How to Prepare Your Final Course Report

Remember that the purpose of this report is multi-fold:

1) it should clearly explain to the instructor what exactly you did in your final project, why you did it the way you did it, and what concepts from the class you used;

2) it should clearly explain your role on the team, and the roles of the other team members; be clear about what your unique personal contribution was, as well as what was done jointly;

3) it should give you an opportunity to tie the information you learned in class with what you used in your project, and write it down in a coherent fashion; imagine that somebody will want to duplicate your robot, and write your report so as to make that possible.

  • Use the textbook as a model of format and clarity to strive for. While you are not expected to present a textbook-level report, your format should be equally professional and complete. There is no page requirement; see #3 above.

  • Your paper should include the following sections:

    1) Title and full author and team info on the first page
    2) Abstract (short summary of the paper)
    3) Introduction (motivates the paper)
    4) Approach and methods (the big idea)
    5) Implementation (how you got it to work)
    5) Results from lab tests (how well it worked)
    6) Strengths and weaknesses (the good and bad parts, and why)
    7) Summary
    8) References
    9) Appendix: robot code with comments

  • Use graphics (i.e., diagrams, graphs, tables) to illustrate your approach, but also explain it clearly in words.

  • When you describe your approach, relate it to the key principles and ideas you learned in class. Feel free to add any other relevant references (articles, books) you have read which helped you with the project.

  • Your references to other books/readings should be done as professionally as those in the textbook.

  • Explain any original ideas and additions that are a part of your design. If you had earlier, failed versions of the design, describe them briefly and explain why you eliminated them.

  • Include the complete (commented!) robot program in the appendix of the paper.

  • If key information for your implementation is found in a manual, you should reference the manual.

  • Write your paper for an informed lay audience; that means you need to provide enough detail so your project could be replicated by the reader. This does not mean you need to list all of the parameters of your code in the paper (that's in the appendix anyway), but you should explain and justify all of the important design choices.
    CS445 home page.
    Prof. Mataric's home page.
    USC Robotics Labs.

    Report problems to webmaster@robotics.usc.edu.