Outline of CS 4380, Senior Design Project
SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT
Fall 2002
PROF. WILLIAM J. PERVIN
TARGET AUDIENCE:
This is a elective course for degree-seeking
undergraduate students in Computer Science.
CONCEPTS/TOOLS TO BE ACQUIRED IN THIS COURSE:
- Acquire the ability to use a hierarchical approach
to understand a complex system
- Become sufficiently well acquainted
with the principles of software engineering
to be able to make intelligent use of
computers for designing and simulating
systems, components, and devices
- Note: This course will no longer satisfy the
"Advanced Writing" requirement for graduation.
- For some students this course will allow credit
for writing a "Senior Honors Thesis" to qualify for
honors of Magna Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude.
Students who wish to take advantage of this option
must also submit significantly better written proposals
and final projects.
These honors projects will be graded by other readers and
the College Master. They are expected to be of high quality.
Note: If you intend to graduate with honors
at the end of a later
semester, you must keep a complete copy of your work
for submission at the time of graduation!
CLASS MEETINGS:
This class is scheduled to meet "by appointment".
Since the
programming project is the only subject, the
class will not formally meet every week.
I will try to keep students informed about any
evening or weekend office hours since my regular
office hours are MTWR 10:45am-11:15am and by appointment.
In addition, I will give comments through this
web page.
Check regularly for changes.
Click here for
Dr. Pervin's extra office hours
and notices
Students may be allowed to work in groups
but individual
projects are always acceptable.
Appointments will be arranged for students
to demonstrate their progress on a
regular basis.
It is expected that most students will already
have some ideas for their project drawn from their
experience in courses they particularly liked and
want to pursue further, or from their industrial
experience where they have a project which may
actually be of benefit to their company.
If you have no ideas of your own, I'd like to have
some Digital Signal Processing code I have converted
to Java applets for demonstration purposes.
SPECIFIC SYLLABUS:
Students will be expected to design and program
a significant, difficult project.
I will not accept simple ideas such as a library
or video store checkout system.
Similarly, on-line registration for students
is not an acceptable project.
The project cannot be just what would be a normal
programming assignment as a small part of some
other course (like Database). It should involve
as much work as a normal three hour class in total!
Students should
start thinking about their project as soon as
they begin to consider taking this course!
- During the first two weeks, turn in a
project proposal.
(You may give it to one of the CS secretaries,
or leave it under my door. e-mail is not very
convenient. However, put your e-mail address
on it so I can easily contact you with my
approval or disapproval.) Approximately
two pages which describe what you hope to
do and how you expect to do it.
This proposal will be rewritten if it
does not show excellent command of English.
Once I have approved your proposed project
you should immediately begin work on it
since without class meetings it is difficult
to get oneself motivated to spend time on
the project while having deadlines in other
classes or at work. If I find your proposed
work either too easy or too hard, we will
meet and agree on an appropriate project.
- Around midsemester, turn in a
progress report. Approximately
four pages which describe how your design
decisions have turned out. Again, this
must show excellent English.
Even though you are not receiving Technical
Writing credit, I still insist on well-written
reports!
At this time you may make some modifications
in your plans. Anything major should be
discussed with me but do not think you are
required to stick exactly to your original
proposal when you experience problems or
obtain new information.
- Just before finals a
final report along with the
working project must be turned in.
A long report including (for example)
a user's guide, references to other work,
problems encountered and solved (or not),
and other items which will make a good
report. Again I demand excellent English
and point out that just a listing of the
code is not a report! In fact, a disk with
the code on it is usually sufficient
rather than waste paper with a listing!
ACKNOWEDGEMENTS:
This course is supported by software
made available by Microsoft Corporation.
Both FoxPro and SourceSafe are installed
on the computers in the PC laboratory
along with the J++ earlier supplied by
Microsoft. UTD also is supported by
Symantec who have made Visual Cafe Java
available to our students.
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