The final project is an excellent opportunity for you to explore an interesting robot perception problem. Projects should be done either individually or in a team of two students. Shenlong will consult with you on your ideas and the execution throughout the semester. Your project will be worth 50% of your final class grade and will have the following deliverables:

  1. Project Proposal : 2 pages excluding references (15%)
  2. Mid-term Presentation : 5-min presentation on project update (15%)
  3. Final Report : 8 pages excluding references (50%)
  4. Teaser Video (optional) : 3-min teaser video along with the final report (10% bonus points)
  5. Final Presentation : final presentation and demo (12-min talk + 2-min Q&A) (20%)

All write-ups should use the RSS latex template.

Project Proposal

You must turn in a brief project proposal that provides an overview of your idea and also contains a brief survey of related work on the topic.

The instructor will provide a list of suggested project ideas to choose from, though you are more than welcome to discuss other project ideas with us. Note that you cannot use research work that you started before this class as your project.

Proposals should be approximately two pages long, and should include the following information:

  • Project title and group members.
  • Overview. Describe the research problem and give an outline of what you propose to implement. Note that you can change later as your research exploration goes. Describe the desired outcome and the minimum goals (make sure the goals are realistic).
  • Resources. Description of potential datasets, robotic platforms or simulation environments to use. Specify any outside code you plan to use and how do you plan to execute. Be specific.
  • Plannning A rough timeline of action items. Discuss what you plan to deliver during the mid-term update and how you plan to divide up the work if you are in a team.
  • Background Describe how your course project relates to your research background, knowledge, and skills. What are the tools and techniques that you are familiar with and which are new to you?

The grading breakdown for the proposal is as follows:

  • 40% for the significance of the problem and the technical soundness and novelty of the proposed method
  • 40% for the plan of activities
  • 20% for quality of writing

Mid-term Presentation

The mid-term presentation will serve as a checkpoint at the halfway mark of your project. It should be about 8-minutes spotlight presentation with 6-8 slides, with the following sections: introduction, background & related work, methods outline, preliminary results, remaining action items, and anticipated challenges. Feedbacks will be given from the instructor and your classmates.

The grading breakdown for the midway report is as follows:

  • 20% for introduction and background
  • 40% for the method
  • 20% for the design of upcoming experiments and revised plan of activities (in an appendix slide, please show the old and new activity plans)
  • 10% for data collection and preliminary results
  • 10% for quality of presentation

Final Report

Your final report is expected to be 8 pages excluding references in maximum. It should have roughly the following format:

  • Introduction:
    • Problem definition and motivation
    • Approach Outline
  • Background & Related Work:
    • Research background
    • Literature Review
  • Methods:
    • Overview of your proposed method
    • Technical details of the approach and algorithms that you developed
  • Experiments:
    • Benchmarks, baselines, metrics, and implementation details
    • Details of the experiments and results
    • Analysis of the results
  • Conclusion: discussion and future work

The grading breakdown for the final report is as follows:

  • 40% for quality of writing (clarity, organization, flow, figure presentation, etc.)
  • 30% for technical approach (soundness, originality, etc.)
  • 30% for experiments and analysis (completeness, difficulties, correctness, etc.)

Teaser Video

Making a narrated spotlight video with a paper submission becomes overwhelmingly popular in robotics and vision conferences. It introduces the essence of the paper and allows authors to highlight the key results visually. Students are highly encouraged to make a teaser video for their final project and share it in Piazza in this course. Top teaser videos will be highlighted on a “hall-of-fame” page and receive a 10% bonus of the final project grade (i.e., 5% of the total grade).

Final Presentation

All project teams will present their work at the end of the semester. Each team should prepare a 15-min talk (12-min presentation + 3-min Q&A) similar to a full oral presentation at a conference. If applicable, live demonstrations of your software are highly encouraged.

Resources