Final Project

General

You do a project only if you are registered for the graduate version of the course. You discharge your project obligation as follows:

  • Conceive something interesting to do that is related to the subject, loosely defined.
  • Deliver a project proposal to Prof. Winston by session 16 in the form specified in the next section.
  • Deliver a 10-minute oral presentation on what you have done during the penultimate class or final class (to be determined by lottery).
  • Submit your presentation as if it were a report done by a study group. That is, submit a one- or two-page executive summary plus your slides cum legends. This sample slide, taken from a report of the Naval Research Advisory Committee, illustrates, except that a typical slide would have just one paragraph of explanation, not three.

Project proposal descriptions

You are to prepare a ascii text file—no doc, pdf, weird characters, etc.— with prescribed xml tags because that eliminates the time I would otherwise spend getting everything in a uniform format. Here is the template with the prescribed xml tags:


<project>
<student>...</student>
<title>...</title>
<vision>
...
</vision>
<type>
...
</type>
<steps>
<ul>
<li>
...
</li> <li>
...
</li> <li>
...
</li>
</ul>
</steps>
<contributions>
<ul>
<li>
...
</li><li>
...
</li>
</ul>
</contributions>
</project>

And here is a representative sample. Contributions are anticipated contributions, hence phrased in past tense.

<project>
<student>Alan Turing and Marvin Minsky</student>
<title>The Effect of Linguistic Expression on Memory</title>
<vision>
If we are to understand the role of language in forming memories, then we need to
understand how our discussion of a written work increases our ability to recall the
content later.
</vision>
<type>
Pilot experiment.
</type>
<steps>
<ul>
<li>
Subjects will be asked to read a short story. Subjects in a control group will not be
required to answer any questions. One test group will be asked questions in written
form, and the second group will have a discussion with us about the work.
</li> <li>
A week later, we will call back the subjects and ask them questions about the reading.
Questions will vary in terms of difficulty in order to determine how much each subject
actually remembers.
</li>
<li>
We will draw conclusions from this data about whether the subjects that wrote or
spoke about the work better remember details of the story.</li>
</ul>
</steps>
<contributions>
<ul>
<li>
Collected and analyzed data relevant to establishing whether written or oral exercise of
language aids recall.
</li><li>
Demonstrated that exercising the language faculty increases (or does not increase) a subject's story recall.
</li>
</ul>
</contributions>
</project>

FAQ

What sort of project can I do?

Projects can be, but are not limited to, any of the following types:

  • Best: A research project with implementation. You have an idea, and you do the implementation, and report on your experimental results. This is the heroic way, inasmuch as your project is not all you do in the subject. You might accomplish more by working in teams, but then you are exposed to weak-link problems exacerbated by the part-time, conflicting pull nature of student labor. Caution is advised, along with especially clear and modest goals.
  • Best: A pilot study. You perform an interesting experiment with the aid your friends. You will of course have to muck around a little with paperwork if you use human subjects.
  • Very good: A reimplementation. You pick one of the papers that describes an implemented idea and you reimplement, reporting on the surprises that invariably emerge when you understand something at the level required to write code. You also report on improvements you make.
  • Good: A research proposal. You propose a mechanism for performing some clearly defined task.

One way to generate ideas is to write all the paper names on slips of paper, put them in a hat, and draw two at a time, asking if they make any sense. A famous mathematician (who?) claims he does new mathematics in a roughly analogous fashion.

For example, a few year ago you might have drawn the Rao paper and the Borchardt paper and asked if Borchardt's representation might be useful in describing Rao's routines (answer turned out to be yes).

If you get inspired and passionate about something, you might just find yourself with a real thesis proposal when you are done with this. After all, Dave Huffman discovered Huffman coding while doing a term paper in Bob Fano's information theory class.

One possibility, cutting across all types, is to do something relevant to the Genesis project. You can get a general idea of what is going on by reading the Genesis papers.

What about...?

  • You may use your work to extend or complement the work you do in another class or another context; you cannot do the same work for two classes.
  • You are welcome to work together in teams, just like in the real world. If you work in a team, you need to share the writing and oral presentation. There is no precedent for a team with more than two students.
  • You can get an A in the subject with any project type.