CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

Course Organization and Administrative Information

Secretary: Mrs. Rita Drew, 3532-F (T-Th) or 4532-G <rita@cs.ucla.edu>, 310 825-1322 or 54033

URL: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~klinger



(2 October 1998 Version)

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Objectives: Learning to work in a group and set one's own goals. Developing: 1) skill at transmitting ideas; and, 2) fundamental ethical standards. Acting to innovate and to accomplish things in computer hardware, software, or analytic-models. Enabling students to share their knowledge.

Talks and Reports: The class concerns practice and process. Each person gives three or more individual talks to the class: at least two are on the project tasks he/she undertakes. There are many types of first presentations: e.g., explain a project idea, possibly with the goal of recruiting partners. Items of professional interest, computing subjects, web site information all can be the basis of a talk.

Some talks should describe what you have done in your project design or to develop professionally this quarter. At least one talk must show something you have done for the project. Preparing figures,

graphs or tables before the talk helps both the presentation and your team project. Paper handouts or film transparencies help peers to look at your results while you speak about them.

Activities and Grades: Developing a personal plan of ten-weekly objectives. Selecting reading material. Choosing a project. Creating a common, jointly-prepared/approved work effort culminating in interim (or preliminary) and final reports, and a briefing. Attend and actively participate in course meetings. Contribute to other projects by comments at talks, and reviewing progress reports and paper drafts. Grades reflect team results, initiative and work quality; and individual participation.

Initiating a Project: Forming a team and choosing a project are key steps. Teams have three or four members. Their task is to combine different individual visions of what will be done. [Teams can work on coordinated projects, or do the same project independently.] A written project description has to be approved by the instructor. Deliverables and specifications must be part of every project.

Preparing for a Project: There are two ways for students not yet certain of what their project will be to proceed.

  1. Find an instructor and complete a CS 199 enrollment form. Use the course to read about a potential project. See http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~klinger/dates.html for details on degree credit.
  2. Come to 3531-H and discuss working on a subject of interest to the CS 190 instructor.

 

 

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

Requirements:

1. Work with partners to create two high-quality written project reports.

2. Read, write, and compute. Distill that work into presentation material.

3. As an individual prepare and give presentations to the class.

4. Write an individual weekly progress report.

5. At course conclusion submit a letter describing the group experience.

6. Participate in all evaluation activities; responsibly comment, contribute and report on your work.

7. Speak twice about your own work on a project: specific contributions and accomplishments .

8. At course conclusion submit a letter describing the group experience

Sources:

World Wide Web Sites

http:// www.sjmercury.com/ San Jose Mercury News

http://wsj.com/ Wall Street Journal

http://nytimesfax.com/ N Y Times

http://www.usatoday.com/ U S A Today

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Washington Post

http://www.latimes.com/ L A Times

Journals

IEEE Spectrum Communications of the ACM Science

Books

See detailed list below. Consult reference librarian. Telnet Orion/Melvyl.

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

Projects

This overview of approaches describes several different ways to start a project.

1. Innovation or Assignment. Innovation - student suggests; Assignment – instructor presents.

1) Write out the idea (email is ok) – this is a first or rough sketch stage.

2) Give a short talk in class describing the concept.

3) Interested people create own draft project descriptions (title, few sentences, specifics to do).

4) Potential partners work to combine all the drafts from stage 3).

5) At least two people show a group project description draft to instructor for written approval.

  1. Client. Seeks to meet a customer's needs.

Call, email or (preferably) meet with the project source. Compose a work statement based on the steps in 1. Consider whether the task has any general aspects. See list below or propose your own client.

Possible Project Sources

3. Partially Sighted. Kate Rosloff 720 Wilshire, Santa Monica 310 458-3501 x135

Samuel Genensky <harpoons@ucla.edu>

4. Jet Propulsion Lab Steve Pravdo <shp@temblor.jpl.nasa.gov> 818 354-3131

5. Replicated File Peter Reiher <reiher@cs.ucla.edu> 3564 Boelter 310 825-8332

6. Computer Tutor Byron Darrah <darrah@cs.ucla.edu> 714 446-2531

7. Virtual Reality Ruth Baum Widney High School 213 731-8633

Dorothy Klinger 2302 South Gramercy Place

William Jepson 2217A Perloff < bill@ucla.edu> 825-5815

{Getty Museum Virtual Reality model, Temple of Trajan was created at UCLA in group led by Prof. Jepson}

8. City Transport Neal Richman <nrichman@ucla.edu> 825-0577

{Group in North Campus led by Prof. Richman}

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

Sample Project Descriptions

The following give broad overviews of situations where more than one person’s work would be needed. To complete a realistic project description one would add details such as requirements, specifications and deliverables.

3. Partially Sighted Web Site. Aiding involves creating improved computer software for people with disabilities. Audio-Extended Web Browser. World-wide web browsers, present problems for users who work with Braille and sound output. Many people have partial sight. They could benefit from a system that involves a web site with audio links. Contact Kate Rosloff at the Center for the Partially Sighted or email the founder Samuel Genensky. An on-campus alternative is through Disabilities & Computing, Office of Academic Computing 310 206-7133.

  1. Near Earth Asteroid-Tracking (NEAT). Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) needs to speed up

an algorithm. Reprogramming existing code is the task. (Data is coming in faster than current software can process it.) A hardware upgrade caused incoming data to outstrip processing of time-adjacent images. The software now takes all the time between the end of one night and the beginning of the next to locate entities moving in a straight line. Point data is either a star, i.e., a fixed object, or a planetary body, an asteroid, comet or planet. The goal is to detect Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and comets more than 1 km in size for scientific study and to evaluate whether they may be hazardous to the Earth. Since Dec. 1995, 6-12 nights each month, data has been obtained. The recent upgrade resulted in a factor of 2.5 increase in sky coverage to 300 square degrees per night: a typical night yields 10 GB of image data - which usually yields 100 asteroids detected, one a possible NEA.

http://huey/jpl.nasa.gov/~spravdo/neatl.html

5. Replicated File - Replicated File System Simulator Application and Evaluation: Augment an existing simulator so it can be used on new models of replication, especially with regard to measuring their scaling and mobility properties. This work involves understanding both the existing simulator and a new model of replication. The job includes programming in Maisie, Prof. Rajive Bagrodia's simulation language. Another phase is in conducting simulation experiments to determine characteristics of the new model's behavior at high scale. Prof. Peter Reiher and two students who built a) the simulatior, and b) a new file replication model, are available to advise.

http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/project-members/reiher

  1. Computer Tutor - Build Problem-Solving LearningMaterials: Computer-math ability is an obstacle for some in gaining problem solving skills. Fill gaps in traditional math education. Create new computer materials.

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~klinger/k12.html

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~darrah/pyramid/

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

7. Virtual Reality: Arrange existing materials for world-wide-web display. Materials include songs, text, pictures about working with numbers in the real world: at a supermarket, fast food outlet, etc.; this is called "Functional Math" in educational jargon. Create a virtual reality simulation of this environment. Widney teachers would provide further information: call and leave a phone message with your phone number. Disabled individuals need virtual reality software for web viewing of supermarket-store displays.

8. City Geographic Information: Use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) in urban planning. Traffic-Flow: software to display information to an urban planner. Supports setting traffic signals, widening roads, building parks, new bikeways, landscaping. Evaluate

jitney systems: software to determine route costs, to plan mini-van versus automobile or bus transport. Assume short wait times at boarding points. Place economic value on wait-time, distance to routes, and long-range mobility (combining with rail/light-rail). Find costs and feasibility from three hub destinations, LAX, Westwood, Downtown. Generate figures from a computer model you build/run.

Book References

Planning

Lumsdaine(s) Creative Problem Solving, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

Ulrich and Eppinger Product Design and Development, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

Internet

Lynch, Daniel C. and Rose, Marshall T., Eds., Internet System Handbook, Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Thomas, B., The Internet for Scientists and Engineers, SPIE/IEEE Press, 1996.

Dern The Internet Guide for New Users, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

Graham The HTML Sourcebook, Wiley, 1997;

http://www.hprc.utoronto.ca/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html

Negotiating

Fisher, R. and Ury, W., Getting to YES, Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

Cohen, H., You Can Negotiate Anything, Lyle Stuart, 1980.

Starting a Company

Kushell, J., No Experience Necessary, Random House, Inc., 1997.

Siegel, M., How to make a fortune on the internet, Harper Perennial, 1997.

Gillis, T., Guts & Borrowed Money, Bard Press, 1997.

Dawson, G., Borrowing to build your Business, Upstart Publishing Company,1997.

Merrill, R. and Sedgwick, H., The New Venture Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Start and Run Your Own Business, Revised, AMACOM/American Management Association, 1993.

McKeever, M., How to Write a Business Plan, 4th ed., Nolo Press, 1992.

Bangs, David H., The Start-Up Guide – A One-Year Plan for Entrepreneurs, Upstart Publ. Co., 1998.

 

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

Book References

Patents

Anawalt, H. and Enayati, E., IP Strategy - Complete Intellectual Property Planning, Access and Protection, Clark Boardman Callaghan,1996.

DeForest,T., Inventor's Guide to Suuccessful Patent Applications, McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Magid, L., "Software, Web Sites Offer Help to Inventors Applying for Patents," L A Times, 3/18/98

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~klinger/patent_software.html

Writing

Strunk, W. and White, E., The Elements of Style, NY: Macmillan,1972.

http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk (the 1918 version by Strunk).

Sageev, P., Helping Researchers Write... So Managers Can Understand, Columbus OH: Battelle, 1995 Zinsser, William, On Writing Well, Harper Perennial, 1976, 1996.

Gibaldi, Joseph, MLA Handbook for Writing of Research Papers, Modern Lang. Assoc. of Amer.,1995.

Lunsford, Andrea and Connors, Robert, The St. Martins Handbook, St. Martins Press, 1996.

Lamott, Anne, Bird By Bird - Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anchor/Doubleday, 1994.

General

Larijani, L. Casey, GPS For Everyone - How The Global Positioning System Can Work For You, ISBN 0-9659667-5-5, 1998.

Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies, Norton, 1997.

Adams, James, The Next World War - Computers are the Weapons & the Front Line is Everywhere.

Cole, K.C., The Universe and the Teacup - The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty, 1998

Harper, Christopher, And That's the Way It Will Be, New York University Press, 1998.

Hoffman, Paul, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth, NY: Hyperion, 1998.

CS 190 Computer Science Design Project Fall 1998

A. Klinger 3531-H Boelter Office (3532-J Mail Slot) M-W 10-11:50 AM 1003 Moore Hall

 

 

Assignment One

Come to the 10-7 class meeting with your:

1. One-page reaction comments on something you read.

2. A statement - a paragraph - describing the project you want to work on.

3. Readiness to present a short talk based on your web access to CS 190 material.

4. Ability to discuss some CS 190 exercise posted on the web.

5. List of first four-week class meetings when you'll present a talk.

6. Contact communication: notes from a phone conversation or copy of email exchange; for a volunteer nonprofit organization such as the Venice Family Clinic.

Venice Family Clinic Points of Contact 310 392-8630

Jennifer Behr <jlbehr@ucla.edu> ext 335.

Allison Dockray, Associate Director of Events, ext 337

Liz Forer, Executive Director, ext 200.