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School of Electrical and Information Engineering

First and fourth year design-build team projects: a comparison David C Levy Director, Software Engineering Program. School of Electrical and Information Engineering. The University of Sydney. Philosophy of the SE Degree.

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School of Electrical and Information Engineering

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  1. First and fourth year design-build team projects: a comparisonDavid C LevyDirector, Software Engineering Program School of Electrical and Information Engineering The University of Sydney

  2. Philosophy of the SE Degree Software Engineering is an emerging profession in a very dynamic industrial and global environment • Degree focuses on principles and fundamentals while catering for a wide spectrum of industries and needs. • Curriculum follows SWEBOK and IEEE/ACM Model Curriculum • Educational context is CDIO • Rich with design-build experiences • All students so least one in each year of study, plus the capstone project • What are the intended outcomes and are they achieved? School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  3. Structure of the Degree • Core requirements of B.E. Software Engineering emphasise software process – requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment, maintenance • Fits well with CDIO concepts and design-build experiences School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  4. ALG Algorithms DB Database DS Data Structures ESSD Enterprise Scale System Design FCS Foundations of Computer Systems HCID Human-Computer Interface Design INT Internet Sw Platforms ITP Introduction to Programming Math Calculus, Discrete Maths and Graph Theory (18 Cr) MIT Management of IT NS Networks and Security OOD Object Oriented Design OSM OpSys and Mach Principles SAM Systems Analysis and Modelling SQE Software Quality Engineering PROF Professional Eng and IT (yr 1) PROJ Team Projects THE 4th yr Thesis project (12 Cr) 18 Core Courses School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  5. Projects • Team projects run in every year • Part of larger course of lectures, labs, tutorials • Increasing complexity • Examples • Yr 1: Assemble and program a robot to negotiate a maze • Yr 2: Design and simulate a small microprocessor • Yr 3: Implement a prototype for an e-business. • Yr 4: Develop a management system for a parking garage • Yr 4: Capstone • Are the projects delivering what we want? School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  6. What do we want? • Think critically • Strengthen fundamentals • Gain confidence • Communicate – • With each other and with academics • Reports and presentations • Produce a functional result • Manage the project in a team context • Preparation for the Capstone project School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  7. Progress from year 1 to year 4 • Promote early success in engineering practice. • Reinforce students' understanding of the system development process. • Build deeper conceptual understanding of SE skills. • Develop understanding of the connection between technical content learned and real-world SE. • Increase fluency with SE tools and techniques School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  8. What will students do? Edstrom et al: Most students do most of the following but none do all of them • Conceptual analysis • Deep analysis • Project management • Manufacturing • Experiments • PR & sponsoring • Planning and follow-up • …. School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  9. Two projects evaluated • First year: part of Intro to Comp Eng – assemble a robot kit an program it to negotiate a maze forwards and backwards, and at the end of the maze play a tune and do a dance. • Fourth year: part of Topics in SE – design and simulate a management system for a parking garage to keep track of and display occupancy, direct vehicles to vacant areas. Process a file of vehicle arrival data. School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  10. Project formats • 30 Teams of 5-6 in 1st year, 7 teams of 3-4 in 4th year. Form own teams • 9 weeks duration • 2 individual reports, 2 group reports, demo, presentation • Week 1 – orientation • Week 3 – preliminary report (individual) • Week 5 – preliminary design report (group) • Week 7 – final design report (group) • Week 8 – demo, implementation and peer assessment • Week 9 – reflective report (individual) • Assessed by tutors (grad students) • Does this process achieve the outputs we seek? School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  11. 1st yr robot project Working on the robot Demo and peer assessment School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  12. How well do we do? • What do we measure?

  13. Results analysis • 4th year students were better at: • managing their teams • evaluating the problem • planning their attack before coding. • 1st year students were better at: • Project analysis • Reflection • Final demo results • What does this mean? School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  14. Analysis (cont) • 1st year students responded well to being given a real object to design-build-test with clear outcomes • Negotiate maze within a certain time, reverse direction, one manual intervention permitted, more incur penalties • 4th year students were less enthusiatic, perhaps because they were not given a real object to design, build and test. Grading criteria were more stringent in 4th year, where students were required to show greater management skills and a more organized attack on the problem. School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  15. Conclusion • Between the 1st and 4th year projects students show an improvement in approach, taking more care over the initial phases of analysis and knowledge acquisition and showing better management skills. • Students prefer • to build something real • physical assessment criteria School of Electrical and Information Engineering

  16. More info – on-line and brochures: www.ee.usyd.edu.au School of Electrical and Information Engineering

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