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Project Deliverable 1: Written Plan (Draft)

due Sep. 30 (Wednesday) @ 11:59pm

At this point in your project planning, you should have a clear idea what you are doing for the project, how it breaks down into individual subtasks, how long you expect each task to take, and what hardware you are relying on. This document will list those elements, along with the specific milestones you will use to demonstrate progress along the way.

This document will be reviewed and returned, and a second version will be due one week later, which will serve as your schedule for the remainder of the project.

Update: Here is an example of a finished plan. Your first draft does not have to be this polished follow exactly these formatting constraints, but hopefully this will give you an idea what we're looking for.

If I have asked your group to give me something written that I can comment on, please get it to me in time to use my comments when writing this plan. This will reduce your work between this and the final draft considerably!

What A Plan Should Include

Your plan should contain the following, in this order.
  1. Names, email addresses, and student ID for everyone in your group, and a title for your project.

  2. Project description. A one-paragraph description of what your project is – what do you propose to do? What's the motivation and high-level task? What's the approximate hardware/type of robot you're using? Where do you expect most of the work on this task to be?

  3. Components. For each of the following, briefly explain what your project will incorporate:
    • Hardware.
    • Control software.
    • Communication.
    • Autonomy.
    • Human control.
    • User interface.
    • Intelligence, cognition, learning.

  4. Goals and Subgoals. What pieces do you need to get working, and what are the substeps to doing so? For each one, describe:
    • How long do you expect it to take?
    • Who is initially expected to be working on it?
    • For each piece, if appropriate, how will you know when it's working? Demo it?
    • What other pieces does it depend on?
    • Will you actually do it this semester? Is it a "stretch goal"?
    • If you end up not doing it, how will you simplify it out so you can demonstrate the system?
    This is an ordered list!

  5. Shopping List. If you need hardware, such as a UAV we don't currently have, a raspberry pi, a smaller camera, etc., list it and give a purchasing link if you can.

  6. Schedule. Every two weeks for the rest of the semester, you will be demoing your system to date or describing the progress made so far. Looking at the time estimates and tasks above, describe the milestones you will have reached for each of the relevant dates.

What To Turn In

A PDF file containing the above. (Remember, using the right file types is part of your grade.)

Submit through this class' Blackboard page, which can be accessed from myUMBC or directly.

Here's the UMBC help article about turning in files on Blackboard.