Final Project Specification
The following assignment is due Thursday 11/6 by 8:00 PM. You'll need to submit a single pdf file in Gradescope.
As you know the last month of the course is dedicated to working on a final project of your choosing. The motivation of this is three-fold:
- Rust & Friends is too big of a topic to cover in any reasonable (or even interesting) way in a single semester. Working on a project forces you to get into the weeds for the part of the topic in which you're most interested.
- Rust draws a varied crowd, and it's difficult to design a project (let alone a whole course) that will cover the aspects of the topic that are most moving to everyone.
- For better or worse, having something that you can put on github/your personal webpage is valuable thing these days.
Final Project Expections
The project itself consists of three pieces:
- The Deliverable. You'll build a thing, be it a piece of code or a piece of text. This is the primary part that you'll submit on the last day of the course (12/9). Some aspect of the deliverable must consist of code.
- The Presentation. You'll give a 10 minute presentation during one of the last two lecture slots on what you made. This will be informal, I won't collect any material for this part. It can consist of a code walk-through, slides, or a discussion. As long as you clearly express what you accomplished in your project.
- The Write-up. You'll write a one-page extended abstract
reflecting on the what you did and your experience working with
Rust & Friends (even if you didn't use Rust in your project). The
write-up should answer the questions:
- What did you set out to accomplish?
- To what extent did you accomplish it?
- What possible future work can be done?
- How was Rust & Friends helpful/harmful in the process?
- What are your general impressions of Rust after having taken the course?
Because the project is open-ended, it's possible that parts of the above description do not apply well to your potential project. If this is the case, please include in your outline how you plan do deviate from the above.
Final Project Outline
For next week you should submit a document answering the following prompts.
- Describe your project. What are you hoping to accomplish? Be as concrete as possible. If you're going to write a piece of Rust code, be clear about what you will be submitting to me.
- Describe your toolkit. Give a list of the tools and/or references you will be using for your project. This means papers, crates, tutorials, documentation. Think about this as an initial bibliography. You should use formal citations (any format), and include links when possible. Include as many as you can, ideally something like 5-10 citations (again, it depends a bit on the details of the project).
- Describe your timeline. You'll be required to submit two check-ins before the final project is due. Outline what you hope to have accomplished at each check-in. Again, be as concrete and clear as possible.
Closing Remarks
This is the first time I'm running a course like this with such open-ended projects. It's as much of an experiment for me as it might be for you. If I missed anything, or if you have general questions, don't hesitate to ask. If you have any feedback, don't hesitate to share it. I'm hoping I can use some of these outlines as examples for future courses.