CSE 403 Project 2: Proposal
The goal of this assignment is to flesh out your proposed project. You will
learn from and improve on the pitch (or start anew). You will ensure that
your project is solving a good problem: it matters in the real world,
isn't too hard, and isn't too easy. You will avoid nasty surprises later:
your project will be more successful if you think through the high-level
issues before you get mired in the details.
You will be writing up your results as you obtain them. (In fact, you will
revise the same document that you are submitting now, into your final project.)
That will help you to
double-check your methodology and experimental infrastructure, will cause
you to notice issues that otherwise might have gone unnoticed until the end
of the quarter, and will enable you to get feedback, which
will streamline your work and prevent you from repeating mistakes.
Deliverables
Commit, to the week2
directory,
a single PDF, of approximately 4-5 pages, named
report.pdf
. Also submit it via Canvas.
The proposal document should satisfy all the requirements of
the project pitch — many
of the submissions for that assignment did not.
The proposal document should also address
all the feedback you received on your proposal and presentation.
If you have questions, come to office hours or
make an appointment with the course staff.
Include a week-by-week schedule of the work you expect
to complete. Ensure that each week's milestone is concrete and measurable,
so that you know whether you have achieved it. (For example, “coding
is 50% done” is not measurable, but “parsing module is complete
and tested” is.)
Don't forget to allocate time for building your experimental
infrastructure. You should think about it deeply enough to be able to
give a detailed estimate. Past students have found that they spent at
least half of their time on evaluation.
Content
Your project proposal should answer all parts
of Heilmeier's
Catechism:
- What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
- How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
- What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
- Who cares?
- If you're successful, what difference will it make?
- What are the risks and the payoffs?
- How much will it cost? How long will it take?
- What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?
To expand on the above, here is a reminder about some of the requirements:
-
state a problem to be solved or a question to be answered (sometimes,
but not always, there are several related ones). Give concrete examples
to make the problem clear.
-
indicate why this problem is of scientific and/or practical interest.
Why is the solution or the answer not obvious? How is the problem solved
today, and what are the limitations of current practice?
-
indicate your planned approach, such as an outline of your algorithm or
your planned experimental methodology.
-
outline your experiments. What experimental subjects (humans, or more
likely programs) will you experiment on? What will the experimenters do?
What measurements will you take? (Be specific, not vague. Include the
putative tables or graphs that you anticipate being in your final report,
with the headings and/or axes labeled but no data filled in yet.)
How will you know whether you have been successful?
-
discuss related work, with citations to the scientific literature.
At the end of your document, state many hours you spent on the assignment.
Tips
- Justify every claim.
-
Cite related work properly, using a bibliography. Don't just put the
related work there, but also explain what it does and how it differs
from your own work.
-
Write your project plan for someone who knows nothing about the
project, not for your teammates or the course staff who already have
some background.
-
The tips
in Writing
a Technical Paper are relevant to your your documents.
Customer feedback
Your team will act as another team's customer.
Peer review rubric
- (1pt) I understand the problem this group is trying to solve.
- (1pt) I understand why current solutions are insufficient.
- (1pt) I understand this group's proposed approach.
- (1pt) I understand how this team will evaluate their approach.
- (1pt) This team included a schedule.
- (1pt) Every item on this team's schedule is measurable.
- (1pt) This team included appropriate citations to related work, including from the scientific literature.