Hi folks. This page acts a syllabus and an introduction to 498-499,
your senior project. Even though you are doing most of the work outside
our meetings, you're not working in a vacuum, and you are still being
graded on a weekly basis. Here are the ground rules:
You need to have a weekly
meeting with me to discuss your progress. This includes the
first week of the trimester for both 498 (probably Fall) and
499 (probably Winter).
We probably won't have a regular meeting time set up yet during the
first week, but it's still your responsibility to find some free time to set
up a meeting with me. Since
each week's progress counts for 3% of your total grade (see Grading below), you don't want to
miss meetings. Meetings for CSc 498 will probably last between 30-60 mins. Meetings for
CSc 499 will last between 15-30 mins.
Except for the first week, you need to turn
in a weekly report to me at each meeting detailing your progress. This
report should include:
your goals from the previous week that you wanted to meet
what you actually got done
justifications for why you did what you did, including any changes made to the
design of your project
You are required to attend all CS seminars that we have throughout the year. These
normally occur during the common hour on alternate Thursdays, though we do have exceptions. Plan
ahead by regularly checking email and consulting the seminar web page.
On a Saturday morning sometime around late February or early March, as your project nears completion,
there will be a final presentation session where all of the
CS seniors, faculty, industry heads, parents, and other guests gather together to see your final results.
In the morning, each student gives a formal 15-minute presentation including a question-and-answer (Q&A)
session. After (the provided) lunch, there is a poster session where each student stands by his/her
poster that shows your detailed findings. The guests then get a chance to walk around and converse with
you about your work.
You'll be doing some practice presentations for me leading up to this day. Unless you are on term abroad
in winter, you are required to attend this event in its entirety, even if you are not finished with
your own project or enrolled in 499 in the winter.
There are three papers you need to do for me over the
course of the senior project. They are:
a rewrite of your proposal paper from CSc 497 (or a new proposal
paper if you didn't take 497.) This will be done in the first
few weeks of CSc 498.
a "final design report" detailing the complete design of
your project. This is due at the end of CSc 498.
Details about this paper can be found in these
design report guidelines.
your final report showing the results of your experiments,
screenshots of your completed implementation, conclusions of
your research, etc. This is due at the end of CSc 499.
Details are available in this Word document.
You'll get more details about each of these papers as we progress
through the academic year.
Though not required, I hope that you'll also consider participating in the
Steinmetz Symposium in late Spring.
Since participating means just giving your presentation and/or showing your poster again,
it is not a lot of work. If you are considering getting honors in Computer Science,
then participation in Steinmetz Symposium is required.