CS 452/652 Winter 2024 - Lecture 17

Demo Preparation

Mar 12, 2024 prev next

participants: demo group, instructor, teaching assistant
20 minutes, roughly 2 parts of 10 minutes
- not strictly necessary to use the whole time in each part
PDF/software submission deadline is the same for all groups (as specified in the assignment), regardless of demo time

be on time, come prepared
two students: one presenter, one operator
- switch roles at some point
for each step of the demo:
- before: explain what is going to happen and why
- during: point out what to pay attention to
- after: provide more details, if necessary
technical robustness - anticipate failures
- use headlights for direction, deadspot detection, etc!
- use timeouts in software to detect problems
  - recover, halt, reset
consider your audience
- instructor knows the assignment and the trains and the RPis
- instructor does not know about your TC1 project, difficulties, trade-offs

plan what you are going to do and who will do it
- know what's working, and primarily demo working parts
- explain what does not work
- if necessary, show partial functionality using different programs
- despite your best preparations, things might still go wrong...
you are in control - stay in control!
- get back in control if necessary
prepare to explain:
- what does a particular part of the demo show?
- where will the train go? why?
- what is the operator doing at the terminal? show us!
- what parts of the demo are done automatically vs. manually?
we want to understand:
- setup/positioning of trains
- tracking & stopping accuracy
- possible destinations
- flexibility and robustness of software
increase chances of success
- dry-run the demo
- keep copy of working image

we might ask questions, such as
- can you do this with another train?
- can you do this on the other track?
- can we fake sensor triggers?
- can the train go to this or that location?
be prepared to explain and justify your design
all team members should be active answering questions and explaining