Final Project

In the previous step, you explained to the class what your project is. The goal in this part is to carry out your project and explain some of what you did to the class in a presentation. You should be doing some of your own programming in this context, and much of the goal of this project is to demonstrate that you are able to do some significant programming in the context of your project. I will hopefully be convinced by your work that you have learned to use programming to explore mathematics (or science, etc.).

A few remarks:

  1. It is important that you demonstrate that you can program independently. If you find that Sage can already do pretty much everything you had hoped to do with the project, you may provide your own implementation of something already done in Sage. If you have questions about this requirement, discuss with me.
  2. If you decide to change directions from what you proposed in the previous part, please discuss with me if you haven't already.
  3. We have only two students working together, and they are registered for the undergraduate version of the course. At this point, it makes sense to continue working alone, with the exception of this one group.

Detailed assignment:

This assignment consists of two parts:

  • A notebook, which explains both ideas behind your project, and demonstrates your abilities to program in the context of the project.
  • A presentation (given when our final exam is scheduled), which explains some part of what you did.

Presentations will be held Monday, Dec 16th 3:30-5:45, when our final exam would normally be held. Because of time constraints, you will have 5-12 minutes to present, with the upper bound being strongly enforced (so we don't run beyond class time). For this reason, you will likely need to choose one topic to present. Ideally this topic should connect to something from your previous presentation, so that you don't need to provide much background this time.

Final notebooks will ideally be submitted on blackboard by the end of the day on Sunday, Dec 15th. If you miss this deadline, you may email me your notebook until 3:00pm on Monday, Dec 16th.

Grading Rubric:

Notebook portion: (60%)

  • Explanation (25%): The notebook was well organized and what it does is clearly explained. Markdown cells in the the notebook explain the theoretical background (mathematical or scientific) necessary to understand your project. Explanations are at a level appropriate for the audience. (Portions of the notebook used in the presentation should be accessible to students in the class, but overall the notebook will be read mostly by Prof. Hooper.)
  • Programming (25%): Your notebook clearly demonstrates your ability to solve problems and/or gain intuition into mathematics (or science) by programming. Your programming goes beyond simply calling functions from Sage (or other libraries); It illustrates that are can combine functions made available by Sage in complex ways to work on problems. Ideas (such as algorithms) related to what you are doing are clearly explained in Markdown cells, and in code comments.
  • Citations (10%): There are both citations related to programming, and citations related to the mathematics (or scientific) ideas you make use of. Cited works are appropriate. (Please avoid citing Wikipedia. See notes below.)

Presentation portion: (40%)

  • Presentation clarity (5%): The speaker's voice was clear. If the chalkboard is used, the writing was clear. Code and Markdown in the notebook were readable.
  • Time (5%): An appropriate amount of material was prepared. Length of the presentation was within the allotted time of 5-12 minutes.
  • Organization (5%): The information was presented in a logical sequence, ideally building of the prior presentation.
  • Conceptual understanding (25%): An important portion of your project was presented in a clear way at a level appropriate to students in the class. Relevant mathematical ideas were stated clearly (ideally as Theorems and Definitions). A clear idea is given about how this portion of the project works: The algorithm and the features of Sage you use were made clear. Ideas were explained in a way that indicates you understand what you did, and how your code works.

Further comments:

  • Because of time constraints, it is NOT expected that you go through the whole notebook. But, you should cover an important and interesting piece of it.
  • Notebooks received after 3pm will result in a deduction of 10% of the grade on the project. If you are unable to present as scheduled, you will miss out on the presentation grade (40%). If you do not present, and you are unable to turn in the notebook in time for your presentation, then a zero will be assigned. (Of course, mitigating circumstances will be considered. You must let me know as soon as possible, and appropriate adjustments of these policies will be considered. The circumstances must be compelling, and must be provable through some sort of documentation.)
  • This assignment (as with others in the course) follows the (CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity Policy)[http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/about/integrity]. In particular: it is not permitted to use AI in any way on this assignment. If you make use of code copied from other sources, you must cite it. Attempting to pass off code created by others (including AI) is a clear case of plagiarism. In event of plagiarism, I reserve the right to give a zero on the assignment.
  • This grade will count towards the “Final project” portion of the course grade.