CS189/172 Capstone Project Kickoff Meeting

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CS189/172 Capstone ProjectKickoff Meeting

• Tevfik Bultan, Rich Wolski and Chris Coakley
• Computer Science Department
• Andrew Elliott
• COE Corporate Relations

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Capstone Project Class

• Two quarter project class in which students put
  their education into practice by building a
  significant system as a team
• Learn by doing
• Chance to explore the latest technologies
• Provide practical experience as a form of career
  building
• Capstone is mandatory for Computer Engineering
  majors and elective for Computer Science Majors
• Two flavors of Capstone are available
• ECE 189 A/B
• Focuses on development of a hardware prototype
• Runs Fall/Spring every year so chips can be
  fabricated during the Winter
• CS 189 A/B
• Software systems engineering oriented
• Runs Winter/Spring to allow continuity

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CS 189 A/B

• Students who define their own projects for CS189
• Often the projects have commercial appeal
• Occasionally they have had commercial impact
  and/or viability
• Students who want to work on cutting-edge
  projects from industry
• World-class technology and industry leaders have
  agreed to participate
• donate cutting-edge problems
• Help provide guidance
• Open to all senior-level CS and CE students who
  are not enrolled in or have taken ECE 189
• Purpose of tonights meeting is to break the ice
• Begin the thought processes necessary to find a
  project
• Facilitate matchmaking between student
  interests and potential project collaborators

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Agenda

• Tevfik -- Course Logistics
• Dave Giannini
• VP Engineering
• Andrew Duncan
• Senior Software Engineer
• Eron Howard
• VP Development
• Mohamed Hafez
• Software Engineer (and former CS189 student)
• Martin Rhoads
• Systems Engineer (and former CS189 student)

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What Happens in 189A?

• 189A first week (Jan. 7-11)
• Company representatives present the challenge
  problems
• Students form teams (3-5 members each) and pick
  projects
• 189A goals
• Specify what the product will do
• Design the product
• Build a prototype
• Typically teams iterate on these three activities
  until they converge to a working prototype!
• 189A (March 20)
• Prototype demonstration

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What Happens in 189B?

• 189B (March 31-April 4)
• Prototype demonstration to company
  representatives to get feedback
• 189B goals
• Build a full product
• Implement all the parts that were omitted in the
  prototype for 189A
• Test the product
• Prepare a presentation
• 189B final (June 5)
• Project presentation day
• This is the big event where the teams present
  their projects to a lot of people!

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Two Course Sequence

• This is a two course sequence CS189A/172 and
  CS189B
• In order to develop a full product your team has
  to participate to both courses
• CE students are required to take both courses
• For CS students CS189A/172 and CS189B are
  electives but we strongly encourage CS students
  to take both courses
• The students who participated in both 189A/B
  courses last year were very proud of the outcome
  and their projects became the most important item
  in their CVs
• If you take both CS189A and CS189B you get to
  participate to the presentation day showing your
  project to your peers, faculty, company
  representatives, and your family!

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Student Comments After the Class

• I enjoyed the structure of this class I think
  applying our efforts to real world problems
  given by companies is extremely effective.
• The pairing with industry is great.
• I found this course to be very interesting and
  helpful to my pursuit of a Computer Science
  degree and Software Engineering job.
• Working with companies was motivational and fun.

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Student Comments After Graduation

• "As far as getting a job goes, CS189 is probably
  one of the most useful things you can do as an
  undergrad."
  
• Brendan Blackwood, iContact
• CS189 not only helped me during job interviews
  but also the project I am working on with
  PowerPoint is very similar to the project that my
  group worked on (the online slide sharing app)
• Melissa Hunter, Software Design Engineer,
  Microsoft
• "Many projects I am working on now I find myself
  going through the same steps I did in CS189
  class. From gathering requirements, producing
  design specs, and ultimately presenting my work."
  
• Chris Fattarsi, Web Developer, NASA Ames Research
  Center

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Sign Up Now!

• Class webpage
• http//www.cs.ucsb.edu/cs189/
• Class mailing list sign up page
• http//lists.cs.ucsb.edu/mailman/listinfo/cs189-a
  nnounce
• Contact Us
• Tevfik Bultan bultan_at_cs.ucsb.edu
• Rich Wolski rich_at_cs.ucsb.edu
• Chris Coakley ccoakley_at_cs.ucsb.edu