University of Pittsburgh Computer Science Department's 50th Anniversary Undergraduate Project Competition
Description:
This year the Department of Computer Science will celebrate its 50th Anniversary. To demonstrate and display our department’s innovation and computing prowess we are hosting a competition for students to collaborate, express creativity, and solve computing problems. We want students to work on creating a project which solves a problem. There is a large variety of problems in computer science and across other disciplines that can be solved and you can help create a solution to them You are strongly encouraged to consider not only problems within our discipline, but also across disciplines.
Details:
Your project may be something that you have already started working on for a class, a research project or independent study which you think could be expanded, or something new your team would like to create. There are no restrictions on the type of software system you can develop – it could be research, creating a new programming language, developing a web or mobile application, or a new data analysis system. It just needs to solve a real-world problem.
Computer Science faculty will work on setting up teams with personnel in industry in the project's domain, or researchers working on similar problems, to consult with as you work on your projects.
Scope:
Student teams will spend several months of their spare time developing a well-designed, well-engineered project. This will include not only writing the code, but also testing it, deploying it, and preparing for future functionality additions and scalability concerns. Creating software includes much more than just writing code!
Students will also hand in three papers: a proposal, a mid-project update, and a final submission.
Prizes:
First Prize – $2,000 gift certificate Second Prize – $1000 gift certificate Third Prize – $500 gift certificate
Additionally, the first prize winner will present their project at the Computer Science Department's Fiftieth Anniversary celebration. This dinner will include the chair of the Computer Science Department, as well as the Provost and Chancellor of the University.
How To Participate:
First, assemble a team of up to four people (see below for details on team selection) and decide on a problem that you are going to find a solution for by developing software. Next, write a proposal for what you plan on working on and submit it. Midway through the project, you will need to provide the contest moderator with a status update. At the end of the project, you will need to provide a final description of the project along with access to the code and related materials for the contest moderators and CS faculty to review.
Team Selection:
A team can consist of one to four undergraduate students at the University of Pittsburgh. At least one team member must be a registered Computer Science major as of the Fall 2016 semester. All students on a team must be enrolled as an undergraduate as of the Fall 2016 semester. Students who are graduating in December are eligible to compete, even though part of the contest will occur after they graduate.
An individual student may belong to only one team. Changes to the team composition after the proposal has been submitted must be approved by the contest moderator.
Teams must have a specified Team Captain. The Team Captain must be a registered Computer Science major as of the Fall 2016 semester. The Team Captain will be the main point of contact between the contest moderator and the rest of the team.
It is recommended, but not required, that at least one other team member is a major in a different department.
Details on Deliverables:
There are three deliverables: the project proposal, a mid-project update, and a final submission.
The proposal shall be a description of the project and/or research to be done. It should be no more than five pages. The proposal should include a description of the problem that the project solves, general background on the subject, and what makes the project unique (as opposed to solved by another project).
The mid-project update shall be a paper, not more than two pages, which explains the current status of the project, along with experienced and foreseen issues. This may include scope reduction or expansion, performance issues,
The final submission shall be a paper, not more than five pages, which explains the challenges experienced by the team, final scope of the project, how it solves the problem expressed in the initial proposal, modifications made along the way, how the quality of the software was determined and improved, and any other technical specifications which would be useful in understanding the project.
All submissions should be double-spaced, using a 12-point font.
These should all be electronically submitted to the contest moderator by the deadline.
Timeline:
All deadlines are strict. No late delivery will be accepted, and no extensions provided. For each date, the deliverable must be in the contest moderator's inbox by midnight Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5). For example, if the due date is 18 November 2016, the paper shall be in the contest moderator's inbox by 11:59:59 PM on 18 November, Pittsburgh time (UTC-5).
18 November 2016: Proposal Due
16 December 2016: Mid-Project Update Due
31 January 2017: Final Submission Due
15 February 2017: Winners announced
03 March 2017: Celebratory Dinner, and presentation of winning project to Chair, Provost, and Chancellor
Determination of Winners:
Finished projects will be judged according to the following criteria:
- Project is useful or helpful (provides real value to a group of people)
- Technically challenging (solves a difficult technical problem)
- Technical quality (reliable, few defects, well-tested, etc.)
- Polish (good UI/UX, good documentation and related material)
The final winner will be determined by Computer Science faculty. A committee of CS faculty will review the projects and provide recommendations to the contest moderator, who will make the final decision. The contest moderator is Bill Laboon.
Further Details:
The contest moderator, judges and other Computer Science faculty must be able to view the source code and associated resources. Teams must consent to the final product being displayed and demonstrated at the 50th Anniversary Dinner. It does not have to be otherwise publicly accessible.
Students otherwise maintain all intellectual property (IP) rights over their work.