SE 101

  Scheduling Exercise

Part I Due:   Friday,      November 5, 2004    by 4:30 P.M.
Part 2 Due:  Thursday,  November 18, 2004  by 4:30 P.M.

Objectives

The purpose of this assignment is for you to practice estimating the time that you need to complete your course work.

Deliverables

Each student is to hand in this assignment in two parts:


The two parts of this assignment are together worth 5% of your course mark.

Technical Memo I

You are to submit a technical memo addressed to me (Prof. Atlee).  This memo should explain that you are submitting to me your plan for completing the SE 101 design project, and that your plan accounts for your commitments to your other courses.  This memo should be relatively short (i.e., 4-5 sentences), as it is merely a cover letter for the schedule that is attached to the memo.   The memo needn't explain your rationale for your schedule.  The memo should be complete, professional in tone, and grammatically correct.
 

Schedule I

In addition, you are to submit your schedule for completing your SE 101 project, accounting for commitments that you have to your other courses.  The chart should span the 10-day period between Saturday, November 6 and Monday, November 15.  Each day starts at 6:00 in the morning and ends at 2:00 the following morning (to try to accommodate students who work early in the morning or late at night -- we do not expect you to schedule activities for 20 hours a day!)

Your schedule should depict the time that you expect to spend on all course-related activities.  I have provided a schedule that includes most of your scheduled course meetings (all except for CS 133 practicum, which is at different times for different students).  These course meetings are depicted as blue time blocks that are annotated with course numbers. 

You are to complete your schedule by filling in the following activities:
Divide your timed activities into appropriately sized time blocks, and insert these time blocks into your schedule, (in the same manner as the time blocks for your class meetings).  Merge contiguous time blocks that represent activities associated with the same course (e.g., reading the Physics textbook and doing Physics homework problems). 

Label each time block: use the label "Project" to designate activities associated with the SE 101 robot program, use the label "Report" to designate activities associated with the SE 101 design report, and use course numbers to designate other course-work activities (in the manner that the provided schedule uses course numbers to designate course meetings).  Shade each time block with a colour, according to the type of activity scheduled for that time:  course meeting (colour #1: light blue), course work (colour #2), SE 101 project (colour #3), and SE 101 report (colour #4).  Your choices for these four colours must be such that the colours are mutually distinct and the final schedule is readable.

You may include other university-related activities (e.g., class representative activities) in your schedule if you wish.   If you do this, shade these activities a distinct fifth colour.  Make time for, but do not designate time blocks for, personal activities (e.g., eating, sleeping).

The provided schedule is a Word table.  Each table cell in this schedule is an hour time block that starts at the time designated by the row header.  For example, the top row designates a time block that starts at 6:00 A.M. and ends at 7:00 A.M.  You can use the table function "split cells" to create finer-grained time blocks, and the table function "merge cells" to create larger time blocks.  Do not schedule time blocks that are shorter than 30 minutes, because we will not be able to read the block's label.  Keep your schedule to a single page.

You may use a different application to create your schedule, if you don't want to use Word.  Again, keep your schedule to a single page.

Technical Memo II

By Thursday, November 18, 4;30 P.M., you are to submit a technical memo addressed to me (Prof. Atlee).  This memo should explain that you are submitting to me two schedules:  (1) a copy of your original plan for completing the SE 101 design project (i.e., a copy of your schedule from Part I of this assignment), and (2) a schedule depicting how you actually spent that 10-day period.   The memo should explain any major deviations between the original plan and the actual schedule, where a "major deviation" is any difference of 4 hours or more in either the duration or the start time of an activity.  If you have a lot of major deviations, then just explain the five most egregious deviations.  The memo should be no more than one page long, and should be complete, professional in tone, and grammatically correct.
 

Schedule II

In addition, you are to submit a copy of the schedule that you submitted in part I of this assignment, plus a new schedule that depicts how much time you actually spent on activities associated with your SE 101 robot program, your SE 101 design report, and your course work.  This new chart should span the same 10-day period between Saturday, November 6 and Monday, November 15, and should show for each activity listed in your original schedule the time intervals that you actually spent on that activity.  Use the same colouring and labelling schemes that you used to create your schedule for part I of this assignment.

Do not depict time blocks that are shorter than 30 minutes, because we will not be able to read the block's label.  Keep your schedule to a single page.