Assembling the teams

After ranking the projects and choosing which four we would do (see ratings discussion below), each student provided first and second project choices. Here's how the choices were distributed:

Number of first, second choices

  • 5, 4     dna to protein mapping ( Professor Brian White)
  • 3, 5     breast oncology graphics ( Dr. Kevin Hughes)
  • 4, 1    voice transcript data mining (Dr. Jeff Fried, Unveil Technologies)
  • 2, 4    searchlets (Paul English)

    • In order to honor the greatest number of first choices, I changed team sizes: three each for data mining and searchlets, four each for the other two projects. That means the technically challenging projects have smaller teams. But we know how to deal with that: we adjust the scope so that what we can do we can do well.

    Here are the assignments:

  • dna to protein mapping
  • Sumana Adma
  • Chitra Karki
  • Prasoon Kejriwal (lead)
  • Ziping Zhu
  • breast oncology graphics
  • Pradeep Kanneganti
  • Andi Sutedja (lead)
  • Bipin Vaddi
  • Shih-ying Yang
  • voice transcript data mining
  • Vikas Dua
  • Shantanu Inamdar (lead)
  • Yan Sun
  • searchlets
  • Chuanquan Liu
  • Di Luo
  • Satish Vemuri (lead)



    • Results of class discussion, September 18

    We rated the projects by secret ballot on each of a number of attributes. Note that most of the attributes don't have simple good/bad semantics - there are reasons for and against choosing an easy project. The fact that one will be used by lots of people and another might provide proof of concept for just one does not make one better than the other. Some of course do equate to good/bad - for example "is this fun?".

    Note too that these are the opinions of prospective software engineers, not experienced managers.

    After we collected this information we talked about it and came to our decision. There was no formal voting, nor any formal weighting of the scores on the various attributes. These tables just summarize the information we we wanted in front of us when we made our choices. You need not read through the data to know what they were. These are the four projects for the year:

  • dna to protein mapping ( Professor Brian White)
  • breast oncology graphics ( Dr. Kevin Hughes)
  • voice transcript data mining (Dr. Jeff Fried, Unveil Technologies)
  • searchlets (Paul English)


    Is the project feasible? Is there some reasonable subset of the scope that we think we can actually do in the time allotted?

     
    		 yes
    		 maybe
    		 no
    dna to protein mapping  14
    		 0
    		0
    breast oncology graphics 13
    		1
    		0
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		 12
    		8
    		4
    forensic botany
    		 12
    		 2
    		 0
    voice transcript data mining 3
    		 9
    		 2
    searchlets 4
    		 7
    		 3

    Would this project be fun/interesting to work on?


    		 yes
    		 maybe
    		 no
    dna to protein mapping 12
    		 1
    		 1
    breast oncology graphics 13
    		 1
    		 0
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		 2
    		 8
    		 4
    forensic botany
    		 12
    		 2
    		 0
    voice transcript data mining 9
    		 4
    		 1
    searchlets 5
    		 8
    		 1

    Would the product be used after we finished it?


    		yes
    		 maybe
    		 no
    dna to protein mapping 14
    		 0
    		 0
    breast oncology graphics 7
    		 4
    		 3
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		 6
    		 6
    		 2
    forensic botany
    		 12
    		 2
    		 0
    voice transcript data mining 9
    		 4
    		 1
    searchlets 5
    		 8
    		 1

    How difficult is the project?


    		hard OK
    		 easy
    dna to protein mapping  2
    		 10
    		2
    breast oncology graphics 3
    		6 5
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		 13
    		1
    		0
    forensic botany
    		 1
    		11 2
    voice transcript data mining 10
    		4 0
    searchlets 11
    		3 0

    Would you learn from this project?


    		 yes
    		 maybe
    		 no
    dna to protein mapping 7 
    		 6
    		1
    breast oncology graphics 4
    		7
    		 3
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		 12
    		2
    		0
    forensic botany
    		 12
    		2
    		 0
    voice transcript data mining 13
    		1
    		 0
    searchlets 12
    		2
    		 0

    Are you willing to do this project?


    		 yes
    		 maybe
    		 no
    dna to protein mapping  10
    		 2
    		2
    breast oncology graphics 11
    		 1
    		 2
    ecoflyer (macroscope)
    		  1
    		 5
    		8
    forensic botany
    		 10
    		4
    		 0
    voice transcript data mining 6
    		3
    		 5
    searchlets 3
    		5
    		 6