(Message 161) From: HELEN HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) Date: Wednesday, 28-Nov-84 14:43:49-GMT To: ecmi04@2972,Pain@EDXA Via: uk.ac.edinburgh.edxa ; (to uk.ac.edinburgh.emas) 28 Nov 84 14:45:12 gmt Msg ID: <131720-472-200@EDXA> -------- AI2 - PROJECTS AI2 - PROJECTS AI2 - PROJECTS Helen Pain 26 November 1984 Each AI2 student must complete a project. A project usually consists of a program exploring and/or illustrating some area of the course, together with a written description thereof. Course areas are Natural Language, Vision, Expert Systems, Robotics and Prolog. As the deadlines for AI2 projects have been brought forward this year, I would like to get them organised a.s.a.p. Ideally students will be allocated to supervisors ready to start projects at the start of next term. Projects will be based on existing programs, ensuring that students do not spend a large amount of their time writing code from scratch. Students will select one from a number of pre-specified projects. If they have some other project that they are burning to do they should provide their own project proposal, in the same form as those pre-specified. Lecturers should supply projects and programs and will be responsible for supervision of projects in their own areas of interest (either personally or by agreement with a member of their research staff). Lecturers may be asked to supervise projects other than those that they themselves propose: if no suitable project is proposed this will definitely be the case! (As we have 38 students that's only 3 and a half per lecturer!) Projects proposed by research staff will also be appreciated. Enclosed with this memo are two forms for the specification of projects. (I reserve the right to adapt, modify or reformat them before distribution to AI2). Please complete the two forms, adding other information as necessary. If you are bursting with ideas, and two forms are not enough, please let me know: I can provide more! What is a project? (ideally What is a project? (ideally What is a project? (ideally) (a)It should consist of a program illustrating some aspect of AI - a particular technique, a toy version of a larger program. Preferably written in Prolog and available on EMAS. (The students all know EMAS and have been learning Prolog - learning new operating systems takes time!). The project proposal should also include sufficient documentation of the program for the student to understand what it does. (b)References to the relevant literature should be provided: 2 background and essential reading. (c)A set of specific questions or tasks, relating to the program, should accompany it. The student will be expected to answer these questions/ carry out these tasks to qualify for a minimum pass. By making clear what is expected the task of assessment should become a little easier. Also the students will be given a better idea of what they are supposed to do. (d)A further number (2/3+) of proposals for interesting and reasonable extensions/modifications to the program should also be provided. These proposals should be more open-ended, allowing the student to be a little more adventurous. Each student should follow up at least one of these proposals. The more specific tasks should provide the groundwork for this. (e)A project should take upat least 40 hours of a student's time, including writing up. Timetable for AI2 projects. Timetable for AI2 projects. Timetable for AI2 projects. 1. By end of week 1, second term - students choose projects and are assigned to supervisors. 2. By end of week 3 - students should all have seen supervisors. 3. By end of week 6 - all students should provide a three page summary (approx.) of progress to date, and indicate which aspect of the project they are developing further. 4. By 5pm Monday of week 2 of the third term - projects must be written up and handed in at Hope Park Square. 5. Week 2, 3rd term - project presentations in class begin. I appreciate that I am asking for a lot in a little time, but I think that both lecturers and students will benefit from this new scheme (remember how hard to mark the projects were in the past?) 3 1. NAME OF PROGRAM AND WHERE IT IS TOO BE FOUND (INDICATE IF NOT CURRENTLY ON EMAS) PLEASE ENCLOSE LISTING IF POSSIBLE. 2. WHAT IS THE PROGRAM, WHAT DOES IT DO, (IS IT COMMENTED?) (Feel free to write more over the page) 3. REFERENCES? RELATED WORK? BACKGROUND READING? 4. SPECIFIC QUESTIONS THAT THE STUDENT SHOULD ANSWER, OR TASKS THAT HE/SHE SHOULD DO, TO SATISFY THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROJECT a. b. c. d. 5. PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE PROJECT 1) 2) 3) 4 PLEASE GIVE ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: What is the maximum number of students that you are willing to supervise? - if they are all doing the same project ________ - if they are all doing different projects ________ What are you willing to supervise projects on? - general fields ______________________________________ ______________________________________ - specific topics ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ PLEASE RETURN THIS PAGE AND PROJECT PROPOSALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, PREFERABLY BY 3rd DECEMBER --------