How to Prepare the Final Paper

Use the best papers we have read in class as a model of the format you should be using. While you are not expected to present conference/journal-paper-level results, your format should be equally professional and complete.

Your paper should include the following sections: 1) Title and full author contact info on the first page 2) Abstract (short summary of the paper) 3) Introduction (motivates the paper) 4) Approach and methods 5) Implementation 5) Results and evaluation 6) Strengths and weaknesses 7) Related work 8) Summary 9) References 10) Appendix: relevant code

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

Include the relevant robot program in the appendix of the paper.

Your related work section should be based on what we read in class; you should relate your project to at least 5 readings we covered.

You are certainly encouraged, but not expected, to read and reference additional papers.

Your references should be done as professionally as those in the best papers we have read. If you are missing some of the information, do a Web search or a library search for it.

If key information for your implementation is found in a manual, you should reference the manual. However, your reference list should not consist largely of hardware and software manuals.

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, but you could provide your code in the appendix. Again, if confused, consult the papers we read in class to get an idea of how detailed you need to be.

The goal of the final paper is to demonstrate how you have integrated information we have covered in class with your final project. Therefore, the goal of the paper is not just to summarize the course, nor is it to just summarize your implementation, but it is to give an example of relevant work and put it in the context of the course.

If you worked on a team project, you should still write an individual report, and make it clear what your specific contribution to the project was, as well as outline and describe the entire project. Duplicate reports or portions of reports will not be accepted.