CS 757 Computer Architecture II Spring 2011 Section 1 Instructor David A. Wood URL: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~david/courses/cs757/Spring2011/

Project

Weight: 30%

Schedule

• Project Team: Email due by 11:59pm Monday Feb 14th. Subject line should be "CS757 Project Team: " and CC all project members. The body of the message should include the full names of each project member.
• Preliminary proposal: Hardcopy due in class Mon Feb 21st (or before) You should discuss the project concept with the instructor beforehand and will meet with him later that week to refine the proposal.
• Revised proposals due: Monday Feb 28th, in class.
• Progress Report due: Monday April 4thm, in class.
• Class Conference: May 6th, 10am-4pm.
• Project Report: Hardcopy in instructor's mailbox, 9:00 AM Wednesday May 11

The project will have you do original research in parallel computing (hardware, software, theory, or combination). You should work in groups of two or three. Single person projects are not permitted without explicit permission and exceptional circumstances. You will be graded on how well you define your problem, survey previous work, design and conduct experiments, and present your results. The goal to shoot for a conference paper, like the ones in your reader. Since time is limited, however, the above goal is hard to reach, and I will reward those that aim high even if they do not completely succeed. The key is insuring that some aspects of your work are completely done; it is very hard to grade a project where nothing really works.

Meet with Me

Your group should talk with me prior to your proposal to flush out ideas.

Proposal

Proposals should be 2-3 pages long. They should include:

• A description of your topic,
• A statement of why you think the topic is interesting or important,
• A description of the methods you will use to evaluate your ideas, and
• References to at least three relevant papers you have already read and a plan to address other related work.

Your preliminary proposal may be longer (because you are trying to choose between multiple options) or shorter (because you know your general topic area, but have not narrowed down exactly what you are going to do). I will meet with all groups to discuss your prelimary proposals.

Class Conference Presentation

We will schedule presentations during finals week for conference-style talks. The talks will be 15-30 minutes long, depending upon the group size (time = 10 min + group size * 5 min). These talks will be open to all faculty and students. All group members should deliver part of the talk. The talk should give highlights of the final report, including the problem, motivation, results, conclusions, and possible future work. Time limits will be enforced.

Please, practice your talk to make it better and see how long it is. Have a plan for what slides to skip if you get behind. Please see Oral Presentation Advice, including David Patterson's How to Give a Bad Talk and K. Compton and M.L.Chang's Terrible Presentations (...and how to not give one).

Your presentation will be graded according to the following rubric. All members of the group will receive the same grade.

Project Report

Reports should consist of an abstract, body and optional appendices, much like a conference paper. The paper should be 10-12 pages, two-column, single-spaced with 11 pt font, not counting appendices. The abstract should summarize the contributions of the report in one or two paragraphs. Additional supporting material of any length can be put in appendices. I will read the body and only skim appendices. See your reader for examples.

Topics

You are encouraged to come up with your own project topic, so long as it involves materially that relates to the course.