Personal Critiques of Team Members
Brad
I have little to add to what has already been said. I would reiterate the
comments about integration and testing on Windows with a simulator. Also I would
suggest the following for SIUE Computer Science Department Curriculum: More
UNIX classes, & more real time programming.
Third, there were some positive and some negative aspects to Dr. White’s
role in the project. Positively, he was flexible with us changing the contents
of our release and also answered our questions regarding documents, etc. Negatively,
Dr. White is not a robot expert and we could not benefit from Dr. White’s
extensive graphics background. Secondly, the daily status report became cumbersome.
Finally, the leadership structure works OK. I believe that the titles we had
were titles only, as the team members are really peers all programming together.
Each member found his own niche, but the team did all work together.
J.D.
First, I would like to see a mandatory UNIX class added to the curriculum.
I think it would be very useful for a job. Everywhere I look seems to use UNIX
as their platform. Plus, this senior project would have been so much easier
if I had some UNIX experience.
As far as preparing for these robots, I don’t think there is much the
school could have done. They were brand new, and only one group has used any
of them before. We were the first to use the little robot, so not much preparation
for that is even possible.
Regarding the coordination of everybody’s efforts on this project, I think
it turned out okay. At first, I think the learning curves hurt some of our team,
but it worked out really well in the second and third releases. I think our
personnel problems got a little blown out of proportion (with the threat of
kicking half our team off the project), when all I wanted was some advice on
how to handle the situation. But it worked, nonetheless, and we had no problems
after that point. I think the division of labor was pretty even for the most
part, but we played to everybody’s strengths too. I think there is something
I could have done differently to handle the personnel problems at the beginning
of the semester, but I could not think of anything else to try. I think that
comes with experience as being a team leader. I think that our team gelled into
the second release, and everybody did a considerable amount of work to get the
project done.
I think the senior project type should be changed in order to get people into
the roles they could perform the best. I think that it should have several smaller
projects at the beginning of CS 425, and then the instructor could figure out
who fits where for one larger project in CS 499.
I think that Dr. White did a nice job of letting the teams handle how the project
was developed. He gave a general overview of what he wanted done, and we had
to come up with how to do it. He did handle our personnel problem differently
than I would have, but it worked so I can’t complain too much about it.
I found out that I never want to work with robots again after this project,
because they are too temperamental. I am glad that I got to work with the teammates
I did, and I learned an awful lot working on this project. I hope we can still
communicate after this project is over, because I really enjoyed my team. This
has been a real learning experience for me, and I’m sure it will help
me once I find a real job.
Peter
I am quite pleased with the outcome of the RAFS project. The CS425 phase proved
useful in getting team members acquainted with each other and familiar with
each other’s skill sets. Despite my satisfaction with the outcome, I do
have some issues with several aspects of the CS senior project curriculum. I
would have liked to have been able to choose the project I participated in.
I had and still do have several ideas for senior projects and feel students
should have some input on this matter. I do understand that professors overseeing
the project may be uncomfortable with projects outside their realm of expertise,
but this should not hinder students from exploring topics in which they are
most interested. In some respects, this could prohibit students from perusing
topics in which they may be more experienced, losing valuable research and development
time.
In many respects, I didn’t feel prepared to work on a robotics project.
First, I have not had a formal introduction to robotics concepts or programming.
This put me at a real disadvantage when trying to apply my software development
skills to this project. My performance was also limited by my mathematics skills.
I chose the Bachelors of Arts route in the Computer Science Department; therefore
my advanced number crunching skills are not very well developed. There were
several research topics (localization, for example) which I found difficult
to conceptualize with my limited math background. While I found participating
on this project challenging and satisfying, I would have felt more prepared
working on a less mathematically oriented project.
The CS curriculum at SIUE could use some additions to make it more rounded
and robust. As my teammates have suggested, a required course covering basic
UNIX and operating systems skills would be very helpful. While I have spent
a considerable amount of time learning these concepts myself, I would have liked
to receive college credit for these efforts. In addition, the department should
consider extending the CS111 curriculum to include advanced computer usage for
software development. I have encountered many students who seemed ill prepared
for effective use of system accounts and development tool usage. If a period
of time was spent introducing students to the actual development environments
and tools they will be using throughout their career, we could assume a standard
skill set among SIUE students. Concepts that needs covering are FTP, file management,
version control, text editors (vi, emacs), command line shell (win32 and UNIX),
command line compiling, basic HTML… etc…
Matt
Suggested Curriculum Changes:
- Internships should be credited as an elective or do a specified number
of hours to substitute for senior project.
- An introductory course to UNIX should be added.
- Languages, other than C++ based, should be offered more frequently.
- Java
- Advanced Visual Basic
- Offer electives during times most core classes not offered (excluding pre-requisite
core of course).
Instructor’s Role as Manager/Customer in Project:
GOOD
- Dealt with group problems very promptly and efficiently.
- Understood difficulties arise and adjusted the project accordingly.
BAD
- Customer needed to be more actively involved.
I feel our group worked very well together. We had our share of rough times
in the beginning, but they were surpassed by our desire to graduate. JD proved
to be a good leader. He was organized, enthusiastic, and very involved in all
aspects of the project. Peter, being the lead programmer, helped the rest of
us pick up areas where we were not skilled. He made himself very available to
help the rest of the group and did a lot of outside research to keep everyone
up to speed on what topics needed to be addressed. Brad was our Visio wiz and
did most of the graphics and charts. He also played a very large role in coding.
He had many ideas that worked out nicely and survived into our final release.
