Check-List for a Semester / Diploma project

Project Contract

At most 3 weeks after beginning of the project, fill in a project contract, which contains:

• The objective of the project. Please give a sequence of objectives, in order of expected completion. Please think that unexpected difficulties are more likely than unlikely to arise, and make sure you have still achieved something. Remember that most projects achieve much less than hoped at the beginning.
• The skills to be acquired during the project. There should be a balance in the time spent acquiring new skills and developing the project. The project is an opportunity for you to acquire new skills, but it is not OK if at the end of the project your only achievement is to have learnt something.
• The support expected from your assistant and the times of weekly checkpoints.
• The hardware and software required.

The project contract should be signed by you and the person (assistant or prof) in charge of the project.

During the Project

Please have a log-book. Keep day-by-day records. Write a very short summary of everything you do: the manipulations, the commands that do not work, the software you installed, etc.

For example:

 Monday April 23:
   downloaded the ns distribution on lrcpc26.
   Did the necessary configurations.
   Ran validation tests.
   Test 24-X4 failed
   Probably tcl to be re-installed.

 Tuesday April 24:
   re-installed tcl and passed ns validation tests.
   Learnt ns tutorial.

Please send me a copy of your logbook once a week (an email message is sufficient).

Project Report

You should prepare a project report, using a word processor. The report should primarily document the work done. It should contain two parts.

1. A main part, explaining the problem and your solution. Maximum 10 pages in 11 point font (the shorter, the better).
   1. What is the problem you had to solve ? why it is a problem ? why would any one care about solving it ?
   2. Describe your solution. Explain the main features, the ones you believe are most valuable.
   3. List your achievements, give their nature, quality and quantity. Distinguish your contribution from what others did before. For example: I designed an ns model of the VP-TFMCC protocol, 2500 lines of simple code, 300 lines of high value code. Debugging took 2 weeks.
   4. What skills did you exercise, what skills did you have to acquire for the project
   5. Report on the major events of the project, including unexpected difficulties.
   6. Provide a self-assessment (where did you succeed most, where did you fail)
2. An appendix with supporting material:
   1. Give the background information that is needed to understand and appreciate your work.
   2. Give only this background information (your report is a project achievement report; it should explain very clearly what you did, but does not have to be a tutorial on a general topic.)
   3. Details of source code, simulation results, measurement campaigns.
   4. Details about project events.

Presentation

You should present your work in a slide show. Please check the following list. You should target a 30mn speech.

1. What is the problem you had to solve ?
2. Give the background information that is needed to understand and appreciate your work. Give only this background information.
3. What is your solution ? Explain a representative part in detail.
4. List your achievements, give their nature, quality and quantity.
5. what skills did you exercise, what skills did you have to acquire for the project ?
6. Report on the major events of the project, including unexpected difficulties.
7. Provide a self-assessment.

Archive the project

Put your report and important documents (source code, ps files, etc) into a compressed file, store it in a permanent storage area of LCA, and give me the pointer. I will give the final mark only when I have received all this.