Team Projects

Overview

You get to do a team project. A team would ideally consist of about four members, but may have as few as one or as many as six members. This is an excellent opportunity to improve your skills as a team player, a highly-desirable type of worker in the real world. (See Becoming a Successful Team Member.)

The project will consist of the design, development, test, debug, and presentation to the class of some application of your choice. Here you get to solve a problem of interest to you, to be creative, and to show the fruits of your labor to the class. The project does not have to be complicated. It must be relevant to the course.  Be creative and have fun.  Your team shall make two presentations to the class.

Team Projects First Meeting

Requirements

• You shall choose one team member as leader for purposes of coordinating the project and reporting to the instructor.
• See the syllabus for how much time each team member is required to spend on the project.
• Each team shall make two presentations.
• Part 1: around midterm (see the schedule); a brief (1 - 2 minutes), informal progress report
• Part 2: following test 4; a presentation lasting five minutes or less in which you present your completed project. At the beginning of the presentation the leader shall present to the instructor a single sheet of paper which states the following:
  • Leader’s Name:
  • Project Name:
  • Description: a one-sentence description of your project
  • Team Members: a list of your team members and their project responsibilities.
• Prior to the time of the presentations your team shall copy a folder to the Zeus file server in the Programming Lab (BUS 231) as follows:
  • The folder shall contain either 
    a) a page that has a link to your project Web site (if there is one), or
    b) all the files that comprise your project
  • You shall use the leader's name as your folder name. 
  • The target folder on Zeus is \\zeus\data\geddes_ken\csNN section\teamProjects\.
  • Please read the following detailed instructions for copying your folder to Zeus.

Suggestions for development and presentation

• You may organize your team any way you like.  One way is user, designer, coder/programmer, and tester.  Another way is an architect / chief programmer with a team of programmers each of whom works on one part of the program.
• The presentation could be structured as follows:
  • a PowerPoint slide show to introduce the problem
  • a demo run of the program
  • a display and explanation of some of the code
  • a question and answer period

• Think of an interesting problem to solve. For example, a game, one of the exercises in the book, animation, or a form that computes the price of a car. It can be anything you like. It should be fairly simple and easy to complete in the five hours required. Of course, if you want to spend more time and effort on it that’s fine.

• Decide the responsibilities for each team member. E.g.
  • User - specify the problem, including somewhat detailed requirements (for example, a rough sketch of the User Interface showing information to be input and output). Work with the Designer in nailing down the requirements. Help Designer sketch the User Interface. Check out the prototype and finished program and provide feedback to the developers (other team members). Prepare the program demo part of the presentation.
  • Designer - work with the User to determine the program requirements. Sketch the User Interface. Design the program - determine the classes, fields, methods, objects, etc. Write pseudocode for all methods.
  • Programmer - Create the interface and write all the code.
  • Tester - Develop a test plan including test procedures, test data, method of tracking and reporting bugs, and assigning priorities to bugs. May also help write code to fix bugs. Put together the PowerPoint slide show using input from the other team members.

• Decide on a schedule; estimate hours for each phase; determine when, where, and how you will communicate and coordinate your work. Part of class time will be available for team work and I will be available to help you. Email is a good way to communicate.

• PowerPoint slide show could include the following:
  • User - statement of problem, and general requirements (inputs, outputs, etc.)
  • Design - Overview of solution, key design features, user interface, UML class diagrams, pseudocode.
  • Programming - highlights of language and API features used (packages, classes, methods, etc.)
  • Testing - how tested (e.g., test plan, data used, tracking and reporting bugs, bugs fixed/not fixed, etc.)
• Choose one or more presenters. You may choose to have one person do the entire presentation. Or perhaps one will do the slide show, and a second team member will demo the program. Or, each team member may wish to present his own work.

Grading

As long as you meet the requirements (see the Requirements section above), you will receive full credit. Your team must turn in the paper as specified above and do the presentations in order to get credit. It is not sufficient to simply turn in the files to Zeus.

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