Final Year Project (FYP)

by Kuiyu Chang — last modified Aug 25, 2008 04:42 PM

The interim report should be formatted exactly like a FYP final report, except that the first few chapters should be more or less completed, and may contain shorter/empty/incomplete/partial content for later chapters.

Interim reports must be submitted by checking in the source files to your assigned svn repository. No email or physical submissions.

Final Report Format

Your report must be typeset professionally in either LaTeX or Open Document Format. Openoffice users must download the OpenOffice FYP template . All pictures and diagrams should be created electronically. It should contain the following chapters:

Abstract/Acknowledgement
Introduction
- What is the motivation for pursuing this topic?
Related Work
- Describe what other people have done in similar areas, critique their approach.
Approach/Architecture/Theory, e.g. "Chapter 3: Designing a Plone Groupware portal"
- Include UML diagrams, Class Collaboration diagrams, Activity Diagrams, Data Flow Diagrams, etc.
- Describe your contributions here
Experiments/Tests, e.g. "Chapter 4: User Evaluation of the Portal"
- What are the shortcomings of the product during actual end user tests?
- For product development, you must include test cases for white box tests, black box tests, integration tests, etc.
- Screenshots
Conclusion
- Pros/cons of your approach
- Future work
Reference
- All non-original pictures, figures, diagrams, text, equations must be properly cited. See FAQ on plagarism

FYP Plan

Please upload your FYP strategy & Plan to the SVN repository by the deadline under:

https://svn.mosuma.com/r4000/doc/reports/bs/{yourloginname}/

see svn FAQ for uploading instructions.

Format of FYP plan: you must use the provided FYP Final Report template

Your content can be very simple, comprising just the following items neatly arranged in the first chapter of your FYP report. The first chapter need not be complete (1 page, 2 pages, any length is ok) but should contain the following sections (or any other sections you deem appropriate):

Chapter 1: Introduction

Motivation
- Tell a story. Put on your salesman hat as if you are sell ing snake oil. If you cannot convince yourself this is great, modify the scope.
- Why are you doing this? Other than "I have no choice but to select this project". Keep in mind that I would allow you to pursue and define an alternative project scope if you are not interested in the assigned project.
- Who would use this? Would you? If the answer is no, you need to seriously rethink your project scope.
- What are existing solutions on the net. Do a brief survey
Objectives
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Define your goals clearly. E.g. create a program that can download 75,000 pictures in a day and classify them into pretty, ugly within 100 years.
Plan
- Deliverables
- Technologies to use/learn
- Software modules to create : rough sketch is fine
- Data to collect : e.g. pages to download
- Experimental evaluations, e.g. are you going to test it on guinea pigs. How many? Where?
Project Timeline
- Milestones (define major milestones, not 100 small ones)
- Gantt chart (at the week resolution), you should use the online project manager tool provided, which allows me to check and update your plan anytime. You can use a screen capture utility to dump this online plan to the report, don't waste time using Microsoft Project to create a beautiful plan.

You must upload your fyp plan in the prescribed format to the SVN repository by the deadline.

No email/physical submissions accepted.
No excuses for encountering problems with the uploading at the last minute. You are supposed to figure it out long before the deadline.

Lastly, since this is just a plan, things can change. Don't worry about change. Change is good. The only constant in life is change.

Draft/Amended FYP Report

All students

Please read through my FAQ on plagarism
I need a signed hardcopy of the declaration of original work from you. Please submit it to the GO, or along with your hardcopy report.

My Students

Submit your FYP draft report as you did for your FYP interim report, by checking it into SVN and let me know:
```
     https://svn.mosuma.com/r4000/doc/reports/bs/{yourname}
```
I will annotate/comment on your FYP report electronically and upload the latest version to the svn repository and send you a notification email.
Please go through the annotated/commented report carefully, and make changes according to my comments prefixed with kuiyu. You could search for the text string kuiyu.
Email me after you have finished amending the FYP report and uploaded the source file including all figures and bibliography (where applicable) files to the svn repository:
```
     https://svn.mosuma.com/r4000/doc/reports/bs/{yourname}
```
Also generate and upload a PDF version of your amended FYP report to the repository
Ask your examiner if he/she preferse a soft/hard/both copy. Print out a hard copy for your examiner unless he/she tells you in writing/email that he does not want one.
Email your examiner a pdf soft copy of your FYP report if he/she specifically asks for one.
No need to give me a hard copy of your final amended report. You need not print out a hard copy of the amended FYP report! Save some trees!

My Examinees

You are welcomed to submit your FYP report to me in one of the following formats:
- A single pdf file (preferred)
- hard printed copy
Once I have gone through your hard copy FYP report, I will send you a notification email to meet up with me for
- A brief demo of your project (where applicable)
- you to pick up the annotated/commented hard copy of your FYP report (where applicable)
Amend your FYP report accordingly, and
- email me the soft copy of your amended FYP report before the announced deadline. Please note that
  - A single PDF file is preferred.
  - Microsoft Word files are considered invalid.
  - Check acceptable electronic formats
- Submit the annotated hardcopy (where applicable) to me via the General Office (GO). Yes, this is the annotated hard copy with all my markings, please return it to me, I need it to cross-reference with your amended report.
No need to give me a hard copy of your final amended report. You need not print out a hard copy of the amended FYP report! Save some trees!
Examinees must not throw away the annotated/commented/marked copy collected from me, instead please return the annotated copy so that I can verify your changes.

FYP Presentation

Duration: 20 mins presentation + 5 mins Q&A
Content: Please cover the following in at most 20 slides:

Very brief introduction/motivation
- At most 2 slides
Problem statement
- What problem are you trying to solve?

Your solution/product

Brief Architecture of your product/solution
Why is your solution/product good?
Compare with existing solutions! Table comparison is the best! Your product/solution versus other brands.

Feature	My Product	Competitor X	Competitor Y
Edible?	Yes	No	tastes bad
Can do XYZ	Yes	No	Cost $$$
Speed	Fast	2X slower	10x slower
IdiotFriendly?	Yes	Hard to use	Crashes

Your Contributions
- What have you contributed/created? How many lines of code?(exclude reading and learning time)
- What proportion of the product/solution includes prior/existing source code? 50%, 75%?
Conclusions & Future Work
- List limitations of your solution/product
- List possible improvements (be frank!)

General Guidelines: Relax

Dress like a car salesman (get the point?), i.e. shirt & tie for men, office attire for ladies.
Please do not mention what you have learnt, this is not the key point of your project. Remember, you are trying to sell your product/solution to an audience, not selling how hardworking you are.
As few words as possible on each slide.
As many pictures as possible on each slide.
Demo portions of your product only if it is less than 3 minutes from start to end.

How to Start your FYP / URECA / UROP / Project?

1 See me for a chat. Please drop by my office after consulting my online weekly schedule. Give me a call before you do to make sure I am in.

2 You will be given a single login/password to login to this site and the subversion repository. Your login will be emailed to you, and your initial password will be sms to you.

3 Please change your password once you login to this site. I will be using the collector (tab) to track your FYP progress, the repository will serve as the source code & documentation storage.

4 A subversion repository will be created in your name for you to access with URL

https://svn.mosuma.com/r4000/doc/reports/bs/{yourloginname}

5 Install all the necessary tools for your FYP project. You must install the following bare minimum set of tools (see FAQ)

a Ubuntu Linux or cygwin (on windows)

If you are fortunate to be assigned to the DB Lab, once you installed Linux on a dedicated machine, you can leave it on and running, and remotely ssh into it (via VPN from outside NTU), and work on it without even physically going to the DB Lab!

If you are assigned to any other lab or center, you are out of luck. Better to work on your own PC than to waste time there. Why? Singapore's rulebook mentality means that in those labs, officially

you are not allowed to install anything on a Windows machine because they are shared.

If you are lucky enough to install Linux or get an account on a Linux cluster, you are not allowed to install anything outside your home directory.

Some labs allow you to install Linux, but you are not given the root password. That means if you want anything installed, the lab technician must physically sit beside you and do that for you. This is a huge waste of your time.

A simple analogy is a car mechanic apprentice learning with a car that has its hood sealed shut. So all he/she can do is to touch the surface of the car, without knowing anything about the inner workings of a car.

In fact, the vast majority of SCE labs/centers have long forgotten that the sole reason for their existance is to serve the students. Sounds familiar? On the contrary, they enjoy tying student's hands and feet by designing self-serving rules to simplify their management by minimizing their work.

b OpenOffice 2.1 or higher

c Subversion client

Windows users are strongly encouraged to download "Tortoise SVN":http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ after you have tried the command line tools

6 Download FYP template from the "documents" tab. Start writing your report! Yes, the earlier you start, the less painful it is. And it will be a breeze for you towards the end of the FYP, by when the report would have been finished!

7 For the first 2 weeks, you should do the configuration of tools, and also a survey of your FYP project. Write down your survey results in your FYP report Chapter 2. Then start defining your problem in Chapter 3, along with its proposed solutions. Don't worry about the content and structure, it can always be modified later.

8 Make sure you read my FAQ on plagarism! There is also a sample posted outside my office. Do not copy or lift any material! The penalty for doing so is FYP failure and/or termination from University.

9 Start getting use to SVN and checking in your FYP report to the SVN repository

https://svn.mosuma.com/r4000/doc/reports/bs/{yourloginname}

10 Later on, I will email you on where you can check in your source code and documentation. In principal, large files should always be checked into the repository. Use email only for logistic (e.g. scheduling demo/meetings) and generic (non-technical) questions. All technical questions/updates should be done through you assigned collector issue.

11 Arrange for a suitable time to meet face to face

once a week during term time

twice a week during holidays

12 Make sure you update all (by browsing your issue, and clicking on the "Follow up" option to add a comment) collector (see "collector" tab) issues assigned to you

once a week on or before every Sunday 11:59 pm.

FYP students who fails to update their issues promptly for more than half of the 52 weeks (or duration of FYP) of a year would have effectively failed their FYP.

13 Please update your personal info, especially mobile phone number, whenever necessary through the website addressbook

Continous Assessment

First and foremost, a very warm welcome to my research group!

Your FYP/URECA is a 10-month long endeavour starting from [June - March] [December - October] with an expected work load of 10 hours per week. I plan to meet up with you once a week to check on your progress.

One of the goals of the FYP/URECA is to ensure that you produce consistent work output in every of the 10 month, just as you are expected to when you go to work after graduation. Thus, you will be graded for every month starting from June/December using a simple binary system (pass/fail).

You earn a pass for every month that

You produce satisfactory progress or
in lieu of satisfactory progress, you attend ALL regular planned meetings for the month, i.e., weekly and I am convinced that you have made a good faith effort/attempt to tackle the problem (limited by your I.Q.)

You shall fail that month if:

You have not made satisfactory progress and you miss more than 2 planned meetings per month for whatever reasons, MCs, family problems, emotional issues, work, IA/IO, etc.
You meet me every week for the month without showing any satisfactory progress
You ask me to debug your source code (in which case, why don't I just do your FYP/URECA for you and get the full credit?)

If you pass all 10 months, that means the maximum score for your FYP/URECA is 10x10 = 100%. If you only passed 5 of the 10 months, your maximum attainable FYP/URECA grade is 50%.

The same grading scheme will apply during examination month, holidays, vacations, acts of gods, disaster, etc., meaning that realistically, you will have a 80% maximum attainable grade, which corresponds to an A grade.

Thus, every month of your progress counts. This ensures that if there is a prolonged period of absence/inactivity/stagnation on your part, you are guaranteed to fail your FYP/URECA.

For example, if you fail 5 out of the 10 months, and work extremely hard on the remaining 5 months, you will at most earn a passing grade of C, in the best scenario. The method for computing this final score is a simple hard threshold:

  if score > max_score then score = max_score

Sections

Personal tools