Explaining your project

Part 1 (Notebook draft):

You will be required to submit a draft of a Jupyter notebook, which contains both Markdown text and SageMath code. This will be due on Thursday, Nov 14th (submitted on blackboard).

Your notebook should:

• Use Markdown to explain the topic of your project.
• Explain what you hope to accomplish. What sort of problem do you hope to solve?
• Demonstrate and explain how to use some features of SageMath that are useful to you project. These features should go beyond things that have been introduced in the course.
• Cite the sources where you learned about these features. Sources could be websites, source code, and books. You should be citing anything that goes beyond programming techniques that have been introduced in the course so far. For example, you should cite our course textbooks if you use parts of the book we have not covered.
• Explain how you hope to push beyond what you have already found Sage can do to make progress on your project.

At this point, there is no expectation that you do much coding on your own. For example, it is sufficient to demonstrate someone else's code that does something related to what you hope to accomplish. (But, of course, you must cite their work.)

I hope to return the notebook with comments by Monday, Nov 18th so that you get some feedback before Part 2.

Remark: The notebook will eventually be combined with a presentation. You can expect to be able to explain some of what you want to accomplish in words, and to make use of the small bit of chalkboard behind the screen. For this reason, the explaination in the notebook does not need to be fully detailed. However, it should be good enough for me to understand the problem.

Part 2 (Notebook and presentation)

You should refine your notebook submitted above (based in part on feedback received), so that it better accomplishes the goals outlined here. The final version of your “Explaining your project” notebook should be uploaded to blackboard by Sunday, November 24th.

You will give a 5-15 minute presentation on Monday, November 25th, where you:

• Explain the topic to the class, at a level understandable by the class. Explain what you hope to accomplish in your project. Define the problem do you hope to solve. What would constitute a solution? What would constitute partial progress? Note that even a better understanding of a problem can constitute partial progress. The problem must be related to mathematics, but does not need to be purely mathematical. For example, visualizing something mathematical is certainly within the scope of the project.
• You will have access to your notebook. You are expected to use it to demonstrate and explain how to use some features of SageMath that you anticipate will be useful to you project. These features should go beyond things that have been introduced in the course.
• Your notebook must cite the sources where you learned about these features. See comments on citations in the previous part.
• Explain how you hope to push beyond what you have already found Sage can do to make progress on your project. It is sufficient to do this orally.

If we run out of time on November 25th, presentations will continue on our next class day (December 2nd).

Grading Rubric for Part 2:

• Organization (15%): The information was presented in a logical sequence. An appropriate amount of material was prepared. Length of the presentation was within the allotted time of 5-15 minutes.
• Project explanation (25%): Your project was clearly explained. Necessary mathematical (and other) concepts were made clear at a level appropriate for students in the class. Necessary definitions were provided. Theorems were stated clearly. Examples were well chosen. Time spent on different topics reflects their relative importance.
• Sage demonstration (25%): Sage code from your notebook was presented and explained at a level appropriate for students in the class. Ideas necessary to understand the code were clearly explained. The code works correctly, and is related to your project.
• Notebook(25%): Sufficient information was included as Markdown in the notebook for me to understand your project goals. Your code demonstration is documented well enough that I can understand what it is doing without having to look at other sources. Appropriate citations are included.
• Presentation clarity (10%): The speaker's voice was clear. If the chalkboard is used, the writing was clear. Code and Markdown in the notebook were readable.

Hopefully, the audience is clear. The presentation should be directed at the class. It is sufficient to address the notebook at the instructor, as long as sufficient commentary is provided in the presenation for students to follow what is going on during the presentation.