First and fourth year design-build team projects: a comparison David C Levy Director, Software Engineering Program School of Electrical and Information

First and fourth year design-build team

projects: a comparison

David C LevyDirector, Software Engineering Program

School of Electrical and Information School of Electrical and Information EngineeringEngineering

The University of Sydney

School of Electrical and Information Engineering

The University of SydneyThe University of Sydney

Philosophy of the SE Degree

Software Engineering is an emerging profession in a very dynamic industrial and global environment

• Degree focuses on principles and fundamentals while catering for a wide spectrum of industries and needs.

• Curriculum follows SWEBOK and IEEE/ACM Model Curriculum

• Educational context is CDIO– Rich with design-build experiences

– All students so least one in each year of study, plus the capstone project

– What are the intended outcomes and are they achieved?



Structure of the Degree

• Core requirements of B.E. Software Engineering emphasise software process – requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment, maintenance

• Fits well with CDIO concepts and design-build experiences



18 Core CoursesALG Algorithms

DB Database

DS Data Structures

ESSD Enterprise Scale System Design

FCS Foundations of Computer Systems

HCID Human-Computer Interface Design

INT Internet Sw Platforms

ITP Introduction to ProgrammingMath Calculus, Discrete Maths and

Graph Theory (18 Cr)

MIT Management of IT

NS Networks and Security

OOD Object Oriented Design

OSM OpSys and Mach Principles

SAM Systems Analysis and Modelling

SQE Software Quality Engineering

PROF Professional Eng and IT (yr 1)

PROJ Team Projects

THE 4th yr Thesis project (12 Cr)



Projects

• Team projects run in every year• Part of larger course of lectures, labs, tutorials• Increasing complexity• Examples

– Yr 1: Assemble and program a robot to negotiate a maze– Yr 2: Design and simulate a small microprocessor– Yr 3: Implement a prototype for an e-business. – Yr 4: Develop a management system for a parking garage– Yr 4: Capstone

• Are the projects delivering what we want?



What do we want?

• Think critically• Strengthen fundamentals• Gain confidence• Communicate –

– With each other and with academics– Reports and presentations

• Produce a functional result• Manage the project in a team context

• Preparation for the Capstone project



Progress from year 1 to year 4

• Promote early success in engineering practice.• Reinforce students' understanding of the system

development process. • Build deeper conceptual understanding of SE skills.• Develop understanding of the connection between

technical content learned and real-world SE.• Increase fluency with SE tools and techniques



What will students do?

Edstrom et al: Most students do most of the following but none do all of them

• Conceptual analysis• Deep analysis• Project management• Manufacturing• Experiments• PR & sponsoring• Planning and follow-up• ….



Two projects evaluated

• First year: part of Intro to Comp Eng – assemble a robot kit an program it to negotiate a maze forwards and backwards, and at the end of the maze play a tune and do a dance.

• Fourth year: part of Topics in SE – design and simulate a management system for a parking garage to keep track of and display occupancy, direct vehicles to vacant areas. Process a file of vehicle arrival data.



Project formats• 30 Teams of 5-6 in 1st year, 7 teams of 3-4 in 4th year. Form

own teams• 9 weeks duration• 2 individual reports, 2 group reports, demo, presentation• Week 1 – orientation• Week 3 – preliminary report (individual)• Week 5 – preliminary design report (group)• Week 7 – final design report (group)• Week 8 – demo, implementation and peer assessment• Week 9 – reflective report (individual)

• Assessed by tutors (grad students)• Does this process achieve the outputs we seek?



1st yr robot project

Working on the robot Demo and peer assessment

How well do we do?• What do we measure?

Requirement item/performance (out of 5) 4th yr 1st yr

Report 1: Initial evaluation 4 3.58

Report 2: Initial design 4.29 4.33

Report 3: Implementation 4.31 4.28

Report 4: Reflection 4.06 4.45

Project demo and presentation 3.94 4.42

Innovation – inventive solution 3.82 3.61

Modeling and analysis 4.31 4.05

Planning and project management 4.42 3.91

Project analysis 4.11 4.32

Time management 4.19 3.87

Team management 4.35 4.01

Dropouts/total 3/22 10/173



Results analysis

• 4th year students were better at:– managing their teams

– evaluating the problem

– planning their attack before coding.

• 1st year students were better at:– Project analysis

– Reflection

– Final demo results

• What does this mean?



Analysis (cont)

• 1st year students responded well to being given a real object to design-build-test with clear outcomes– Negotiate maze within a certain time, reverse direction, one

manual intervention permitted, more incur penalties

• 4th year students were less enthusiatic, perhaps because they were not given a real object to design, build and test. Grading criteria were more stringent in 4th year, where students were required to show greater management skills and a more organized attack on the problem.



Conclusion

• Between the 1st and 4th year projects students show an improvement in approach, taking more care over the initial phases of analysis and knowledge acquisition and showing better management skills.

• Students prefer – to build something real

– physical assessment criteria



More info – on-line and brochures:

www.ee.usyd.edu.au

Documents

First and fourth year design-build team projects: a comparison David C Levy Director, Software Engineering Program School of Electrical and Information