EN100 Evaluation and Grading

You will be evaluated fundamentally on how well you (your team) meet the specifications decided upon at the beginning of the course, and posted on this website. Therefore considerable work and negotiation may take place framing the specs.

Revising the specs: Suppose as the weeks pass you feel the specs were too ambitious, or that your goals have taken a different direction. You and the instructor need to agree on different specs, and the revised specs need to be posted this website.

Final Presentation: Near the end of the semester a day will be selected for all students to make a presentation. You may have worked solo on a project or you may be part of a team; in either case the presentation will have three components: 1. public speaking, with the aid of viewgraphs or computer screens, describing your motivation for the project, reviewing the specs and describing various prototypes and design ideas you dealt with along the way. 2. a demonstration of your project in action. You will be limited to 30 minutes for your presentation. 3. You need to submit a report--either printed out, or preferably in the form of web-ready media, such as DreamWeaver or PowerPoint.html.

For me good documentation starts with illustrations, graphs, charts, images, videos, circuit diagrams, equations, simulations... and ends with written prose that binds together the graphics.

Evaluation. We hope your demo will show that you have met your specs. But suppose something goes wrong. You will then be evaluated on the quality of your presentation, your progress during the course, and the way in which you may have overcome obstacles during the semester. Your work will be compared to other students' and teams' results in EN100.

Grades will be submitted to the registrar the morning after the presentations; normally no Incomplete is possible without prior approval.

Making Progress: After the first few weeks of the course, after the specs are agreed upon, we (JD + you/team) will continue to communicate about your progress, including ways I can help you (order parts, etc). Normally we will meet in person for 15 minutes or so once a week during the scheduled time of the class.

At the meeting you will either impress me with your progress or we will go over how you spent your time since the last meeting. As such you should keep a record of what you have tried, successful or not, so you can refer to your notes to fill me in.

You will want to be creating your final report and documentation as you go along. Digital camera images of your work in progress, for example. In fact, since you know your specs and expect to achieve them, you can "write up" your final report before you start, then make adjustments as the semester goes along.

We are assuming that on average you will spend 10 hours per week working on EN100. That work might be about 2 hours per day, M-F. Another way to stay in touch is to establish a daily schedule of where you will be for 2 hours (various labs I can can put you in, or the main floor of Prince Lab, or room 191, the computer room...) and I can check in on you more frequently if I like.

What your grade will be: If your team meets its specs, it will be difficult not to award you an A. If your team does not meet its specs it will be difficult to award you an A.