Initial Project Idea & Work Plan

by Elliott Hauser

10 Nov 2022

Submit a pull request with your final project idea and initial work plan (i.e. milestones).

First, read over the description of the final. It’s substantial, so read it closely.

Then, determine whether you’ll pursue the Data analysis or Turtle-based option. Develop an initial idea for your project, and some account of how you’ll pursue it over the next few weeks.

  • If you’re doing a Turtle project, there are still a few capabilities of the module, such as interfaces, we haven’t covered yet. I’ll cover that as we go, and provide you with a resource you can use to learn much more. For now, assume that you’ll know how to make your turtles do things in response to users’ clicks and keypresses when you’re developing your idea.
  • If you’re doing a data analysis project, a key piece of information is what kind of data you’ll be analyzing. Find a plaintext file in a format that you can easily work with (such as comma separated aka CSV). The data you find will have a huge impact on what your project looks like.

This doesn’t have to be long (1-2 paragraphs and a list), but it should reflect lots of thought. The more work you do in the planning phase in terms of thinking through (and perhaps trying out) your ideas the easier the execution phase will be. If you’ve started any code that you intend to use in your final, include an embedded duplicate of your code (and then keep working on the original, not the duplicate).

Elliott Hauser is an Assistant Professor at the UT Austin iSchool. He's hacking education as one of the cofounders of Trinket.io. Find Elliott Hauser on Twitter, Github, and on the web.