Scientific Programming Final Project

CSc 30100 – Scientific Programming

Final Project Description v1.0
During the final third of the semester, you will work on an individual project.
The project will include three components
1. A Zoom presentation with charts. The presentation will be seven to eight minutes
long. You’ll share your screen with everyone and then present. Since you’ll be
sharing your charts with everyone, your camera shouldn’t be turned on. Please
rehearse your presentation so you don’t run out of time. I will cut you off if you run
over and we’re running behind schedule.
2. The charts for your Zoom presentation. The charts can be in in PowerPoint, Google
Slides, Apple Keynote, PDF, or whatever other format you prefer, as long as I can read
it on my Windows PC. Please submit your charts via Blackboard and label your file as
lastname_firstname.xxx where xxx will depend on the format of the charts.
3. A written report (in PDF format). The report will be 10 to 15 pages in length (double
spaced). If you have lots of tables and/or charts, you can include them in an
appendix. Please submit your written report via Blackboard and name your file as
lastname_firstname.pdf. If you have code, please submit it as an Jupyter notebook
named lastname_firstname.ipynb.
Schedule
1. Your Zoom presentation will be on May 5th, 10th, 12th, or 17th. Prior to Aril 19th I will
post a schedule of when you’ll be presenting. I’ll be assigning you randomly to one of
these four dates. I can’t push these dates any later since the last day of class is Monday,
May17th.
2. The charts from your Zoom presentation are due by midnight on Wednesday, May 19.
3. Your written report is due by midnight on Friday, May 21. No extensions will be granted
since I’ve pushed this as late in the semester as I can.
Grading
The three components of your final project will be graded as follows:
1. Zoom presentation 5% of your final grade
2. Presentation charts 5% of your final grade
3. Written report 25% of your final grade
Topics
The projects can be on almost any topic in Scientific Programming.
• It can be a topic that we covered (or will be covering) in class
• It can be a topic that we didn’t cover (or won’t be covering) in class.
• You can cover a method in Scientific Programming.
• You can apply a method (or methods) from Scientific Programming to a dataset
that you find interesting.
You must clear you project topic with me in advance via email. I want to make sure that your
topic isn’t too easy or isn’t too hard or will take too long. If I don’t respond to your email in a
timely fashion, please email me again.
The project must be mathematical and/or quantitative in nature. For example, if your subject is
the history of a method to solve a particular problem, you’ll need to go through the equations
and perhaps even develop and run some code. In short, it needs to be a computer science
project and not (just) a history of computer science project.
The project can’t just repeat material that we’ve covered in class. If you choose a topic that we
covered, you must go further than we went in class or develop examples that go further than
we did.
If you borrow ideas or code from anyone or any online (or offline) source, make sure to credit
that source.