Final Project and Video

Finish Line

We have been building up to the final project the entire semester. Make sure you commit any final adjustments to your code, write the final report (A template can be found in the Teams folder), submit your final video and clean/organize your files.

All projects should follow the same basic structure laid out at the beginning of the semester. Team management and organization should go into the Team_folder and any code should be tracked using a git repository. File and folder naming is important but will vary by project. Use meaningful names as described in prior assignments. Here is an example:

Teams folder

Team_Folder:
    README.docx
    Project_Description.pdf
    Team_Managment_Files
        Future_Projects_Brainstorm_List.docx
        TEAMNAME_TeamCharter.docx
        Weekly3x3
            20240125-3x3.docx
        MeetingNotes
            20240123-Weeky_meeting.docx
        NDA_Agreements
            colbrydi_NDA.pdf
            colbrydi_IP.pdf
    Project_Deliverables
        Propoal.docx
        Proposal_Storyboard.ppt
        Proposal_Video.mp4
        MVP_Storyboard.ppt
        MVP_Video.mp4
        Final_presntation_Storyboard.ppt
        Final_presentation_video.mp4
        Media_Release.docx
        Project_Slide.ppt
        TEAMNAME_Final_Report.docx
    Individual_TeamMember_files
        Name1
        Name2
        Name3
    Data_Files
        DataFile1.csv
        DataFile2.csv

Git Repository

git_repository/
    .gitignore
    docs/
         package_name/
              module1.html
              module2.html
         images/
              image1.jpg
    environments.yml
    Demo.ipynb
    Figure1_Reproducabiliy_instructions.ipynb
    Figure2-5_Reproducability_instructions.ipynb
    Figure6_Reproducability_instructions.ipynb
    Examples/
          datafile1.csv
          datafile2.tiff
          datafile3.xls
    LICENSE.txt
    makefile
    package_name/
          __init__.py
          module1.py
          module2.py
          test/
              __init__.py
              test_module1.py
              test_module2.py
    README.md
    setup.py

The README files are extremely important and should be the first “touch point” in your top level folders. Assume that people new to the folders will start there. Use that to quickly explain the course/project and guild people to the other files. There should be no confusion about what a file is and why it is in the folder. The only exception to the previous rule is that anything in the Individual_TeamMember_files will mostly be ignored as these are intended as shared student “working directories.”

Posting your video

You may post your video someplace accessible by your instructor and other students. Only do this if you are comfortable sharing the video publically. Probably the easiest place to post is on YouTube using a personal Google Account. However, students can also post on the MSU Mediaspace. Once up on MediaSpace you can limit access to only MSU people logged in that have access to the URL.

Include a link to the URL in your git repository. A good place would be to embed the video in your README.md file but you can also embed YouTube videos in a Jupyter notebook.

Video Submission

Put a copy of your video in your team drive.

Have one on your team email a link to the video (or file) to the community partners. Carbon Copy (CC) all members of your team (including yourself) and CC your instructors. The title of the email should be “GROUP_NAME-CMSE495_Final_Video”.

Make sure you also include the link in your team git repository and the team final report.

Final Submission

Compose a final professional email to your project community partners. Include a pdf of your final report, a zip file of the team “Project_Deliverables” folder and a second zip file of your code repository (a link to git is sufficient if it is public). Carbon Copy (CC) all members of your team (including yourself) and CC the course instructors.

Extensions

Everything is due by Sunday night April 14th. However, teams may make changes to their repository (not their video) and send out their final email up until Friday April 21st.

Evaluation

The final project is worth 25\% of your final grade and will include all deliverable from the semester. Grading will be based on the completeness of the submission, the quality of the solution, clear communication of results, organization of the files and professionalism. Grades for written individual components may be less than the milestone grades if feedback from the milestones were not address. However, since all of the written project milestones are included in the final submission, the instructor may adjust previous milestone grades based on significant improvements seen in the final deliverable. Thus it is possible for your final grade to go up beyond the 25\% allocated to the final project. It will benefit teams to clearly communicate any changes made to milestones that they would like to be considered to improve their previous grades. The planned point distribution for the final project will be as follows.

Completeness/organization of Teams zip file submission
Completeness/organization of git repository submission
Final Report and Video
Clearness of report and results
Final results and figures
Future Work
Reproducability of the results
Professionalizm

An adjustment may be made to the above scoring based on individual performance and contribution to the team. This adjustment is reserved for unbalanced teams that do not find a way to work professionally through problems.

The location and meaning of the deliverable should be obvious to the instructor and the community partners. The files should either be included in the zip folder or shared via links. If shared via links the students must ensure that the links will work for all instructors and community partners. It is highly recommended that a list is included in the README or an appendix with the location for each item.

Points will be taken off for not following directions, incomplete results, and unprofessional/confusing writing. Some examples of points taken off in previous years include:

Unorganized file structure.
Unclear results based on metrics.
Insufficient figures to explain results.
Unclear future work.
Incompleteness of the instructions to reproduce the results.
Missing or incomplete deliverable files.
Missing weekly notes and 3x3 reflections.
Git repository uses a name which include CMSE495 in the title.
Large data files in git repositories.
Missing .gitignore files.
Missing INSTALL and reproducability instructions.
Missing figure reproducability instructions.
Missing navigation instructions such as a README.
Extra files not related to the project.
README file missing a course/project summary.
Spaces in filenames (especially folder names).
Improper or unprofessional communication with community partners. For example, involving the community partners in team personal conflicts.
Code files do not have sufficient comments to understand what is in the file (or Jupyter is missing markdown cells explaining the notebooks).

Congratulations, you are done!

Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.