Integrated Project (EIE360)

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Integrated Project (EIE360)

• Dr Daniel Lun
• Department of Electronic and Information
  Engineering
• Tel [phone] Office DE637
• Email enpklun_at_polyu.edu.hk
• URL www.eie.polyu.edu.hk/enpklun/EIE360/EIE360.h
  tml

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• Lecture 1
• Introduction

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Objectives of the Subject

• Apply knowledge acquired in other subjects in an
  integrated manner
• Experience different stages of project
  development
• Many factors lead to the success of a project
• Technical competence of the workers
• Programming skill
• Hardware integration skill
• Computer knowledge, etc.
• Soft skills
• Resource management
• Problem solving
• Communications and teamwork
• Creativity

Should have been covered in other subjects
One of the major objectives of this subject is to
create an environment for students to practice
these soft skills
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Objectives of the Subject

• Resource management
• To practice managing resources, e.g. time,
  manpower equipment as they are always limited
• Should identify the constraints of the project
  and make good plan to use them
• Problem solving
• No matter how good you plan in managing resource,
  problems will still arise due to many unexpected
  reasons
• Need to practice dealing with problems
• Communications
• To practice working with your partners, your boss
  and your customers
• Creativity
• To practice generating new and feasible ideas

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Topic this year

• Interactive Virtual Aquarium

Picture extracted from www.dreamaquarium.com
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Topic this year (cont)

• Interactive Virtual Aquarium
• ABC Software Company would like to develop a new
  software called Interactive Virtual Aquarium
• Use 3D graphics to reproduce an aquarium on a
  computer
• The swimming fishes and other inhabitants are
  rendered in real time
• Although those creatures are not real, they
  should do everything that real ones do
• Pecking at objects in the tank, eating food,
  chasing each other, swimming amongst the plants,
  or even fighting with each others!

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Topic this year (cont)

• My Virtual Aquarium
• Different from the current virtual aquarium in
  the market, ABC Company would like to introduce
  the following two features
• The growth and behavior of the living creatures
  in the virtual aquarium should follow a time
  function (just like tamagotchi!)
• E.g. the fishes will grow-up, change size and
  shape, and die as time goes by
• E.g. the tank will get dirty if not cleaned
  regularly in time
• The virtual aquarium will interact with the user
  based on his/her body motion
• Achieve by using a Kinect sensor device a
  motion sensing input device created by Microsoft

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Architecture of the Interactive Virtual Aquarium
System
Computer A
USB port
Your program
Kinect Sensor Device
Network
Computer B
3D Graphics System
Your program
3D Graphics
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Tasks to be achieved in this project

• Each team is provided with
• a Kinect Sensor Device
• Carry out the following tasks
• Collect the information of real fishes and other
  inhabitants of an aquarium
• Based on such information, develop their graphics
  and animation
• Design the interaction between them and the
  player
• Implement such interaction by making use of the
  Kinect Sensor Device to detect the body motion of
  the player

Kinect Sensor Device
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Tasks to be achieved in this project (cont)

• Not only technical tasks, but also non-technical
  task
• Each group needs to make a study on the behavior
  of fishes and other inhabitants in aquarium
• Nowadays, the success of an IT application is not
  only due to its technical excellence, but also if
  they are liked by the users very often due to
  non-technical reasons
• E.g. Apples iPhone vs Nokia N9000 smartphone

Which one is more success? Why?
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Tasks to be achieved in this project (cont)

• More example The success of the XBox car racing
  game Project Gotham Racing is not only due to its
  graphics or interactivity, but also the
  incorporation of the real scenes of over 12 car
  racing tracks in 4 cities in the world
• Nowadays, software designers, particularly those
  in the IT area, put great effort in contents
  design, which often determines if their software
  is successful or not

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Things to do in this subject

• Learn the features, working principle and
  implementation methods of different sub-systems
  required in this project
• A series of tutorial and lab exercises will guide
  you to achieve the minimum of the project
  requirement
• Need to make demonstration for each tutorial and
  submit report for the lab
• Find a partner to form a group
• Each member will be responsible for one part of
  the project
• Work of the members should be combined to form
  the whole system
• Make the first demonstration of the design
• Summarize the experience and design your software
• Make a background study of the behavior of fishes
  and other inhabitants of aquarium
• Prepare a proposal to indicate your plan of
  designing the system
• To record the progress of the project, each
  student needs to keep a logbook
• Implement your design and show in the final
  demonstration
• You are also required to make a presentation and
  a final report to elaborate your work and the
  result

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Schedule and Arrangement

• Lectures tutorial (CF504)
• Week 1 to 3 (twice per week), week 4 to 6 (once
  per week)
• Lab exercise (CF504)
• Week 7 to 9
• Two students form a group. Each team member will
  do a different lab
• Miniproject (CF504)
• Week 10 to 14
• Submissions
• Lab report and demonstrations x 2 (Note the
  submission deadlines)
• Proposal Mar 20
• Final report Apr 14
• Logbook check and sign by assessor on Mar 12
  and submit on Apr 14
• First Mini-project Demo Mar 12
• Final Demo Apr 10
• Presentation Apr 14

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Assessment Weighting
Assessment Type Weighting
Tutorial exercises (Demo) 15
Lab exercise (Demo report) 10
Logbook / Proposal / Final report / Presentation 25
Results in the First and Final Miniproject Demos 15 25
Project Management 10
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Assessment Criteria

• Lab exercise
• Finish the open-ended exercise as given in the
  lab sheet
• Each team member will do a different lab
• Each student needs to submit
• a lab report (the computer program of the
  open-ended exercise) and
• make a demonstration of the result

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Assessment Criteria

• Logbook
• Individually keep a logbook (a diary) on the
  tutorial, lab and project work performed
• Check by the assessor on Mar 12
• Submit the logbook on Apr 14
• Assessment will be made based on the completeness
  of the contents for recording the findings,
  results and the discussions made in the project

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Assessment Criteria

• Proposal
• Submit a proposal on or before Mar 20
• Should include the following
• An abstract
• The topic and objective of the system
• The background study
• The proposed functional and technical
  specifications
• The proposed methodology to achieve the
  specifications
• Preliminary results obtained
• References
• The general criteria for assessing a proposal
  include
• Completeness of the above items
• Feasibility of the plan
• Presentation of the report

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Assessment Criteria

• Final report and Presentation
• Submit a final report on or before Apr 14
• Based on the report, make a presentation on Apr
  14 (in English)
• The contents of the report and presentation
  should include
• Description of the background study
• Description of the operation of the software
  system developed
• Actual techniques adopted to implement each
  sub-systems
• Difficulties encountered (both technical and
  non-technical) and the solutions used to solve
  the problems
• Results achieved by using those techniques
• The ways to manage the resources and how teamwork
  is implemented in the project

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Assessment Criteria

• First and Final Miniproject Demonstration
• All teams are required to attend the First and
  the Final Miniproject Demonstration held on Mar
  12 and Apr 10
• The objective is to ensure all teams have reached
  the defined milestones
• Assessment divide into two parts
• Performance in achieving the common objective
• E.g., the background study and the game flow
• Performance of the sub-systems responsible by
  each member
• E.g. the graphics, the interaction between player
  and the system
• Individually assess

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Assessment Criteria

• Project Management
• A total of 10 marks are allocated to this item
• To encourage teamwork
• To encourage the teams using good approaches for
  managing resources of the project
• Manpower, Time, Lab facilities
• Need to specify the approach in resource
  management and teamwork in the final report and
  presentation
• Need to give evidence!

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Project Competition

• Project development is not the same as doing an
  assignment, it is open-ended
• To reward those students who spend great effort
  in continuously enhancing the result of the
  project, a project competition will be held along
  with this subject for them to showcase their
  achievement
• Award
• The Best Project Award
• For the team that gives the best design (graphics
  and features)
• Robustness in implementation is another important
  assessment criterion
• Cash prizes and certificates will be awarded to
  the winners of the competition

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Why project management?

• A project involves the interaction of different
  parties
• A project will be successful only if all parties
  do their job right
• By having good project management, we can
• Achieve the project goal on time and within the
  budget
• Keep your boss and your customers happy
• Keep the team focus on the goal and work well
• Everyone shares the load

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Project Management

• Project Planning and Implementation
• Define objectives / requirements
• Define work/tasks
• Identify resources
• Plan schedule
• Iterate
• Plan modification

• Execution Management
• Get objective signed-off
• Track plan progress
• Communicate within team
• Customer communications
• Secure resources
• Project discipline

Technical
People
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Project Planning

• The process of project development is full of
  uncertainties
• The more uncertainties you have, the less
  possible that the project can be successful
• Uncertainties can be reduced by having a good
  feasibility study before the project
• Background research
• Understand the resource required and acquired
• Risk analysis
• The feasibility study has been prepared for you
  in the lab exercises

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Requirement Analysis

• The purpose is to identify and document the exact
  requirements for the project
• Much interaction must take place between the
  customer (e.g. Professor) and the developer (e.g.
  students)
• Should be well documented since very often it
  serves as an agreement of the functions that will
  be provided by the system developed
• The document is sometimes called user
  specifications or functional specifications
• May form the basis for project commissioning
• Your proposal should contain the above items

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System design and specification

• Split into two sub-phases architectural and
  detailed design
• Architectural design
• Define the overall organization of the system in
  terms of high-level components and their
  interaction
• Detailed design
• Lower level modules in each component and their
  interfaces
• Example In software development
• Architectural design the function and
  relationship of classes
• Detailed design the internal modules and
  interfaces of each class
• Should be well documented
• The document is sometimes called technical
  specifications
• Your proposal should contain the above items

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Implementation Work breakdown

• Split project into tasks and estimate time and
  resources required to complete each task
• Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal use
  of workforce
• Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays
  caused by one task waiting for another to
  complete
• Should be detailed in the proposal and final
  report

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Example Activity Timeline and Job Allocation
1/6/06 1/7 1/8 1/9 1/10 1/11 1/12 1/1/07
Lun Hsung Cheung EO
T3
T12
T1
T4
T5
T8
T5
T6
T9
T10
T11
T7
T2
M1
M2
M3
T3
T1 Define objectives and requirements T2 Room
renovation T3 Hiring staff T4 Purchase
equipment T5 Installation of equipment M1
Milestone 1 - Demo room equipment T6 Testing
motion tracking system T7 Testing game engine
T8 Testing other hardware and software T9
Prepare preliminary demo M2 Milestone 2 -
Preliminary demo T10 Integrating all
sub-systems T11 Develop final demo program T12
Prepare documents M3 Milestone 3 - Final demo
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Teamwork
Need to give evidence in the final report to
prove your team has followed them when
implementing your project

• Teamwork means
• Concerted effort
• All team members work towards the same goal and
  direction
• Interdependent collaboration
• Contribution of team members is inter-related and
  used to achieve the goal of the project
• Shared decision making
• All team members take part in the decision making
  process

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Wrong Concepts and Bad Practices

• For students who are new in doing projects, they
  often have the following wrong concepts and bad
  practices
• We will not be able to finish the project since
  all techniques required are new to me.
• It is exactly the kind of training we need you to
  go thru. Learning to learn is one of the most
  important parts of a project. In reality, it is
  very often you are asked to do something you
  dont know. Only those who can learn faster than
  the others can win in the society

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Wrong Concepts and Bad Practices (cont)

• We didnt allocate task to members since we work
  together all the time.
• A very bad practice. It means that there is no
  teamwork among members. To avoid you doing this,
  each member of the team will be given a different
  task. The results of all team members should be
  combined to accomplish the project objective.

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Wrong Concepts and Bad Practices (cont)

• My team member didnt do anything. I decided to
  leave him alone. The work submitted was done by
  me.
• See, finding suitable partner is very important.
  That team member certainly will fail, since team
  members will be individually assessed. The marks
  of the team in project management (in particular
  teamwork) will also be deducted.

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Wrong Concepts and Bad Practices (cont)

• Our team was very busy in many different things
  so we skipped all the tutorials, lab works and
  demos. But we managed to use the last few days to
  finish everything and made a good demo of our
  game in the Final Demo.
• Assume that you are doing this project for your
  customer. If I were the customer of your project,
  I would never hire your team to do project again!
  All customers want to see both progress and
  result. So your marks in project management will
  be deducted.

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Wrong Concepts and Bad Practices (cont)

• Time is limited in doing this project. If I have
  more time, I can do it much better.
• It is exactly the objective of the subject to
  provide training to students on time management.
  Bear in mind that the subject does not ask you to
  achieve a perfect result, but a satisfactory
  result within a time limit. Only those who have
  good time management skill can get good grade in
  this subject.

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Some Advices on Problem Solving

• People like to solve problem based on its symptom
  and try to remove the symptom
• Following the philosophy of western medicine, if
  you have headache, you will be given a Panadol to
  remove the headache
• It works sometimes but not always. Sometimes
  removing the symptom may just let the real
  problem (can be big problem) unable to be
  discovered
• Have we ever taken time to think of the reason
  behind the problem and try to really solve it?
• Sometimes you can find out the reason, sometimes
  you cannot
• But it is still worth a try

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Some Advices on Problem Solving (cont)

• When finding the reasons of a problem, dont
  ignore any small abnormality in the course of
  project development
• Particularly in software development, even a
  small bug can bite you hardly, and perhaps at the
  most crucial time!
• Of course, if there is no hope to solve the
  problems, looking for tricks to get around them
  is still a good solution