The goal of this assignment is to develop great ideas about how to improve the lives of users with a web or Android application. You are allowed to propose whatever project you think is interesting and valuable. You will pitch your idea, together with your partner, in hopes of getting your project approved and attracting other team members to your project. Think of it as the ECE equivalent of Shark Tank, except we are nice, we want you to succeed, and we will help you succeed.
This assignment must be completed in groups of 2. (As an exception, one person may complete the assignment in a singleton group, but this requires approval from the course staff.) There will be time in class to find a partner. You can also use piazza to find a partner.
First, you and your partner should join a new group on Canvas. Do NOT join a pitch group until you have a partner. Only one partner needs to submit the assignment.
You will produce two deliverables for this assignment, and submit them both to the Canvas assignment:
Make up a short, catchy title for your project and use it as the title of your document and your slides.
You will submit both deliverables electronically, in PDF. Each deliverable should include at least one figure or diagram (possibly the same, possibly different).
At the end of your document, state how many hours you spent on the assignment.
The two deliverables should address similar issues, though they should do so in different ways, since different formats (written vs. oral) demand different ways of conveying the same information. You should discuss your vision, your proposed approach, and risks. Some of the points you should address include the following. This is not an exhaustive list; we expect you to think in this class, not just follow outlines that are provided to you.
Motivation
What problem are you solving, or what question are you answering?
Explain how the problem is handled today, and the limitations of that approach. For a question, explain why its answer is of value.
Think of concrete
examples and see how the solution would work. Are there any
limitations to the approach? Who would benefit most from the
application and more specifically, how does it benefit them?
Approach
What is your high-level approach? It should be clear why this
approach addresses the key problem. State the key difference
between your approach and previous approaches. State limitations
of your approach; this is important for scoping your work and for
understanding its pluses and minuses. You might describe at a very
high level the components / modules that will interact in your
system. Indicate what data sources you would use. All projects
must scrape data from several sources and store that data in a
database; for your proposed project, describe this data and
possible sources.
Challenges and Risks
What is the single most serious challenge you see in developing
the product on schedule? How will you minimize or mitigate the
risk?
Make the goals of your
project clear from the beginning. Then, when discussing features
and functionality that you will include, tie each one to a
specific goal. If you cannot do this, then maybe you have missed a
goal, or maybe that feature is not needed.
You will present your project idea to the class. All group members must participate in some way in the presentation. You should practice your presentation ahead of time. You will have a time limit of 3 minutes, strictly enforced. Taking less than the time limit is perfectly OK. Padding out your presentation to run down the clock is not OK. Don't waste anyone's time.
Listen attentively to the other presentations. Would you want to work on this project? Would you want to work with this person? When you are presenting, remember that the rest of the students will be thinking about these issues.
Some projects will not go beyond the presentation stage, and others will be staffed and actually implemented.
After viewing all the proposals, you will have a chance to talk with other members of the class, to self-organize into groups, and to rank the proposals that you wish to work on. Your team will submit:
After receiving your requests, the staff will organize all of the students into final project groups. We will use the following criteria.
Your grade is not based upon whether your project is chosen (by other students or by the course staff) to be implemented. Rather, your grade is based on the quality of your materials and your presentation. We will be looking to see that you have addressed the identified project elements, that you have made reasonable judgments concerning them, and that you have organized and presented your proposal well. Remember that this delivery is the basis for the class to decide which products to develop and deliver this term.
Don't reinvent the
wheel. Your pitch must do a thorough competitive analysis. What
existing applications are similar to yours? How will yours be
different? The omission of similar applications from your
competitive analysis will impact your pitch grade.
This section gives some tips about your proposal, based on previous semesters. Don't repeat these same mistakes! (Not all of them necessarily apply to your document.)
It is essential that you clearly indicate the problem or need for application, and why it matters to potential users. For example, how will the system change the way they perform some task? Too often, this most important part of the presentation was not clear.
At least one of your
diagrams should be a mockup of the user interface.
You have a limited amount of time and space, so use them well.
Don't make the mistake of diving into too many technical details. You can say a few words about the underlying technology, but your first priority should be to explain why the project is interesting. Only after that is it worthwhile to say that it will be possible (or even fun) to build.
You must discuss alternatives. (For this assignment, you should spend at least as much time understanding what already exists as you do coming up with something new.) Don't propose a web search engine without knowing that Google exists. No matter how many times we state this, students repeat similar mistakes.
You need to explain clearly what differentiates your project from the alternatives. Make sure it is possible to build and evaluate in a semester — for example, if it needs a large amount of data to provide beneficial results, where will you get the data? Don't assume you will solve natural language processing as one component of your project.
Be concrete, and give examples — whether you are explaining a problem or a solution. For example, don't give generic risks that would be equally applicable to any project.
Don't use small or hard-to-read fonts or colors.
Don't use background
images, or design elements on the slide. The slides should be
simple and readable. The last thing you want to do is
to distract the audience from the content with extraneous ink on
your slides.
Don't read from a script. If you need a script, you don't know your material well enough.
Don't sound bored. Do look at the audience: don't stare at the laptop, and definitely not at the slides which puts your back to the audience. You can look at the slides occasionally but shouldn't need to read from them as a script.
Don't put your hands in your pockets. It makes you seem disengaged, and by constraining your body it actually reduces your energy level.
Respect the slide limit, which includes the title slide if any.
Use color effectively. Especially if you have a lot of text (which is a problem already) then it is good to highlight the key points to draw the reader's eye and indicate what really matters about the slide. Too many presentations use only black text.