Term Project - Milestone IV
CS211 Fall 2000 Accelerated Stream
Matthew Morgenstern

Vehicle Movement on the Map Display
also additional information
revised Nov 15

Due date: 21st November

The fourth milestone of the project requires more of your project to be operational. This may be particularly useful to you since the final due date and required demo is only a couple of weeks away – exact dates to be announced. The last class lecture is on Nov 30th!

Information about the final report and demo appears at the end of the original Project Description and in the Appendix Miscellaneous notes and clarifications listed there. More info is provided below.

 Although you need to submit your new code, we will not, in general, be going through it in sufficient detail to provide detailed feedback.   If you would like feedback on your code, you should contact the TAs (Evan and Vaibhav), who will be happy to assist. Please note that the GUI will probably require more coding than any other component of the project.

Final Report and Demo

For the final upcoming submission you will need to provide a "User Manual" (roughly 4 to 5 pages) describing purpose, functionality, program startup procedure, inputs, and interpretation of what the user will see – this section should assume that a typical user is just starting their sophomore year. Also, on a more technical note include a couple of paragraphs on the most important lessons you learned from the project; and a few paragraphs summarizing the key technological (programming and design) ideas you included in your design – especially any ideas/techniques that you came up with.

For the demo (with both partners present, if you are partnering), be prepared to follow the guidelines in the original writeup (see above links), and to present an interesting overview/tour of your program in operation. Consider this a "sales pitch" to a savvy technical audience – imagine they have lots of money to fund your new startup, if they like what they see and hear.

 

Details

You should have more of your overall simulation including the GUI operational - as compared to Milestone 3. The details here are recommendations, and are preferred. However, variations on this will be accepted on a case by case basis if you have good reason and you: put an explanation of the variations and your reasons on the front, and the screen snapshots of your system in operation demonstrate noticeable progress beyond Milestone 3. Doing more than suggested here may prove beneficial to you at this close to final stage.

The recommended/preferred level of progress is at least:

  1. Display the map with at least one type of vehicle and traffic light states. Vehicles should move in (any) reasonable fashion.
  2. You should display the state of the traffic pattern (vehicles and lights ) initially and after 2, 4, and 6 steps of execution.
  3. Not necessary: controller, edge of map handling, 2nd type of vehicle, routing, coordinated traffic light control (just switch most at least once), …

The main point of this Milestone is to help you along your way to completion soon. It is intended to not add more than 1 to 2 hours to your overall development time. If your approach is sufficiently different that this does not hold for you, consider the option of a variation in requirements for this Milestone 4, as mentioned above. This does not require pre-approval, just sensible judgment on your part as to the reasons.

Enjoy Thanksgiving and your Break!

What to Submit

You should complete and hand in on paper:

  1. A UML diagram, showing the classes and interfaces for the latest design of your GUI. If the main part of your program has changed, also include the UML for that part. Keep a copy.
  2. Screenshots of your GUI, showing the state of the traffic pattern (vehicles and lights) at times t=0, 2, 4, 6.
  3. A printout of that portion of your code covering your primary additions and changes.  In the event that this code is over 15 pages, you may select what you consider to be the most important, and indicate what subset you chose.

As was the case for the first milestone, we will not be looking for knowledge of the intricacies of UML.