Undergraduate Course: System Design Project (INFR09032)
Course Outline
| School | School of Informatics |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 9 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The System Design Project is intended to give students practical experience of (a) building a large scale system (b) working as members of a team. The project involves applying and combining material from several courses to complete a complex design and implementation task. At the end of course each group demonstrates its implemented system and gives a formal presentation to an audience of the students, supervisors, and visitors from industry. |
| Course description |
During this project students work in groups of about ten on the design and implementation of a complete system to solve some practical and useful problem. Each group can choose the specific task within the broad theme of 'assistive robotics', i.e., the system should be envisioned as able to perform an autonomous task in the real world, and will develop a demonstrator (which may exist in simulation or hardware). Recent examples of projects include: a robot shopping trolley for the visually impaired; smart switches to convert any household switch to be remote controlled with an app; a robot chess opponent; robot rubbish collection and sorting; etc.
The aim is to produce a system that provides a convincing demonstration of a potential product, suitable for presentation to a client/investor. It should thus include significant development of supporting software, user interfaces, and either real or physical simulation mock-ups. These should be integrated into a complete working system, showing that core problems have been solved. There will be support for hardware construction as required, through a dedicated lab space with a wide range of equipment available, and/or through commissioning the technical support team, with a budget for equipment and support time available to each group.
Online workshops and dedicated office hours from domain experts will be available to advise and guide all aspects of the task, such as time and task management, hardware design, software libraries, interfaces, etc. Each group is assigned a mentor. The mentor's task is to advise and provide feedback on the progress of the group during the project but not to provide technical support. Groups meet with their mentors at least once a week. They also meet amongst themselves more frequently to plan and coordinate their activities. Specific demonstration points are timetabled regularly during the semester when progress will be assessed and feedback provided.
Towards the end of the semester, a day is set aside for groups to demonstrate their implemented system and to give a formal presentation of it to an audience of the students, mentors, and visitors from industry.
Relevant QAA Computing Curriculum Sections: Computer Based Systems, Systems Analysis and Design
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 5,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 12,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 40,
Formative Assessment Hours 6,
Summative Assessment Hours 6,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
127 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% coursework
The assessment is based on the achievements of the project work described above and its documentation, typically a process report, a user guide, and technical report. Each group member also submits an individual document reflecting on his/her contribution to the project. For each student the mark will be based on the group mark, moderated by the individual contribution.
Students who make no contribution to the work of the group will receive a mark of 0%.
You should expect to spend approximately 167 hours on the coursework for this course. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- work as members of a team in designing and implementing a complex and multi-faceted system
- plan and monitor the effort of a project to meet milestones and deadlines, within a limited time scale
- draw together knowledge and understanding of wide areas of software and hardware systems
- Demonstrate and present the outcome from a practical project
- Document the feasibility, design and development of a potential product
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Michael Mistry
Tel: (0131 6)50 2937
Email: mmistry@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Rose Hynd
Tel: (0131 6)50 5194
Email: rhynd@ed.ac.uk |
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