FAQ on Capstone Project

Hello! Hopefully everyone is having a great day. I know a lot of 3rd and last year students are very curious and somewhat anxious on the topic "Capstone". An uncharted territory indeed. I was waiting to write about this for quite some time. I thought, I would write in a playful, story like format. But right now, for time constraints, I will be writing in FAQ format which is honestly a little distasteful but I hoping you would get your answers fairly quickly in this format. Bear in mind, rules can change.

Q1: What's the team buildup for capstone?

There are at least 1 and at most 4 member in a team in acceptable. There will be a supervisor, a teacher, who will basically guide you through. (more on supervisor later)

Q2: When's the best time to build team and start working on project?

It takes some time to find the appropriate group. Some back-stabbing happens during this process (not always). It is better to build team or stay alone and start looking for project ideas from the very beginning of the last year.

Q3: What projects should I work on?

There are no discrimination between different projects. You can work on Machine Learning, AI, Web Application, Android Application, IOT and anything in between. You have to solve a real-life problem. No generic project will be accepted e.g. e-Commerce site.

Q4: What about supervisor?

You or your team will choose your own supervisor. Every teacher has their own field of expertise. Make sure your selected teacher has the expertise on the field you will be working on. Consult with them if they want to supervise you. They will decline if they already have multiple groups working under him/her. Otherwise, most often, they will accept. Do not assume they will help you to build your project. They will be there to pinpoint the gaps in your project idea, show the mistakes you have made, suggest you features to add. They will be the bridge between you and the authority board, talk with them in your behalf, in case you have made any mistake. After consulting and confirming, there will be form to fill to make him/her your official supervisor.

Q5: What is the official roadmap from start to finish?

A google classroom will created to announce the dates and also to share resources. By this time you will officially have your supervisor. The events will take place in the following sequence:

1. You have to give "Idea Presentation" where you will present your project idea in front of all the teachers. (Yes, almost all of them will be present during the presentation.) In the end they will accept or reject your project proposal. The rejected teams may or may not be given another chance to submit another project. Most likely, they will be given another chance. And if you are rejected you have to wait for another semester. Yay!
2. You will be asked to create a poster to explain you idea. This time you will present your project not only to the teachers but the whole university. Good Luck!
3. At this time, you will be start working on the project officially. There will be a few presentations regarding the updates you have made in your project. Your projects won't be rejected at this stage but surely you will be interrogated by the teachers. (not very pleasing memory)
4. Now you will be asked to write an essay on your project. This is going to be a very big essay and will contain everything about your project in very fine detail. Almost a book (usually 25-30+ pages). There's specific format on how to write it. Don't worry, The format will be given in the Google Classroom. You have create 4 copies of the essay and submit them within a given date and time to Member Secretary (one of the teacher will be burdened with this responsibility and you guys will be notified in Google Classroom). Among the 4 copies one will stay with Member Secretary and 3 others will be given to three different teachers. Who will pinpoint and mark the problems you have made which includes formatting issues, page number issues, inconsistencies in the information, wrong information, lack of citation, wrong citation problem, not having enough proof for your work etc. After the check those 3 copies will be given back to you. You will fix your Capstone Essay using these. This is done so that you don't have any mistake in you final copy and doesn't get rejected.
5. Now the final presentation. Here you will be given a presentation format which you will have to follow. An example presentation will be provided as a resource in Google Classroom. On this day you have to bring your fully completed project and a report on the project, the report format will follow research paper and have to be written in Latex. Also, you have to bind diaries of the Capstone Essay. One for the department and one for each of the members. Say you have 2 members in your team, you have bring 3 diaries. You have to submit your presentation, report and all the diaries to the teachers (board members) present there. You may or may not get diaries back. Most probably you will given them back.
6. You have to showcase your project to whole university just like poster presentation as an event.
7. At a given date, possibly the same date as the project showcase event. You would have to collect or bring the diaries and take signatures from the board members one by one and lastly take signature from the member secretary. He will keep one diary and give the rest of those to each members of the team. Now you will take those diaries, find a suitable spot and take pictures to post on Facebook. You will be smiling but the wrinkles on you face, dark circle below your eyes will be visible (assuming you actually worked hard and built your project by yourself).

Q6: How much money capstone would cost me?

I am excluding the tuition fee. All of the printing, bindings, diary binding, poster would cost more than 2500 BDT. The poster would cost you 300-350 BDT. The diary and other printings cost are variables and hard to provide exact numbers. This would depend on where you print those. The IOT projects would suffer most on cost issues. IOT projects exceeds to couple thousands BDT depending on the complexity and extra if things get broken which is quite common.

Q7: Can I change my supervisor or project in the middle of all this?

Yes. Both of them technically possible. I would highly discourage it. Think about it. You have to start your whole project from scratch. And time is running. There's a high chance you will not be able to complete all of the things mentioned in Q5 in time. If you want to change your supervisor, you have to talk with him upfront. Don't shy or be uncomfortable to talk about it. But first, make sure to consult with your potential new supervisor if he/she is available to take you in and tell him/her your situation and that you already have a supervisor. Only then, go to your current supervisor and tell you want to change because your project idea might not be compatible with his expertise and that you have found a more suitable supervisor for this. Lets get real for a second, supervising is not pleasing, it's a hassle and no one is dying to supervise you. If the teacher isn't mentally ill, he will not hold a grudge. But make sure to make a plausible cause. It's better if you do the change before making the supervisor official. Because first of all there will be paperwork if you do that. Secondly, almost all of the teachers will be taken and your choices will limited. Lastly, it could hurt the teacher's ego because it have become official and everyone will know about this change.

I hope I've covered almost all the questions that could rise. Now, I would share some optional tips with you. First of all, please take this seriously. Make a good, worthy project. I know it is exhausting, time consuming, many of you might think I will make something just to pass barely (which I did and I regrate every moment I think about it). Some of will do worse, they will copy or buy projects which is entirely possible and rarely confronted or caught red-handed. But I would request you to do something for which you will be proud. You can proudly say, "I built this. This was my idea." You can also build the groundwork for your business or your own product from this. Though let me remind you that every report that your write and presentation you make will be considered the property of university so don't expose your entire idea on those if you are really serious about your own product or business idea. Be selfish while building your team. You may work alone but there's too much work to do it alone. You would require helping hand. Don't take anyone who doesn't help. You will find yourself in a grave danger. This is not the moment to be a good person, it's the moment when you have to be realistic and down to earth person. Confront directly who doesn't help. Give your team members specific tasks. Determine who will do what in group discussion. Make them complete it. Don't help team members. Team with someone who doesn't need help. Also don't advertise other member's contribution as yours. Make routine and timeline and don't overdue it. You will make a bomb project, I assure you.

Thank you for reading and I wish you luck on your journey.