Computer Science Department, Bucknell University Course Information
CSCI 475 Senior Design Project
Fall 1997
Wednesdays 3-5 PM, Room 304 Dana
 
Professor Dan Hyde
324 Dana
524-1281
hyde@bucknell.edu
(Email is a great way to contact me.)

Overview of Course

In the course, ``Computer Science Design Project'' (CSCI 475), students, organized in teams of typically three, perform all the phases of engineering design on a project. Given an open-ended problem, the team must investigate the problem and define its scope. The team performs a feasibility study and preliminary design communicating their results and recommendations to their supervisor in a Feasibility Report and a oral presentation.

Selecting a project based on their Feasibility Study, the team performs requirements analysis, performs detailed design and implements a prototype system. The students present a oral presentation and write a System Evaluation Report evaluating the team's prototype.

Students usually take the course as a Bucknell Univeristy Half Course (equivalent to two-credit hours) both semesters in their Senior year.

Many seniors in the past have found that the senior design project was a very rewarding experience as they found they could study an area in depth. Also, they say the senior design project was a great vehicle for discussion during job interviews and gave them an edge in the job market. Also, from your research experience on your senior design project, you may decide to attend graduate school.

Resources

• People
  Your team should seek out individuals who are possible experts in the field. Don't limit your search to people on campus.

• Internet
  You should already be an active user of the Internet. If not, now is the time to learn. The Internet has a wealth of information. Become familiar with Yahoo! and search engines such as altavista. The course has a web page at URL:
  http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~cs475/

• Library
  There are plenty of references in the library. Though I expect you to have some familiarity with the library, we will discuss strategies for finding the right references. If an article or book is not in the library, you may request it from Inter-Library Loan. But remember Inter-Library Loan may take one to two weeks.

Expectations

Since there are no exams in the course (however, perhaps a quiz or two), attendance and participation in class is required and counts 10% of your grade.

Assignments are due in class on the day assigned. No late assignments will be accepted.

Since this is a Half Course, I expect an honest five (5) hours a week spent on the course outside of class. With the demands of your other courses and activities, it is easy to let work on your design project slip by.

You must keep a laboratory notebook (daily journal) where you scribble your thoughts and comments, for example, while reading the assigned readings and journal articles. Also, the team must keep a Project Notebook which contains all the material pertaining to the project. This will be collected and graded several times during the semester.

You must use a word processor for all your memoranda, papers and documents. I suggest you use Latex on the Sparc workstation. One advantage of using Latex is that it ``automatically'' pulls the bibliographic references from a bibtex database. Though Latex is not as friendly as, for example, Microsoft Word on the Mac, it is virtually a standard for computer science departments around the world! If you have your own Mac or IBM PC compatible, a free version of Latex may be obtained from the Internet or from individuals on campus.

Grading

Attendance, Participation in Class 10%
Personal Statement 5%
Article Reviews 10%
Technical Study 10%
Feasibility Study 20%
Requirement Specifications Document 20%
Talks 15%
Team Project Journal 10%

All but the first three items are team activities. Team activities will be graded by both the team and the instructor.

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