Final Project

Due dates (all at 5pm) are posted on the syllabus.

The objective of this project is to explore topics and research in optimization in greater depth than is permitted in class. The choice of topic is up to you, but it should be related to the general theme of the course. As part of the project you should:

• describe an approach (existing or newly developed),
• apply the approach to a problem of interest (which may or may not be related to aerospace), and
• analyze the performance of the approach according to a set of metrics.

Your topic may be related to your graduate research or another class project (so long as permission is granted by the instructor of your other class); however, you must make the relationship to your other work clear in your proposal and final paper and describe how you have extended this research for this class.

Your final project may be done in any programming language, and you may use any libraries or software available to you. If you have difficulty finding an appropriate topic, feel free to talk with the course staff during office hours or post to Ed.

Collaboration

You may collaborate with one other student, or two if the role of each group member is well-justified in the project proposal. If you decide to work with partners, you will be expected to tackle a more difficult problem and clearly explain the individual contributions of each person in the group.

All submissions will be accomplished through Gradescope. Please make sure you assign group members when submitting the proposal, update, and final report.

Proposal

Clearly describe the problem to be solved, the approach to be taken, and how you will measure success. Please reference any prior work that you plan to build upon. The proposal should be limited to two pages. Have one group member submit your proposal on Gradescope and assign the group members during submission.

Deliverable: Two page proposal in PDF format

Status Update

You will provide a 1 page status update partway into the quarter. Outline what you have been able to accomplish and a revised timeline to completion. Have one group member submit your status update on Gradescope.

Deliverable: One page status update in PDF format

Final Report

Option 1: Paper

Write a 4-6 page paper describing your project (including references). It should follow the typical conference style with an abstract, introduction, etc. State what the problem you are trying to solve, introduce your approach, and review the relevant literature. The experiments should be described in sufficient detail that someone with a reasonable background in the area could reproduce your results. Show your results and discuss the conclusions that can be drawn. You can use the AIAA or IEEE paper templates (the LaTeX version looks better, but Word is fine too), or you can use the template of another conference of your choice. If you end up using LaTeX, we recommend using the biblatex package to manage references, pgfplots for plotting data, and tikz for drawing figures—but you are free to use whatever you want. If you are in a group, please include a section after the conclusions that explains how each group member contributed to the project. Have one group member submit your paper on Gradescope.

Deliverable: Four to six page paper in PDF format.

Option 2: Presentation

Create a video describing your final project. State the problem you are trying to solve, introduce your approach, and review the relevant literature. The experiments should be described in sufficient detail so that someone with a reasonable background in the area could reproduce your results. Show your results and discuss the conclusions that can be drawn. It may be useful to use screen-capturing software such as CamStudio, Zoom, or an online tool to record audio over the slide show. Powerpoint also includes a recording tool to record video over your slides. If you are in a group, either (1) include a slide in your video presentation that explains the contribution of each group member, or (2) upload a written description to Gradescope that explains the contribution of each group member. The time constraints for the video presentation are as follows:

• Individual: 5 minutes minimum, 10 minutes maximum
• Pair: 7 minutes minimum, 15 minutes maximum
• Group of 3: 9 minutes minimum, 18 minutes maximum

Submit your presentation video as an .mp4 file on Gradescope.

Deliverable: Video in .mp4 format

Grading

The final grade will be based on the following criteria:

1. Appropriateness of the approach
2. Structure of paper
3. Writing quality
4. Clarity of drawings, graphs, and tables
5. Appropriateness of abstract
6. Quality of discussion and conclusions
7. Adequacy of references and discussion of prior work

Students who are registered for 4 units are expected to spend 30 additional hours on the project component and will be graded according to this expectation. Whether taking the class for 3 or 4 units, the paper that is produced should be polished and complete. Students should aim for a paper that could be submitted to a peer-reviewed conference but we understand that not every project will turn out as intended or allow for this level of depth. In a comment along with your submission, please indicate whether you are willing to have your final report (PDF or video) be publicly viewable on the course website.

Peer Review

Peer review is an important part of science and engineering. Understanding the review process will make you a better writer. As part of this class, you will be randomly assigned one student paper or video to peer review in the spirit of a real conference or journal article review. The task of the referee is outlined in this article by Alan Jay Smith. Although you will not be making recommendations for or against publication, you will need to answer the questions listed in Section 4 of Smith’s article. Some of the points that refer to the writing quality of a paper are not directly applicable to a video presentation, but reviewers may instead comment on any written text included in the presentation, as well as the speech delivered by the presenters. 

Each person has to do 1 review. The review will be 1 page long. You will be graded according to the quality and constructiveness of your review. Your review will be provided anonymously to the authors, so please do not include your name in your review.

The peer review should be submitted in PDF format. Please submit your completed reviews to the peer review assignment on Gradescope.

Deliverable: One 1-page peer review in PDF format

Best Project Award

An award will be given to the best project as determined by the peer reviews and the reviews of the course staff.

FAQs

This list has been extended from last year to reflect common queries made on Ed. You may find your query answered here without even needing to wait on Ed!

• Is 3 people per group a hard upper limit?
  • Yes, unless approved by the head TA.
• Can students taking the class for different number of units (3 vs. 4) form a group together?
  • Yes. Both the members will get the same grade irrespective of the number of units. In the contributions section of the final paper, highlight the additional contributions made by the group member taking the class for 4 units.
• Do students taking the class for 4 units have a later deadline for the final project than those taking the class for 3 units?
  • No, the final project submission deadline is the same for all students irrespective of the number of units. The additional 30 hours requirement for students taking the class for 4 units is supposed to be distributed over the entire quarter.
•  Is it okay to recruit a new group member if an existing group member decides to drop the class?
  • Yes.
• Is it okay to have a group member not enrolled in the class (for example, a research collaborator)?
  • Yes. However, please clearly articulate your individual contributions in the contributions section of the final report.
• For the project proposal, is it okay to have a rough idea and not a full fledged research program?
  • Totally! The lower limit for the proposal is 3 paragraphs. The goal is for you to start thinking about an interesting problem that broadly fits in with the course contents outlined in the first week of lectures.
• Are references included in the 2 page limit for the project proposal?
  • No.
• For the status update, is 1 page a hard restriction?
  • No. However, the point of the status update is for the course staff to give feedback and pointers if necessary so it is definitely helpful to be concise.
• Can the project topic be changed from proposal to status update?
  • Yes. However, this is not ideal as some time will be lost between the proposal and status update stages.
• Are references included in the final report page limit?
  • No.
• Is 4-6 pages a hard restriction for the final report page limit?
  • 4 pages is a hard lower limit. However, you may go over 6 pages if need be.
• Is it necessary to submit code along with the final project report?
  • No. However, if you wish to provide code, put a link to the github repository in your final report.
• Will projects be published to the class website by default?
  • No. However, students are encouraged to opt in for their project report to be featured on the class webpage.
• Is the peer review supposed to be done as a group?
  • No. The peer review is an individual assignment.
• Can peer reviews be numbered answers to section 4 questions from Alan Jay Smith’s article?
  • Totally! In fact, this is encouraged.
• I do not completely understand some things in the paper I have been assigned to review. What do I do?
  • Say so in the review. This will help the authors revise their paper draft to make the message clearer.
• Is 1 page a hard limit for the peer review?
  • No.
• Do students with OAE accomodations get a deadline extension for the final project?
  • Please reach out to the course staff as soon as possible as this needs case by case discussion.