Transcript Presentation - ECpE Senior Design

Equations for Ecademy
Client: ISU Computation Center
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Robert Anderson
Technical Advisor: Dr. Pete Boysen
Team Members:

Tim Arganbright, Kok-loon Chin, Brian Fegler, Eric
Nicks
Team Number: DEC0010
October 24, 2000
In this Presentation…
-Initial Problem
Statement
-Design
-Final Product
-Assumptions/
Limitations
-Project
Risks/Concerns
-Technical View
-Evaluate our Project
-Future Work
-Budget
-Lessons Learned
-Summary
Ecademy Background
Iowa State University professors currently use
ClassNet to provide tests, quizzes, and
homework to students over the internet.
 Over the next few years, the number of
students learning over the Internet is
expected to increase dramatically, which will
increase server load.
 Ecademy will replace ClassNet to reduce
anticipated server load and development
time.

Technical Problem
Ecademy is currently able to handle textbased questions including fill-in-the-blank and
multiple-choice questions.
 Our Goal: Ecademy must be able to handle
equation-based questions for engineering and
physics courses.
 Also, Ecademy will be a template for all
courses, not just for a specific course.
 Bug reporting is necessary to get feedback
from professors.

Design

Functionality – Equations
Professor inputs equation, range of
variables, and tolerance which are stored in
database
 Student views the question, inputs answer,
and receives result

Design
continued
Prof Side Applet
Create Equation
Parse + convert to polish notation
Send params and
equation to DB
Ecademy Grade
Database
Ecademy Question
Database
Student Side Applet
Student requests equation
Receive and answer question
Compare correct answer to input
Result sent to DB
Design

continued
Functionality – Buggy
Professors and developers can input and
view bugs reported to the Ecademy
system.
 Administrator can modify fields such as
status, priority, and description.

Design

continued
Design Constraints
Must be developed using Java JDK 1.3
 Must be written so that new code can be
integrated into Ecademy


Intended Users

Professors and students at Iowa State
University enrolled in classes using
Ecademy
Final Product Professor’s View
Final Product Student’s View
Final Product Buggy
Assumptions
User must download files from Ecademy
install page
 A policy file must be installed on the users
computer to allow Ecademy to write and
delete files from the user’s hard drive.

Limitations
Spaces will not be allowed in the equations
 Professors cannot define their own special
functions
 For proper use of Ecademy, Java 1.3 plug-in
must be installed on user’s browser to use
Ecademy

Project Risks and Concerns
Precision and tolerance of answers as
interpreted by Ecademy could cause some
judging problems.
 Modification of Ecademy could cause rewrite
of our code.

Technical Approach - Professor

Implement the expression parser. This
function reads an equation from a professor,
parses the equation, changes the equation to
polish notation, and saves the result and
other parameters to the database.
Technical Approach – Student

Implement the expression evaluator. The
expression evaluator takes the equation in
polish notation, determines the answer to the
equation based on professor provided
parameters, and compares the correct answer
to student’s input.
Technical Approach - Buggy
Modeled after Java’s bug reporting system.
 Separate functions will be implemented to
handle search, display, submittal, and
modification of bugs.
 Program will be split into functions for
professor usage and functions for
administrative usage.
 Creation of a new database will be required
to store, retrieve, modify, and delete bugs.

Evaluation of Project Success Equations
Parser shall accept a string containing an infix
equation.
 Evaluator shall solve expressions using the
following operators: +, -, *, /, (), %, !=, ==,
!=, >, <, >=, <=, and ^.
 Judger shall compare the student’s submitted
answer to the evaluator’s calculated answer,
then display the correctness of the submitted
answer. (Cancelled before implementation)

Evaluation of Project Success Buggy





Design of Java servlet pages for input/output
Create database
Lookup, submit, and display bugs
Create administrative pages
Combine all parts, test complete system, and
document project
Recommendations for Further
Work
Addition of more usability options for
students and instructors for Ecademy.
 Addition of more math functions, such as
integration, derivation, matrix math,
binary/hex math, and imaginary numbers.
 For bug reporting, upon updates interested
parties can receive messages detailing status
of bug.

Financial Budget
Item
Labor
Equipment and Parts
Telephone and
Postage
Printing
Poster
Total Estimated Cost
Cost
$0
$0
$0
$10
$50
$60
Human Budget
Personnel
Estimated Effort
(in Hours)
Dr. Boysen
50
Dr. Anderson
30
Brian Fegler
171
Chin Kok-Loon
161
Tim Arganbright
156
Eric Nicks
162
Total Estimated
Effort
730
Lessons Learned






Java code development procedures
Team communication
Regular team meetings
Set milestones
Parallel development procedures
Documentation for software projects
Conclusion
Importance of milestones for project success
and timely completion
 Necessity of a modular software design that
gives all team members a separate portion of
the final product

Questions?