CS291I – Extended Reality

Assignment 4: Defining the Project 

Due Dates (two deadlines): Wed., April 30th (for parts 1a and 1b) and Wed., May 7, 11:59:59pm (for part 2)

Change Log:
Thu, April 24th: original post

This two-part assignment will get you right into the middle of your quarter project work, and will deliver an important intermediate checkpoint on your project work, the "Minimum Viable Product", which you should define, plan, and get to work on early during the two-week assignment period.

You will work your way towards a 5 minute demonstration of your project on May 9th that shows progress and highlights the remaining work, so that you can receive feedback from the class and instructor.

Part 1a: Project Description

Due Date: May 01

Everyone needs to submit a short (1-2 page) project description, but if you have already formed a group, you can all collaborate on and submit the same text for this part of the assignment. See also the general considerations for the quarter project! Please list the platforms, devices, APIs, and data you plan to work with. None of these will be locked in by your listing them - they can definitely change later on. Mention all group members and their specific interests in, and planned contributions to, the project. All of this is simply your current best unsderstanding of your plans, subject to refinement and iterations, with the instructor hopefully being able to give helpful feedback.

Part 1b: Technology Explorations

Due Date: May 01

For this part, every group member individually needs to perform and document technology explorations towards their project idea. For example, you can experiment with different display, tracking, interaction, or dataset (for machine learning or simulation work endeavors) options.The technology elements that you try out in this part of the assignment do not need to make it into your final project agenda - this part specifically gives you license to experiment with different options, but you have to document your experiments and exploratory implementation progress.

This does not yet constitute a Minimum Viable Product (MVP, that is the next step). Instead, this picks up where the previous homeworks left off, takes your improved and broadened perspective into account, and lets you test various technologies and/or data for suitability for your project needs.

This part specifically involves hands-on installation and implementation effort and the insights from it should directly lead into your MVP.

Specific Deliverables: Every individual student (regardless of size of group) needs to document at least two explorations in one or more areas (platform/SDK, display, tracking, interaction, dataset, or potential approaches to research-specific questions). These explorations manifest themselves in practical experiments and reflection. The following Sections are recommended for your documentation, but you can deviate from it, if you have good reasons. The important thing is the fit and value to your project:

• Type of exploration: describe your activity and its place in the space of Mixed and Augmented Reality. These could be a test installation/implementation of a basic technology, a comparison of two approaches, an evaluation or analysis of any kind, etc.
• Connection to your project: how/why does the exploration support your project, what decision does it inform?
• Related work: please list related work that you found that provides background or insight into your exploration
• Outcome of your exploration: demonstrate and document carefully, including visual/multimedia materials. This is not a gratuitous request nor is it requested solely for gradability. You'll be surprised how much benefit you get by clarifying your research thought processes through such documentation.
• Reflection: List at least one consequence/conclusion for the future path of your project planning
  

 

Part 2 (Project Group): Minimum Viable Product

Due Date: May 08

At this stage, you probably have considered (at least) two directions for your project story:

• Grand Vision (GV): You might have a story that really is very much your "ideal dream state" of the research projectwhen fully built out. Keep in mind that this may be far more than you can reasonably accomplish in the next 4-5 weeks.
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) You might have already been thinking in terms of "minimal viable product", and you might have a pretty good idea of a slice of research value - something you might actually be able to deliver in, say 2 weeks (or 1 week, or even 1 day.)

It's likely that each of the class projects will be somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes. Assess where you think your team/project is on that spectrum.

Assuming that your project idea is somewhere closer to GV than to MVP, you'll now want to set aside the description of your GV for the moment. Use it as a reference to inform your efforts to redo the exercise, but focusing on an MVP.

Maybe you can draw on top of your GV description, and highlight the parts that you think might be part of your MVP.

The big question to keep in mind is:

How can we make "this" possible with less complexity, less code, less time

Here, "this" is the goal/need/desire/research investigation.

Specific Deliverables:
Every project group submits a PDF describing:

• their GV and MVP visions for the project.
• careful documentation of the current state of your project at time of the in-class presentation
• outline of your plans for the remaining parts of your project.
• list of what each team member has contributed and will contribute to the project

As part of in-class presentations on Thu, May 8th and Tuesday May 13th, you will (briefly!) demonstrate your MVP live in class.You will also outline your plans for the remaining parts of your project, including what each team member (if applicable) will work on. This is your opportunity to get feedback from the class and the instructor for the remaining 4 weeks of the project journey!

Submission

On Canvas, one PDF per Part. Submission deadlines are 11:59.59pm on Wed., May 1st and May 8th respectively