Introduction

This project consists of the doing the early stages of developing a new software product. It has a hard seven working week deadline. Make sure that you submit your complete report on or before the last day.

During this project, you're (of course) not required to leave your laptop at school. You're also allowed to work from different locations. You may discuss your project with others, as long as you disclose any significant help your received in your report.

Stages

Functional design

Create a functional design for your project. We would recommend it be a (web)app with a graphical user interface. Although the exact contents of a functional design may differ depending on the project, we would generally expect to see:

• An introduction and a problem statement.
• A domain model (in the form of an ERD or a class diagram).
• A complete set of wireframes (including behavior descriptions) for the desired functionality.
• A description of how you validated your designs with either the client and/or some of your intended end-users, and the results of this validation.
• A description of any help you received.

Alternatively, you may also propose substantial changes to an existing functional design or product. Make sure you execute the full design process though. Talk to a teacher in case of doubt.

Technical design

Create a technical design for your project. Although the contents of a technical design may differ depending on the project, we would generally expect to see:

• An introduction.
• A short description of the functionality of the system that needs to be build (or a reference to a relevant functional design).
• A (high level) technical overview, for example in the form of a C4 level 2 model.
• A description of your design choices, including motivation of the choices made and alternatives that have been considered.
• A description of how security between parts of your system is handled.
• A description of how and why your design choices would change if extreme scalability and reliability were important concerns.
• A description of any help you received.

Alternatively, you may also propose substantial changes to an existing system. In that case, you should start by carefully modeling the existing system, and then execute all design steps for making your changes on top of that. Talk to a teacher in case of doubt.

Problem solving

Solve a technical problem to which the solution is not obvious to an experienced developer (like a teacher). This should usually be the hardest and/or most uncertain part of your project. Solving it should involve doing some (informal) research, and some experimenting and/or prototyping.

We would generally expect to see:

• A clear introduction to the problem.
• Your definition of success. What would be a good outcome of this research.
• References to resources you have consulted for solving the problem.
• A list of alternative ways to approach the problem, with pros and cons for each.
• Your motivated decision on which one(s) of these to experiment with or prototype on.
• A description of your experiments or prototype.
• Any source code and output data for the above.
• A critical (if possible numerically supported) analysis of your solution's fitness. For example in terms of time and/or space complexity, or in terms of meeting some specific goal.
• Your conclusion.
• A description of any help you received.

PDF documents

Graduation procedure

• After you've submitted the project, you'll be invited for an assessment of your work. During the assessment, which will generally last about 30 minutes, you will be asked to explain your work and defend your choices by two examiners (teachers).
• Shortly after the assessment, you'll hear from the examiners if you passed or not.
• In case you did not pass, you may choose how to do a retake:
  1. Continue work on the assignment for up to three weeks, based on the feedback and grading of your first attempt. After submission you have to take another assessment. You may only choose this option once per project.
  2. Start a new project, solving an entirely different problem. This is also what you'll have to do if you chose the above option but once again didn't get a passing grade.
• As usual, you are entitled to do two attempts (meaning one retake) per academic year. Each of the above options counts as doing a retake. In case you require an additional retake, you must file a request with the examination board.
• If there are special circumstances (like extended sickness during the project period) that warrant an extension, please file a request with the examination board.
• Once you have received a passing grade based on the assessment, there is just one more thing to do: publicly present your project work!
  • These presentations are scheduled in the late afternoon of every Intern Meetup Day (the last non-vacation Thursday of each month).
  • There will often be multiple students presenting their graduation projects.
  • Each student gets to present for about 10 minute and answer questions for another 10 minutes.
  • Assuming the presentations were satisfactory, which they generally should be if some preparation was put into it, it's time for diplomas (or IOUs for diplomas), speeches, presents and celebrations!
  • As the presentations will take place in our offices, class mates are welcome and very much encouraged to attend.
  • Please do feel more than welcome to invite family, friends and future colleagues to the presentations and celebrations!

Rubrics mapping and grading