P415/p

§P415 Projects

Intro Timetable Landmarks Guidelines Ideas
Remember
Project evaluation is based primarily on your presentation of your work---both written and oral (if required). Keep records of your progress, write regular status reports, and do not defer the writing until the end of the semester. Write as you go. Revise as you learn.

Timetable
See Landmarks for descriptions
TBA Project Proposal
TBA 1st Status Report
TBA 2nd Status Report (Optional)
TBA
P515 Project presentations
TBA Final Report

Introduction

Between one-third and one-half of your P415/P515 grade will be based on a project done during the latter half of the semester. Group collaborations involving two or three students is strongly encouraged but not required. Groups of more than three people must have a P515 participant who will serve as project leader and coordinator.

The projects involve application of one of the reasoning tools, PVS or SMV, to a problem. The results of the work will be described in a written report, which will be the most significant component of the project evaluation.

A class presentation of the work you have done may be required. If so, this presentation should clearly describe to other P415 students the problem you have attacked and what you have done with it. A prepared, cogent presentation is expected.

Quality
The main goal of the report (and presentation if there is one) is to inform your fellow students of new insights, techniques, and methods you have gained from doing the project.

A report of "B quality" is one that gives sufficient explanation for another P415/P515 student to understand and reproduce the work you have done with regular effort.

A report of "A quality" is one that gives sufficent explanation to enable another P415/P515 student to understand and advance the work you have done under regular supervision.

Both the quality and content of your written work are important, as you must convey not only what you have done but also what you have learned---the best evidence of learning is to convey new knowledge to your fellow students. As is usually the case in the "real world" (both professional and academic, although possibly not on MTV), the significance of your work depends as much, if not more, on your explanation of it as on the work itself. You should factor this into your planning an efforts.

Remarks on Writing

Landmarks

A schedule of deadlines for these landmarks will be posted later.

Several documents are described below. These should not be thought of as independent reports, but should be approached as partial preliminary drafts of the final report. In other words, each should be written with the idea that the bulk of the material it contains will be carried directly over to the next stage of the project.

Use present tense to describe work even if you may not have completed that work yet, and draft your English as though you were describing existing objects. You do not have to explain and justify everything in the beginning; but should do you best to outline what needs to be explained.

Build a skeleton report and fill in the details as you progress in your work.

  1. Form a group. Decide now who you plan to work with and have a meeting to discuss what kind of project your group would like to undertake. Talk with Prof. Johnson, if you want guidance.
  2. Project proposal. The earlier the project is outlined, the sooner you can get started, but you must decide on a project first. Include (See also the outline of the Final Report, below):
    • a clear statement of what you intend to do.
    • landmarks to be met by the first status-report deadline.
    • criteria for successful completion of the project. How will you know when you are done?
    • Identify all the people who will share credit for this project. Group projects are encouraged because multi-person endeavors provide an active learning environment.
    • discussions of any ideas you have about modeling (e.g. logical representations), approach (e.g. a plan of attack), subtasks (e.g. who does what), and so forth.

  3. First status report. In a prelude briefly summarize what has been accomplished so far. (This it the only throw-away part of the report.) State any changes in the project plan, goals, landmarks, etc., and explain why these changes are necessary. The remainder of the report should be a partial draft of the final document, with the final table of contents, section headers, and so forth. Some sections should already be drafted, others may still be blank.

  4. Second status report. A second status report is not required. However, if time permits, it may provide an opportunity to get early instructor's feedback on your report for the purpose of improving it for credit.

  5. Final report . The final report should be about 20 to 50 pages (roughly 10 pages per person in the group) in length, including inserts showing source fragments, transcripts, diagrams, and so forth. Do not include hard copy of your source code. Your project will be deposited in a directory containing these data files. On average, each person in the project should expect to contribute around 7--10 pages of original English exposition. However, it is a good idea in a group effort to have one person responsible for editing the entire document for style and coherence.

    The report should include sections discussing:

    • A problem statement and a high level description of how the problem was addressed and solved.
    • A presentation of logical representations, definitions, theorems, theories, etc. If library information (e.g. the PVS Prelude)_ was used, give a brief discussion of the parts used. You may assume the reader knows about the tool you are using, but it is not adequate simply to include raw sources. Much of your grade will depend on how you present the ideas you are using and the work you have done.
    • Technical presentation of the solution. Explain key ideas and key theorems in a structured, orderly progression. The first goal is to explain the mathematics of the project and not simply a "status file" of mechanized proofs, or worse, proof trees.
    • Insights into tool use. What were the difficulties imposed by mechanizing the reasoning? Did you learn any new techniques? If you had to do the project again, how would you streamline the effort?
    • Continuations. What could be done next? Suppose next year a P415 student would like to take up where you left off? What should that student do?
  6. Oral Presentation. All P515 groups must make an oral presentation of their project. Some P415 groups may be required to make an oral presentation. All students must attend the presentations according to a schedule that will be determined by the instructor.

    Each project presentation will be limited to 30 minutes, including time for questions (recommended: 5 minutes). The most common mistake made by presenters is devoting all the presentation time to describing the problem or algorithm about which the project was done. Keep in mind that the main goal of the presentation is to inform and instruct the class in new or refined analysis methods. It is neither necessary nor desirable to delve deeply into problem details, except as needed to illustrate reasoning, modeling, or proof techniques.

    Other common mistakes include trying to cover too much ground, having too many people speak, having too much information to display. Most of these problems are best addressed by rehearsing the talk.

    Participation by attendees is evaluated as follows:

    1. Attendence will be recorded.
    2. For each presentation, each listener fills out an evaluation form.
    3. Active participation, in the form of questions and comments, will be given credit (either positive or negative).

General guidelines

More guidelines may be published as we go along.