Email 21/04/08

Hey Guys,

Here's the feedback from the report, we've got to push really hard to get it all finished. Or close as possible!

* Use the titles given to you in the Guide to the final report. E.g., section 2 should be titled "Testing". This makes it easier for the grader to give you a good grade.

* "it's" versus "its"

* sometimes you don't write proper sentences. E.g., "...as a car enters campus, the decision". Should be two separate sentences here.

* 1.1: this scenario (and screenshots) is ok but could be better. The writing is poor in places. Also, you don't show any alternative scenarios. You have demonstrated to the reader that you have implemented the basic functionalities. However, you have not provided any evidence that you have gone beyond the basic spec. Think about the coolest part of your system, and show the screenshots for that. Also, you don't mention any functionality that you cannot provide. If some cool functionalities could not be implemented, for whatever reason, mention them. You won't get marked down for not covering everything.

* If space is an issue, I suggest focusing section 1 more on 1.1 and 1.2 than 1.3. The simulation part is not as "exciting" and some of the stuff you have there now could be cut if necessary.

* Implementation section. This section doesn't read well. The point of this section is not to give a lot of details of the implementation or to repeat the Design Report. You will get good marks here by being self-reflective -- that is, discussing how your eventual design differed from or extended the one in the design report. You may need a high-level class diagram to show the overall system architecture so that you can discuss such things, but giving detailed class diagrams and method descriptions doesn't really add anything. Again, try to be self-reflective as much as possible: what proved challenging and why? What would you do differently if you could do it again? Where was your design not sufficient and why? etc. Reread the guide and try to answer the questions posed there. I know there are 2 pages reserved at the end for reflection but those 2 pages will concern more process issues. This section is really about how well you designed the problem in advance and if there were any surprises that forced changes to the design.

* I don't think you mention the design patterns at all in the implementation section. It would be good to do so -- especially, whether you found them to be useful/effective or not.

* usability section looks good

Dan