Final Project Documentation

Each final project requires an accompanying report submitted as a post to the 16-375 project site. The primary purpose of the report is to present the project as a completed artifact, with an emphasis on how it explores specific concepts or questions related to the course themes. Overall, it should document how the theme spurred questions, the specific choices made in response, whether they were successful, and how future work could improve the result.

The report should focus on inquiry and outcome more than development narrative. Please don’t just write the story of everything that happened; please carefully consider whether any mistakes and diversions would be enlightening to the reader.

A video (one to four minutes long) must be included that conveys an impression of the performance. The emphasis should be on recreating as much of the kinetic expression of the performance as possible rather than technical or development details.

Enough technical documentation must be provided that a person skilled in the art can understand the design and construction of the project.

Checklist for Final Project Documentation

  1. Please include a final title for the work.
  2. A clear statement of the project narrative in a few sentences. Please include a clear and concise statement of the final overall concept, the performance objectives, and a narrative description of what a viewer or participant would have experienced. What were you trying to do?
  3. A reflection on the relationship of the project to the course themes, i.e., the use of autonomous behavior as a narrative medium and the animate possibilities of robotic manipulation. What did it mean? How does it advance our understanding of robotic sculpture?
  4. A discussion of outcomes: the successes and failures of your choices. What did you learn?
  5. A one to four minute performance video. Please embed your video so it can be watched directly from the post. The easiest way to do this is to host it on a third-party site (e.g. YouTube). Videos hosted directly on the course site should be .mp4 files and use the appropriate video shortcodes. N.B. hosted QuickTime .mov files cannot be embedded.
  6. Citations to related work as appropriate.
  7. Supporting technical documentation.
    1. All program source code is required and must be provided as an uploaded file. Source code should be provided in original format packaged in a single zip file.
    2. All original mechanical CAD files should be uploaded in the original format packaged in a single zip file.
    3. Photographs posted inline to highlight specific design elements. Please make sure all photos present at a legible size, and if scaled, link to the underlying media file.
  8. For each group member, a list of specific technical and artistic contributions attributable to that member.