CMU 15-112: Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science
Class Notes: Term Project Preview
Here's some information so that you can get started on the hardest part -- deciding what you will do! Some things to consider:
Note that these are somewhat subject to change until Wednesday 3-Aug but not by much
- Start thinking about your term project now!!!!
- Review the Term Project Gallery!!!
- While many of you will likely make some kind of game, and that's fine, it is by no means required. You can make anything, so long as it follows the rules below, has a rich interactive user experience, and at least one interesting algorithmic aspect to the solution. Also note that your idea does not have to be new, so if you want to recreate something that already exists, that's perfectly fine.
- Choose something you enjoy, something you care about, something you can be proud of, something that can help you both academically and professionally.
- Aim just a bit beyond what you think you'll be able to create. It's easier to prune an overly-large project idea than to grow an overly-small project idea.
- Focus both on user experience and on algorithmic complexity, as both factor heavily in your tp grade.
- In any case, avoid mini-games. Make one big lovely project instead of gluing together a bunch of smaller ones.
- Also, avoid generative art or music.
While these are somewhat popular projects
historically, they rarely result in successful outcomes and so should be avoided. It is very
hard for us to grade a generative art or music
project precisely, since they are so deeply subjective.
Plus, they don't really have much of a user experience
in most cases, and we put great value on a rich
interactive user experience.
If you have an idea for a highly interactive project with a generative art component, this may be ok, but you should email your idea to Mike or one of your TAs to check whether it will be an appropriate term project. Also, as we will discuss, projects involving sound (such as rhythm games or voice changers) are generally disallowed because of their extreme difficulty, reliance on modules, and very high risk of failure. - We do not recommend using external modules/libraries/tech. Using these does not add algorithmic complexity to your project, and we will only grade based on original code you produced. You can make a lovely term project and earn a very high grade using nothing more than what is in the course notes. By default, you may not use any of these things until you have reached MVP status (i.e. a minimal passing project) and thus you must be able to reach MVP without it. If you desperately wish to ignore our advice and use external tech before MVP, you will need to demo its full extent and receive approval from Mike no later than Sunday 7-Aug (keep reading for more details).
- Without explicit permission from Mike (which is unlikely), you cannot use any robots or other hardware in your term projects this semester. The one exception is that you may try to use game controllers as input devices if you are so inclined, so long as all of your code runs entirely on your laptop (and not on an external device) and in Python.
- Also, based on hard lessons learned by previous 112 students,
some modules are explicitly disallowed until after you reach
MVP (Minimum Viable Product/Project):
- Disallowed until after MVP:
- All graphics and animations except tkinter-with-cmu-112-graphics including: tkinter-without-cmu-112-graphics, kivy, pygame, blender, opengl, panda3d, vpython,... (note that this includes tk/tkinter widgets that you may find online like text boxes, etc. Even if we allowed widgets, you would receive more points by creating these yourself, from scratch.)
- Complex ML and AI modules, including: pytorch, tensorflow, keras, ...
- Multiple threads, processes, or computers (so no webapps, cloud apps, server-based apps, sockets, ...)
- pyaudio, aubio, pydub, pygame (strictly for audio)
- Any language except Python.
- You may do a tech demo during Mike's office hours (or in a private meeting if you cannot attend Mike's office hours) to seek approval for the following modules:
- PIL/Pillow (beyond the course notes)
- numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas, openpyxl, scikitlearn, nltk, biopython
- opencv, openpose
- requests, beautifulsoup, selenium
- sqllite (and other sql and no-sql database modules)
- cloud API's (twitter, ibm watson, twilio, ...)
- Other Modules:
For any module not on either list above, please ask on piazza or at faculty OH if it is allowed before MVP (with tech demo) or disallowed until after MVP.
- Disallowed until after MVP:
- Have fun! >>(o u o)<<