Duke e-mail: rabih.younes
Instructor 1-on-1 office hours are available by appointment (link to make appointments on our Canvas homepage).
To provide anonymous feedback about anything related to the course, please follow the link provided on our Canvas homepage.
Teaching Assistant (TA):
- Andrew Van Horn (asv22)
- In Hudson 101A on Thursdays at 8:00–10:00
- By appointment via Zoom using the link posted on Canvas
Course Description
In this course, students design, implement, and evaluate wearable and ubiquitous computing systems while learning about the fundamentals and pertinent research in the field. Topics covered include challenges and constraints in wearable and ubiquitous computing, input/output devices, human-computer interaction, embedded systems, prototyping, machine learning with focus on activity and affect recognition, applications with focus on healthcare, ethics, and societal impact. This course also covers project management and planning as students work on a semester-long team-based multidisciplinary project. Prerequisites: ECE 350L or ECE 550D. One course.Learning Objectives
Having successfully completed this course, the student should be able to:- design, develop, and evaluate wearable/ubiquitous computing systems;
- describe and discuss design constraints unique to wearable and ubiquitous computing;
- identify and utilize hardware and software development tools useful in wearable systems development;
- work efficiently in teams on resource-constrained open-ended projects with real-world impact;
- critically read, review, and present academic research papers; and
- create and deliver oral and written presentations documenting a design project to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Textbook and Other Course Material
No textbook is required for this course. All needed material will be posted on Canvas.Grading Policy
- Design project (70%): Students are required to work in teams of 3 on a semester-long project. The
project should relate to wearable computing, address a real-world problem, and it should add new information to
the existing
literature in the field (no exact duplication of other projects). Remember, the better the contribution of the
project the better would be the chances to publish it later in a paper.
Deliverables:- Project proposal (5%) — one per team
- Weekly deliverables (20%) — one per team, including individual progress reports (one per student)
- Mid-semester presentation (10%) — one per team
- Final presentation and demo (20%) — one per team
- Project report (15%) — one per team
- Paper reviews (10%): Students are required to submit reviews of assigned papers when needed
throughout the semester. The review for each paper should follow the following format:
- Motivation(s): describe the main motivation(s) behind the work of the paper in 1 sentence
- Contribution(s): state the main contribution(s) of the paper in 1 sentence
- Approach: provide a high-level description of the approach in 1–3 sentences
- Strengths: provide a subjective description of the strengths of the paper in 1–3 sentences
- Weaknesses: provide a subjective description of the weaknesses of the paper in 1–3 sentences
- Class discussions (10%): Students are required to share their ideas in class about the papers that they read and engage in meaningful, insightful, and fruitful conversations. No person is allowed to dominate the conversation.
- Paper presentation (10%): Each student is required to present a research paper among the papers that are assigned throughout the semester. Each presentation should take about 15 minutes (not including questions).
- Extra credit (+2): Each team member will receive two extra points on their final course grade if the team submits a one-minute video about their project's process and final deliverable (take pictures and videos along the way).
- NO EXAMS/QUIZZES!
- Late policy: Late submissions are not allowed unless you have a valid excuse. In that case, email your instructor about it as soon as possible and wait for a decision (might involve a penalty, depending on the excuse). Refer to this list of common but unacceptable excuses borrowed from Dr. Bletsch.
- Regrading policy: Regrading must be requested no later than one week after the assignment grade is released.
- Grading schema (minimum %):
- 97: A+
- 93: A
- 90: A-
- 87: B+
- 83: B
- 80: B-
- 77: C+
- 73: C
- 70: C-
- 67: D+
- 63: D
- 60: D-
- 0: F
Important Notes
We can only grade what we receive. Always check what you are submitting and make sure you submit the right files.
We will use the Scrum agile project management framework throughout the project. You are free to select the tool that would help you with that.
We will use Box to keep track of each team's progress (team meeting minutes, individual progress reports, etc.) in order to facilitate documentation and grading.
We have access to all ECE labs and Duke makerspaces for project-related work; Hudson 101A will be our main lab and has lockers we can use for storage.
There will be awards at the end of the semester for best project, best presenter, and best research analyst.
Misconduct
- Academic misconduct will not be tolerated and will be taken very seriously.
- You are expected to complete the assignments individually unless otherwise stated.
- Students are encouraged to share ideas, learn from each other, and learn from online sources, but cheating is not tolerated.
- Any borrowed design/code/etc. — if allowed to be borrowed — should be properly cited.
- Students suspected violating the Duke Community Standard will be reported.
- In addition to the measures taken by the administration, the affected assignment(s) will receive zero credit, or possibly -100% in extreme cases.
- If you are considering this course of action, please see me instead and we can work something out! I want every student in my course to be successful.
- Note that programming submissions will be compared to one another and to previous semesters using state-of-the-art tools to detect signs of plagiarism.
Tentative Schedule
| Week | Date | Topic | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thu 1/11 | Syllabus | |
| 2 | Tue 1/16 | Intro to UbiComp + Prototyping | |
| 2 | Thu 1/18 | Discussing Projects + Agile Project Management + Value Proposition | |
| 3 | Tue 1/23 | Discussing Projects + Intro to Making + Presentation Topic Selection | |
| 3 | Thu 1/25 | Discussing Teams' Project Proposals | Team project proposal |
| 4 | Tue 1/30 | The Vision of UbiComp According to Mark Weiser | Paper review |
| 4 | Thu 2/1 | QFT & Decision Matrices + Project-Related Work | |
| 5 | Tue 2/6 | HCI/UCD | Paper review |
| 5 | Thu 2/8 | Project-Related Work | |
| 6 | Tue 2/13 | Challenges and Constraints in Wearables Design | Paper review |
| 6 | Thu 2/15 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 1 deliverables |
| 7 | Tue 2/20 | Wearable Input/Output Technologies | Paper review |
| 7 | Thu 2/22 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 2 deliverables |
| 8 | Tue 2/27 | UbiComp Sensing | Paper review + Team peer feedback 1 |
| 8 | Thu 2/29 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 3 deliverables |
| 9 | Tue 3/5 | Mid-Semester Project Presentations | Mid-semester project presentation |
| 9 | Thu 3/7 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 4 deliverables |
| 10 | Tue 3/12 | NO CLASS (Spring Recess) | |
| 10 | Thu 3/14 | NO CLASS (Spring Recess) | |
| 11 | Tue 3/19 | Context Awareness | Paper review |
| 11 | Thu 3/21 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 5 deliverables |
| 12 | Tue 3/26 | UbiComp & Healthcare | Paper review + Team peer feedback 2 |
| 12 | Thu 3/28 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 6 deliverables |
| 13 | Tue 4/2 | UbiComp & Society | |
| 13 | Thu 4/4 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 7 deliverables |
| 14 | Tue 4/9 | Guest Lecture by Chris Koszarsky — Director of Engineering, Garmin | |
| 14 | Thu 4/11 | Project-Related Work | Sprint 8 deliverables |
| 15 | Tue 4/16 | Project Final Presentations & Demos | Final project presentation |
| 15 | Thu 4/18 | NO CLASS (professor traveling) | |
| 16 | Tue 4/23 | NO CLASS (professor traveling) | Project report |
This semester's award winners:
- Best project: KidWatch - Child Safety Device (Aarzu Gupta, Mike Habib, and Sophie Williams)
- Best presenter: Nolan Gelinas
- Best research analyst: Andrew Council