Graduation Projects Answers

Mohammad Abdelaziz Gowayyed June 2013

Agenda
Introduction Your Idea Your Supervisor Your Team Your Plan Your Final Discussion What is the Answer?

Typical GP story
Before first semester
Finish 5%

During first semester

Finish 10% and intent to do a lot in mid-year vacation

During the mid-year vacation

Finish 5% and intent to do a lot in second semester

During second semester

Finish 10% and intent to do a lot after the finals

After the finals

Finish 10% and you will be busy writing!

At the presentation day: did only 40% of your dreams!

Why to make a graduation project?

Required for graduation. Demonstrate/show/prove the knowledge that you gained during undergraduate studies. In our case, it is computer engineering. What is engineering?

Why to make a good graduation project?

Exploit the opportunity CV Interviews

Your Supervisor
Ask former students about each supervisor. Two kinds of supervisors. He will give you part of the grade.

Idea
Why? and How? is more important that What? What is the motivation? Survey
Do not reinvent the wheel!

Modular ideas are better, what if you could not finish all what you want to do? Search for ideas, again and again!

Idea
Building a System
Web application Robot Game Security

Do research
Networks Data management Pattern Recognition Machine Learning and Computer Vision

Your Team
The popular dilemma: build the team first or get the idea first? At least, make sure to agree on the field. Do not assume. Assign one day per week for the project whatever busy you are. Use an online tool for managing tasks: e.g. Asana Communicate more and more and disseminate information Each member should has his own contribution

Your Plan
You do not need to plan for your project, if you dont want to do your best in it. Plan even if you think you will not stick to the plan. Then, do your best to stick to it. Let the whole team contribute in the plan. Brainstorming.

Project Management
Use the Agile style Divide the project period into iterations One iteration in summer before the fall. Two iterations in each mid-term. One iteration in the mid-year vacation. One iteration after the finals. This sums up to 11 iterations.

For each iteration

If each member in the team allocated one complete day for each week, we are talking about 16 hours/iteration. 5 members = 16 * 5 = 80 hours! Define the iteration goals. Define concrete deliverables wherever possible. Extract tasks and assign them to members. Grade yourself after each iteration. You will need a secretary in the team!

Example of an iteration goals

For a website, an iteration goals may look like: Administration
Creating accounts and manage website roles

Design
The old design should be replaced by the new design

Reporting
Detailed specifications should be presented to the advisor

Domain
We should have an online development version on xyz.com

Extracting tasks
Administration
Create database with the following schema:
User: {first_name, last_name, email .} Role: {role_name}

Create Sign Up page with user fields Create Sign In page with fields: {username and password} Create methods to help in authentication: e.g. is_admin(user): returns whether the user is admin or not

Extracting tasks
Design
Select one of the proposed designs. Visit the designer to check the design status. Embed the design into our code.

Reporting
Write an initial draft. Review the draft. Prepare LaTeX session.

Domain
Survey the alternatives. Choose between the alternatives. Check with the advisor for the money. Register the domain. Upload our code to the server.

At your final discussion

Be confident, practice. Talk about what you did, not what you wished to do. Show the challenges you met, all kind of challenges. Do not show any problems between the team members or between you and your supervisor. Do not make live demos Polish your slides, again and again. Prepare a checklist. Start as early as possible.

Examples
Online IDE by Mostafa Eweda Routing protocol by Karim Habak Recommendation System by Ibrahim Sabek My Chess Robot

Thats not true. The fastest runner is me!

Im the fastest runner.

Fine!

Ok, lets have a race.

Poor guy! Even if I take a nap, he could not catch up with me.

The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.

This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with.

The story continues

Why did I lose the race?

Ok.

Can we have another race?

The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and reliable.

But the story doesn't end here

How can I can win the hare?

Can we have another race? This time well go through a different route.

Sure!

Goal

What should I do?

The moral of the story? Everyone has his own strong point which he should exploit. Working to your strengths will not only get you noticed, but will also create opportunities for growth and advancement.

The story still hasn't ended

Now, if you are to hire one of them to do your business, which one to choose?

Great! I think we could do it much better, if we two help each other.

Hi,Hi, buddy. How buddy. How about doing our last about doing our last race again? race again?

The answer is: Teamwork

Thanks Questions?