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System Design Project 2012

The System Design Project is a Semester 2 module and is a group project involving construction of an item of significant complexity under conditions designed to give insights into industrial teamwork.

It is a double-weight module (course) with coursework through the semester and an intense period of construction activity at the end of the semester (weeks 10, 11). Assessment details, learning outcomes etc. can be found in the Course Descriptor page

Schedule

• 09.00—10.00 Wed 18 Jan 2012, MST Meadows LT: Introductory lecture
  • Introduction
• 15.00—16.00 Fri 3 Feb 2012, Robson Building Lecture Theatre: Communication Skills 1.
  • Writing
  • Scripts
  • Video of lecture
• 15.00—16.00 Fri 10 Feb 2012, Robson Building Lecture Theatre: Communication Skills 2.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
  • Video of lecture
• 15.00—16.00 Fri 18 Feb, Robson Building Lecture Theatre: Communication Skills 3.
  • Writing
  • Macbeth
  • Ullman on writing
• 15.00—16.00 Fri 2 Mar, Robson Building Lecture Theatre: Communications Skills 4.
  • Speaking and graphics
• Videos of all lectures

Communication Skills—resources

• William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, Longman, 1999 (Fourth edition), £4.71 from Amazon.
• Free Online Edition of William Strunk, Jr.'s 1918 original.
• Donald Knuth, Technical writing.
• George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, from Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Penguin, 1969.
• Sir Ernest Gowers, The Complete Plain Words, Penguin, 2004 (Third revised edition.)
• Max Atkins, Lend Me Your Ears: All you need to know about making speeches and presentations, Vemilion, 2004.
• David Allen, Getting Things Done: How to achieve stress-free productivity, Piatkus, 2001.
• Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, 2001 (Second edition).
• Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, 1990. (Challenger is discussed on pages 38–52.)
• Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence, Graphics Press, 1997. (Powerpoint is discussed on pages 156–185.)
• Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.
• Randy Pausch, Time Management.
• Bret Victor, Inventing on Principle.
• Bret Victor, Magic Ink.
• TED Talks.

The System Design team (in alphabetical order)

• Michal Dziemianko (Teaching Assistant) m.dziemianko (at) sms.ed.ac.uk
• Garry Ellard (Technician) gde (at) inf.ed.ac.uk
• Tamise Totterdell (ITO Admin contact)
• Philip Wadler (Course Organiser) wadler (at) inf.ed.ac.uk

Mentors

• Oliver Wilson group 1
• Stuart Anderson group 2
• DK Arvind group 3
• Abdelhamid Younis group 4
• Vijay Nagarajan group 5
• Miha Pelko group 6
• Michal Dziemianko group 7
• Desmond Elliott group 8
• Christine Gardner group 9
• Subramanian Ramamoorthy group 10
• Stuart Anderson group 11
• Michal Dziemianko group 12

Groups

Here is the list of groups for this year

The Project

Details of the 2012 project can be found in the course guide. See also the lecture slides.

REPORTS

Please submit hardcopy to the ITO by the appropriate deadline.

• For group reports, each group should designate a member to submit two copies.
• For individual reports, each individual should submit two copies.

Last year individual reports (PLEASE NOTE: these reports DO NOT match requirements for individual reports this year. They are also not guaranteed to be good). Note 2: This year reports are mandatory but ARE NOT MARKED (read the course guide for details). Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, Sample 4.

Last year group reports (NOTE: they do not match requirements this year!!!): Milestone report, Final sample

A sample feedback given to one of the group reports by Dominik Glodzik: Feedback from Dominic Glodzik

ROBOT Football Rules and Regulation

• Here are the robot football rules and regulations  that we will be using. 

Final Day

Final Day schedule.

The main presentation and tournament day is Wednesday 4 April and you will have access to lecture theatre G.07 in the Informatics Forum for rehearsal:

• 1—6pm Friday 30 March.
• 9AM—1PM Monday 2 April
• 1—5PM Tuesday 3 April

Presentations slots are 10 minutes including questions and changeover, not 15 minutes. You should plan your talk for no more than 5 minutes.

Further Information

The code developed last year can be found at github https://github.com/sdp-2011.

The wiki:- https://wiki.inf.ed.ac.uk/SDP/WebHome is where you will find all the useful and important SDP related links.

The forum:- https://www.forums.ed.ac.uk/viewforum.php?f=641 is where we will making all the course news announcements

and updates. You may also use the forum for SDP related discussions including problems and solutions.

You may also like to follow us on twitter (InformaticsSDP) for news and announcement updates.

Course feedback

Feedback is always welcome and Informatics provides a central online feedback form (or you can mail the course leader, your tutor, or the class rep.) Have your say!