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I recognized the final project structure of CS488. Great class, though quite time-consuming. The author links to past year galleries: https://www.student.cs.uw

I recognized the final project structure of CS488. Great class, though quite time-consuming. The author links to past year galleries: https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs488/gallery-A5.html https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs488/gallery-A5.html I'm not sure if this was done in all the years, but one of the interesting (and slightly unfair) aspects of the final project was that you were not only graded on the quality of the final render, but also how closely you aligned to your plan as stated up front. That is, if you planned an ambitious render BUT had to scale down to something slightly less ambitious (due to difficulty or time-constraints), your mark would be lower than the individual who planned a simple render and executed that.

wjnc 7y ago
That seems like quite the wrong incentive for learning. A lot of ambitious plans fail. To be graded only on the final delivery gives adequate incentive to execute. I perhaps get the education signal that executing successfully on a plan is a worthwhile skill, but isn't learning also experimenting?
- cldellow 7y ago
  You're graded only in part by aligning with the proposal. You're also graded on innovation, technical depth and software design. The TAs compare it to figure skating / high diving -- you should be able to say what you can do, and then nail it. In my experience, the students who take the project courses at UW are ambitious and driven. I suspect the chief effect of this policy is an ambitious project whose plan has been fleshed out by a healthy back-and-forth with the TAs upfront, vs a ridiculously ambitious project that hasn't been fleshed out.
trishume 7y ago
I'm not sure if they changed the marking scheme by the time I took the course, but I think they added advice to pick 10 easy things for your plan even if you are ambitious, because the elements of your plan are only marked on completion not difficulty or quality. Then just do the other things as bonus objectives which have their own category, and the quality will be put in a different category. There's also marks for artistry and humour, and getting perfect in the other categories doesn't require as much work as I put in. I didn't get a perfect mark and I suspect it's because I blew past the cap for technical difficulty but lost some marks on artistry and originality.

wjnc 7y ago

That seems like quite the wrong incentive for learning. A lot of ambitious plans fail. To be graded only on the final delivery gives adequate incentive to execute. I perhaps get the education signal that executing successfully on a plan is a worthwhile skill, but isn't learning also experimenting?

cldellow 7y ago
You're graded only in part by aligning with the proposal. You're also graded on innovation, technical depth and software design. The TAs compare it to figure skating / high diving -- you should be able to say what you can do, and then nail it. In my experience, the students who take the project courses at UW are ambitious and driven. I suspect the chief effect of this policy is an ambitious project whose plan has been fleshed out by a healthy back-and-forth with the TAs upfront, vs a ridiculously ambitious project that hasn't been fleshed out.

trishume 7y ago

I'm not sure if they changed the marking scheme by the time I took the course, but I think they added advice to pick 10 easy things for your plan even if you are ambitious, because the elements of your plan are only marked on completion not difficulty or quality. Then just do the other things as bonus objectives which have their own category, and the quality will be put in a different category. There's also marks for artistry and humour, and getting perfect in the other categories doesn't require as much work as I put in. I didn't get a perfect mark and I suspect it's because I blew past the cap for technical difficulty but lost some marks on artistry and originality.