The purpose of this project is to improve your research, writing and communication skills as well as give you an opportunity to explore in-depth a particular domain with your scientific computing skills.
This project is a group project. You must first select a partner for this project and a topic. A good inspiration for topics is the COMAP Contests in Modeling. The problems from previous years are posted for both the Mathematical and Interdisciplinary contests, and most of these would be suitable for investigation. You may choose another topic beyond these questions, but it must be as complex and interesting as those posed above.
Your topic should be chosen in consultation with me, and you will turn in a paragraph description of your topic. Please see Topic Selection Criteria for more information about how to select an appropriate topic.
Next, I will need a one-page overview of your project task. Your one-page document should cover the following:
In class, your team will give a 4 minute presentation to the class about your topic, covering the point above.
Following the overview presentations, I will need a one-page description of the resources you will be using to solve this problem, and your choice of at least two approaches to the problem. Be sure to specify what input and output you expect from your approaches.
Near the end of the semester, you will turn in a rough-draft of your project.
Your notebook should follow the guidelines below in the Final Notebook section. I don’t expect everything to be complete at this point, but you should have substantial progress to write about beyond your previous submissions and be formatting your work as a full notebook.
The rough draft is due right after Thanksgiving break. I will provide feedback to you before our last class so that you have an opportunity to revise your work before the final period.
Your final notebook must be include substantial writing about your topic. Your notebook should be well-organized including headers and Markdown blocks to denote the different sections of your analysis. Your notebook should be readable by a layperson who is not familiar with your models but has a basic understanding of computer science and mathematics; essentially, write the notebook for yourself before you took this class, based on the prereqs of Calculus and Foundation of CSCI. You should include the following sections
Be sure to make good use of figures and graphs to demonstrate your results, use proper grammar and spelling, and use proper citations.
On Tuesday Dec 10th, you will give a 10 minute in-class presentation. Time and material should be split evenly between all project partners. Your objective in the presentation is to fill us in on the main ideas of how you approached and modeled your topic.
Practice is strongly encouraged prior to your actual presentation. The best way to be comfortable with presenting in front of an audience is to practice. You will be graded on both the organization and the presentation of your talk. The 10 minute time-limit will be strictly enforced to ensure equal time for all presentations.
Finally, submit your final notebook and any datasets and files you used to perform your analysis.