CSCE 496H/896

Final Project Assignment: 

Artificial Intelligence and Applications

 

Assigned September 23, 2008

 

Problem

 

For the final project, the goal is to build an AI-based system, test the system, and analyze the results.  The system must be an application that is complex enough where an AI-based solution is necessary.  (Students from the Raikes School are encouraged want to look into your current Design Studio projects to see whether there are aspects of your projects that could benefit from an AI-based solution.)  The project requires you to first define your problem clearly, and then design, implement, and evaluate your AI-based solution to solve that problem.  As discussed in class, not all problems call for an AI-based solution; thus, for every potential problem you might come up with, ask the question “Why do I need an AI-based solution for this problem?”

 

You are encouraged to discuss your final project with me before the proposal deadline.

 

This assignment counts 30% towards your grade.

 

Requirements

 

(1)               Before September 30:  Let me know your team (between 3-4 members per team) and your team name.

 

(2)               Before October 15, 2008:  Submit a 3-page proposal about your final project and a solution approach for your final project.  Turn it in as early as possible so I can approve your proposed project and you can start early on your final project.   Your proposal must include (a) the “application” that you want to develop, (b) why it is important to have such an “application” (i.e., the motivation), (c) what the challenges or issues for building such an “application”, (d) what AI techniques that you will propose to address these challenges or issues, and justify, (e) how you will evaluate the quality of your AI solution, (f) a schedule of your planned activities to have the application ready by the deadline, and (g) a task allocation plan – identifying tasks and the team members responsible for accomplishing them.

 

(3)        On December 15, 2008, 10:00 a.m.:  Submit your comprehensive report and your program, and perform a show-and-tell software demonstration.

 

Hand In

 

(1)        A comprehensive report that includes: (a) Introduction: the description of the problem you are addressing, overview of your approach, and so on; (b) Related Work and Background: a literature review of previous work in this area; (c) Methodology and Design: the description of your approach, solution strategy, styles/design, and so on; (d) Implementation: some programming details of your approach; (e) Results: the experiments, datasets, discussion of results, comparisons with other benchmarks, and so on; (f) Possible Extensions and Future Work: components that can be improved, (g) Conclusions.  In your appendix: (a) the instructions on how to run your programs, (b) results/output/graphs that are not included in Results, and (c) the printout of your programs.

(2)        You MUST make sure that your programs run on CSE platforms and your instructions on how to run your programs must be clear.  I have only a couple of days to grade your final project to turn in the final grades.  If I cannot run your programs, then I will not have time to contact you to get it to work.  So, please keep this in mind.  To be ABSOLUTELY sure, you may want to turn in your programs earlier.

 

Grading

 

The Final Project will be graded in two parts: programming (50%) and report (50%).  The programming part will be graded as follows:

 

(1)        50% Program Correctness (including the accessibility of the programs)

(2)               10% Software Design

(3)               10% Programming Style

(4)               20% Testing

(5)               10% Documentation (in-program documentation)

 

The report will be graded as follows:

 

(1)        5% Introduction

(2)        10% Related Work and Background

(3)        30% Methodology and Design

(3)        5% Implementation

(4)        25% Results

(5)        10% Possible Extensions and Future Work

(3)        5% Conclusions

(6)        10% Appendices