CPE/CSC 480 F03 Assignment 1: AI Nuggets

In this first assignment, your task is to find interesting concepts, methods, or applications dealing with Artificial Intelligence, and give a short presentation of about 5-10 minutes to your class mates.

Choice of Topics

The easiest way to find information is probably to use the Internet; a few good starting points are the Web sites of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/current.html, the Web sites of AI journals such as the IEEE Computer Society's "Intelligent Systems" journal at http://www.computer.org/intelligent/, its counterpart from the Association of Computing Machinery, "http://www.acm.org/sigart/int/ (this journal ceased publication in 2001), and a commercial publication, the PC AI magazine at http://www.pcai.com/pcai. If you have problems identifying a topic, you can also talk to me, or see Wayne Montgomery at the library, who is the librarian in charge of Computer Science topics.

Deliverables

You need to present your topic to your classmates, and prepare a Web page with a brief description of your finding. A handout, e.g. a printout of your Web page or copies of PowerPoint slides, should accompany your presentation, and be made available to class on Blackboard. The presentation should last about ten minutes; your written documentation should be about the equivalent of two to three printed pages.

Time Table

The due date listed for the first assignment in the class schedule refers to the selection of a presentation date only. After that, the deadlines depend on your selected or assigned presentation date, and are listed in the table below.

Issue Deadline

Topic selected and approved three weeks before presentation

Draft of presentation and handout prepared two weeks before presentation

Final version of presentation and handout prepared one week before presentation

Accompanying Web pages prepared one week before presentation

Grading Criteria

The table below indicates the grading criteria I intend to use for the evaluation of this homework.

Criterion Points

Draft version of presentation and handout 5

Final version of presentation and handout, Web pages 5

Delivery of presentation 15

Computer-Based Presentations

Feel free to use PowerPoint or some other presentation software. You can use my Macintosh iBook, but there are a few practical constraints. It doesn't have a floppy disk drive, so you need to put the file with the presentation on Blackboard at the latest the day before you give the presentation. I have the latest version of PowerPoint on my iBook, and most presentations work without problems. If you're using sounds, images, movie clips or other advanced features, make sure that they are either directly included in the main file, or that the auxiliary files are also submitted. If you want to be on the safe side, you can also bring your own laptop, or borrow one from Media Services.

Presentation Hints

For those of you who don't have much experience giving presentations, follow this link to some presentation hints.

FJK Home

CPE/CSC 480 F03

Issue	Deadline
Topic selected and approved	three weeks before presentation
Draft of presentation and handout prepared	two weeks before presentation
Final version of presentation and handout prepared	one week before presentation
Accompanying Web pages prepared	one week before presentation

Criterion	Points
Draft version of presentation and handout	5
Final version of presentation and handout, Web pages	5
Delivery of presentation	15

Points	25
Deadline	Ongoing