior design, and if you don’t meet these expectations without working over these breaks you must expect to make progress during them.
Project updates are done for your mentor. You must come prepared. This means ensuring that Trello is updated with your current progress. You should walk your advisor though your progress through your cards. If your cards are not updated and you aren’t ready to present, you’ll automatically get a 0% on progress for the previous period.
SD’s writing assignments help you practice communicating your idea and putting it into a broader context. Each writing assignment has the deadline specified in the schedule.
See the bottom portion of the webpage on writing and presentations for information on the presentations.
Written assignments. Written assignments will be submitted (unless otherwise noted) as follows:
pdf
with the same name (but a pdf
extension) for submission. If the pdf
exists, we will grade it.pdf
s of your documents on your project’s Github webpage.You must post your written assignments in both places by the deadline.
Presentations. Please submit your presentations by linking them on your project’s webpage in pdf
format. The main deliverable is, of course, the actual presentation.
Demos and code. Your github repos are your “living submissions”. We will look through your github commit activity to gauge constant progress. On Demo days, please use a git
tag to annotate the commit you’re using for the demo. Name the tag demo-X
where X
is the demo number. Come to class prepared with a polished demo that accurately depicts your progress.
Sprint planning meeting. Before each sprint planning meeting, you should make sure that your “Backlog” list in Trello is populated, labeled, and assigned to the proper team member. Please leave any task that remains from the previous sprint in the “TODO this Sprint” list, in that list. In the meeting, you’ll move tasks from the “Backlog” into the “TODO this Sprint” with your SD Mentor. Please ensure that you use Trello as spelled out for this class. As detailed in that webpage in “Trello and Sprint Planning Meetings (SPM)” you must prepare for the “Sprint Planning Meeting” with your SD mentor, and must structure your cards in the specified way.
If the tasks that you’ve allocated for a sprint are deemed by your SD Mentor to not represent sufficient progress, then you must schedule a meeting with your SD Mentor the same week as the “Sprint Planning Meeting”, and go to that meeting with an expanded set of tasks. Similarly, if you’re discussion goes over the amount of time allocated to your group, your SD Mentor might require you schedule an meeting the same week to finish planning.
Academic honesty. You must handle your Trello tasks, github commits, and demos with integrity. See the Academic Honesty section for more information about how to lose a lot of credit quickly by not handling these with honesty.
Please submit the following by noon, Tuesday May 7 as a tarball or zipfile in your group’s google drive and via email to your mentor (a replica should be in your team’s github account):
Code.
Equipment (if applicable).
Screencast.
Poster.
Project webpage.
Create a single page for yourself and your project with the following elements:
A clear picture of yourself.
A short (one paragraph) biosketch that says a little about you, your interests, dreams etc.
Your screencast of your final presentation.
Links to the following:
It can be difficult working in a team, but it is essential in SD that all group members are productive and work together toward the project’s goals. Here we discuss what to do if the group dynamics break down at all.
Toxic group dynamics. A collegial environment must be maintained at all points during SD. Disrespect for each other, harassment of any form, or any other form of inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated in SD. Your demeanor in your group can negatively impact your grade, and will be passed to university-level disciplinary action where warranted. If you have concerns about your teammates, or yourself not nurturing a collegial environment, please send an email immediately to your SD Mentor with title “SD: Group Problem”.
Group Feedback. Every month, you can optionally submit Group Feedback to your SD Mentor. These reviews are an opportunity to raise any concerns you have with your group. If you do submit one, please include the names of all team members. Suggested topics you likely want to include in your review:
Your SD Mentor will use your review to help ensure that teams are functioning productively. We will not share the contents of your review with your other members unless you want us to. Most likely, we will use this information to facilitate a discussion between group members. If group dynamics break down, it will impact assigned grades.
Though we include explicit deadlines when you can submit group feedback, to remind people to use this mechanism, you should feel free to send group feedback anytime you feel it is necessary. If you have not sent us group feedback, and complain at a later date about group issues that prevent you from making progress, we will not be receptive. Thus, it is necessary that you don’t procrastinate, so that you notice any problems and can raise them earlier than later, and that you are active about reporting negative group dynamics.
Submission of Group Feedback. Please email your SD Mentor using the title “SD: Group Feedback”. Include your group feedback in the body of the email.
pdf
on google drive.Your grade in this class will be determined by
Grade breakdown.
Fall ’18:
Spring ’19:
Fall semester grade. At the end of the Fall semester, you will be given a grade based on
Together, these factors determine how far along your project is relative to where it needs to be at completion.
Your Spring semester grade is based on the same factors, but also on if you show the initiative to polish push your project to be the best it can be, and on the final quality of your project.
Individual grades. Even though you will be working in a group, the majority of your grade will be derived from your individual progress. You must submit group reports, and any continual problems with your team members will also impact your grade. See the discussion of “Group Dynamics” above.
If we determine that a group is not making sufficient progress toward the goals of their project, we will require all group members to come in and work on their project in a supervised setting. This is meant to provide bursts of activity to get the group back on track. It is each group’s responsibility to put in the work required to create a successful project.
If you have a disability that may effect your participation in this course and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please contact us as soon as possible. You cannot expect accommodation for disabilities if you don’t contact us early, with enough time to plan, and maintain fairness for other students. You should see the schedule for the entire class, so if you anticipate any issues, please contact us about this in the first week of class.