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Overall Project Organization

We use the first 9 weeks of the term for design and construction of projects. Week 10 is reserved for final presentations. A more complete schedule is available here.

We will choose a common project on the first day of class. All teams will work on that project, which will be due at the end of week 4. That's a very tight schedule, and I will encourage you to scope it appropriately and approach it incrementally, to minimize the risk of not having something good to turn in at the deadline. Project scoping and risk control are among the things I hope you will learn in this class.

You will have the option of switching to another project of your own choosing (with my approval) in week 5, but I encourage you to at least strongly consider making a second iteration of of the same project.

Selecting a Project

We will select the first project (which may also be the second project) on the first day of class. I will distribute three very brief project sketches, which I will describe and answer questions about, and we will choose by a rough sort of voting. I will ask you to vote:

If you want to suggest a project different than the three I will distribute, it is vital that you bring a good brief description of the project on the very first day of class. You will not have another opportunity to influence the choice of the first project, though you could still choose to pursue a project of your choosing in the second half of the term (provided you can persuade some other students to form a team with you).

Project sketches

Room 100 Name Badge Display

The Deschutes Room 100 User Group initially proposed that the room might be more welcoming if people willing to help others had a good way of making their presence known. Among the possibilities discussed was using the plasma display in that room to display some sort of directory of people currently in the room. The idea needs a lot of development, but it seems possible to develop a useful prototype in a short project. » more

Cue Sheet Generator

Many cyclists record their rides with GPS devices, and there are lots of web services for turning GPS records into maps, but so far there is no satisfactory service for turning GPS records into cue sheets. Since cue sheets are the most useful form of ride direction on rides, this is a major missing piece of missing functionality, and an opportunity to build something that will be widely used and appreciated. » more

Merging Lecture Video with Slides

Many instructors post their lecture slides to course web sites. Video recording lectures is less frequent, but is becoming more practical with the availability of inexpensive video cameras that record directly to flash memory, such as the Mino series and its competitors. Better than posting a video of the lecture, though, would be posting the sound track of the video with the images (mostly or entirely) replaced by lecture slides. » more

Your idea here

Got a better idea? If so, you need to be ready to pitch it on day one of class, because that's when we'll choose the project for the first half of the term. Write up a project sketch like those above (one page, front and back) and I'll post it and distribute it in lecture. Tell me what you're thinking of, or send me a draft, and I can make suggestions for improving the project sketch. I do reserve the right to reject proposals at my sole discretion.