Assigned: January 28
Groups Formed: Tuesday, February 2
Due: Before class on Tuesday, February 9
Overview
In this assignment, you will first form your project group. Then you
will use the brainstorming method you learned in class to develop your
group project idea. You should conduct at least one one-hour
brainstorming session with your group members. You will report the
complete set of ideas that your group generated, and then report the
final project idea. Note that you will have time in class on Feb. 4th
to start the brainstorming. We expect you to meet outside of class as
well to complete the assignment.
Grading:
This assignment is 5% of your overall grade, which has been broken
down into 20 points for grading. The breakdown of points is
discussed below.
What to Do:
Step 1: Form Your Group
You must form a project team of 3-4 students from the class. One of
the goals in forming your groups should be to maximize the diversity
of experience present in your group. Specifically, your team should
consist of at least one person with some programming background and at
least one non-programmer.
I will act as match-maker for people who cannot find groups. Send me an e-mail (jwnichols@us.ibm.com) as early as possible so that I can help assemble groups.
Note about ISchool Masters Final Project Groups: You are welcome to continue your final project in this class, provided that there is a user interface component to your project that will benefit from each of the upcoming project assignments. Final Project Groups are not subject to the same restrictions on diversity and size, however you must still send me the names of your group members. If you have questions about this, please talk to me.
Step 2: Send Me An E-mail
Once you have formed your group, one member of your should send an
e-mail to me (jwnichols@us.ibm.com)
containing the names of your group members and a short paragraph
describing the diversity of your group.
Final project groups should include a paragraph about why their project makes sense in the context of the course.
Step 3: Conduct a Brainstorming Session
You will have time in class on February 4th to brainstorm, but we also
expect you to meet outside of class to complete the assignment. Use
the principles of brainstorming discussed in the Kelley
reading and described in class.
Step 4: Write a Brief Report
This assignment will be graded on the basis of the report that you
turn in describing the results of your brainstorm. Your report should
have the following outline:
Grading Breakdown:
Brainstorm and Idea Selection (10 pts)
This will depend on how many ideas you generated, how creative they
were, whether there was evidence of build/jump in the list, etc. We
will also examine how your group selected the idea you will address
this semester.
Target Users (2 pts), Project Description (2 pts),
Novelty/Creativity (6 pts)
Your score will be based on the quality of the description, using
similar criteria to the Individual Project
Proposal. Spend some time thinking/explaining about how your
project will benefit people. We will also be looking for ideas that go
beyond simple extensions to ideas that already exist.
How to Turn In:
First, create a Wiki page for your group. Visit front
page of the course wiki and create a bullet with your group name
in the list of groups. Create a new page on the wiki for your group
and link your group name to the new page.
Please fill out your group page, based on the Example Group.
From your group page, create a new page for your Group Brainstorm assignment. You will probably want to call this page something like "<GroupName>GroupBrainstorm" to ensure that the page is unique. Paste the text for your written report directly into your new page and embed any sketch images that you may have.
Finally, link this new page to the Group Brainstorm page. After adding an entry to the bulleted list on that page, link that entry to the unique name that you picked for your assignment page in the step above.
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask.