Deliverables and Tasks

Project Website:

Every team is required to keep a project website. Check out "Project Pages" to get some website ideas from past team projects. Teams can use any hosting service they like. 

Make sure to document everything and put it on the website (notes, pictures, videos, etc).

Weekly Lab Notebooks:

Each team is required to keep a lab notebook on their website. You will be required to update it on a weekly basis (prior to class each week). This should include your designs, notes for that week, your status, your plan for that week, what each team member is doing, etc.

Project Proposal:

After forming your team, you will be required to create a project proposal and put it on your website. You will also be required to present your project idea in class for feedback, which should be a 10 minute presentation. Your proposal must include the following details: the problem space and applications (why do we care?), example scenarios, related technology (if applicable), potential solutions, and a resource budget.

Product Requirments Document (PRD):

After firming up the project idea, each team will be required to create a product requirements document (PRD) that details all the various aspects of your project. This includes a one paragraph summary of the project (basically summarize your project proposal), deliverables (what are you going to show at the end), the critical features, any performance metrics, milestones, responsibilities of each team member, materials and outside help needed, budget, risks, and how risks will be addressed. You will be asked to do this very early in the class and then update your PRD throughout the quarter. We will use the RPD to see how your end product matches your PRD, so make sure to keep it up to date. Your PRD should be on your website.

Public Kickstarter -style Website

You will be asked to "market" your product by making a Kickstarter -style webpage. You can think of this as a public page you would give potential customers and investors. It should be aesthetically appealing, but yet informative. You should concisely explain what your product is, what value it has to offer, features, specification, and maybe even a tagline. Also remember to include some good pictures and videos go a long way. Kickstarter pages also have very compelling videos and often hardware projects require working prototypes.

Peer reviews

You will be conducting a number of between and within group peer reviews throughout the quarter.

Demo

Each team will have 20 minutes to show off your work (the timing will be strictly enforced). Remember that you want to try to describe and demonstrate all of the functionality of your project. Since you have limited time, I would highly recommend rehearsing your presentation/demo to make it flow as smoothly as possible. I would recommend that you focus on your demonstrating what you have done, but you may want to start out with a short (5-8 mins) power point presentation on the goals of the project and what you accomplished. Have back up videos ready if the demo fails. There might be other visitors there to see what you have done.

Final Report

Your final report should encapsulate the work you did for the entire quarter as a technical document. The report should be at least 4 pages in the ACM double column format. Here is a word template on some of the basic content I expect to see in the final report. You are also welcome to use LaTex (the template is available on the ACM website).

Make sure to proofread your final report. Your report will be evaluated on completeness and on the quality of the content.  Reports are to be emailed to the instructor by noon on the indicated date.