Course Syllabus
CS/ECE 4710: Computer Engineering Senior Project
Fall 2025
Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:25 - 1:45pm in MEB 3143
3 units
Instructor
- Dr. Neal Patwari, neal.patwari@utah.edu
Professor, Kahlert School of Computing
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Office hours: request a meeting via email - Dr. Jacobus (Kobus) Van der Merwe, kobus@cs.utah.edu
Jay Lepreau Professor, Kahlert School of Computing
Office hours: request a meeting via email
Assistant Instructor
- Elmir Dzaka, elmir.dzaka@utah.edu
BS and MS in Computer Engineering, University of Utah
PhD Student in Computer Engineering
Preliminary Course Schedule
This schedule will be updated as we run the course together. Any changes will be announced in class and via canvas / discord. In case we use a zoom link to connect someone, the link will be posted on canvas. Information about Team Updates is on Canvas.
| Date | Session # | Topic / Assignment Due |
| Aug 19 | 1 | Intro, Organization. Meeting in LCR (MEB 3147) |
| Aug 21 | 2 | Team Updates |
| Aug 26 | 3 | Team Updates |
| Aug 28 | 4 | Team Updates |
| Sept 2 | 5 | Team Updates |
| Sept 4 | 6 | Team Updates |
| Sept 9 | 7 | Team Updates |
| Sept 11 | 8 | Team Updates |
| Sept 16 | 9 | Team Updates |
| Sept 18 | 10 | Team Updates |
| Sept 23 | 11 | Attend the STEM Internship & Career Fair |
| Sept 25 | 12 | Team Interim Presentations Session 1 (Meeting in MEB 3147 / LCR) Assignment due: Interim project report |
| Sept 30 | 13 | Team Interim Presentations Session 2 (Meeting in MEB 3147 / LCR) |
| Oct 2 | 14 | Team Updates |
| Oct 7 and Oct 9 | - | Fall Break, NO CLASS |
| Oct 14 | 15 | Team Updates |
| Oct 16 | 16 | Team Updates |
| Oct 21 | 17 | Team Updates |
| Oct 23 | 18 | Team Updates Individual Assignment Due: Project Changes Report |
| Oct 28 | 19 | Team Updates |
| Oct 30 | 20 | Team Updates |
| Nov 4 | Election Day, NO CLASS | |
| Nov 6 | 21 | Team Updates |
| Nov 11 | 22 | Team Updates |
| Nov 13 | 23 | Team Updates Assignment due: Public Project Website |
| Nov 18 | 24 | Team Updates |
| Nov 20 | 25 | Team Updates |
| Nov 25 | 26 | Team Updates |
| Nov 27 | Thanksgiving Day, NO CLASS | |
| Dec 2 | 27 | Team Final Presentations Session 1 (Meeting in MEB 3147 / LCR) |
| Dec 4 | 28 | Team Final Presentations Session 2 (Meeting in MEB 3147 / LCR) |
| Fri, Dec 5 | - | 10 am - noon: CE DEMO DAY! noon - 1 pm: Lunch |
| Mon, Dec 8 | Assignment Due: Final Project Report Due |
On demand topics: Lab Resources, Mechanics, LaTeX and Technical Writing, SMT Soldering, ESP Microcontrollers, LED drives, Parts Sourcing, Laser Cutting.
More information on topics of potential interest in the Pages.
Course Description
Prerequisite(s): C- or better in CS/ECE 3992
Corequisite: none
Credits: 3 credit hours
This is the capstone team project course for Computer Engineering majors, except for those who elected to do a thesis, individual research project, or an ECE clinic. The CS/ECE 3992 teams remain intact, and teams follow their goal to build and demonstrate the project they proposed and received approval for in CS/ECE 3992. Students in this class rarely meet in a classroom setting. Instead, each team will meet with the instructors regularly to discuss progress and/or problems as well as demonstrate scheduled milestone results. At the end of the term students are expected to demonstrate their entire operational project to an open house crowd of interested faculty, past and present students, and friends and family. A final written report, in IEEE conference format, is turned in to document the details of the project and its design and development.
Course Outcomes and Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to meet these ABET required learning outcomes in the CE curriculum:
- An ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors (ABET Outcome 2)
- An ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences, in oral and in written presentations. (ABET Outcome 3)
- An ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts. (ABET Outcome 4)
- An ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives. (ABET Outcome 5)
Course Requirements
Assignments and Percentage of Course Grade:
- Team Updates – 20%
- Interim Project Peport – 10%
- Project Changes Report – 5%
- Project Public Website – 10%
- In-class Interim Presentation – 5%
- In-class Final Presentation – 10%
- Demonstration (@Demo Day) -- 20%
- Written Final Report -- 20%
Team Updates are 20 minute presentations + discussions about your recent progress with instructors. They are typically during class periods. Sign up sheets will be posted.
The Project Changes Report is a short (2-3 page) document describing a change or changes to the project plan this semester, why and how your team decided on the change(s), and the impact of the change(s) on the project schedule, product or demonstration.
Project Public Website is information you post on a public website about your project. You may elect to keep some information confidential (code, design specs). The "website" does not need to be complicated, it can be the readme.md in a github repo, or a google doc that is publicly viewable. The intended audience is future 3992/4710 students and attendees to Demo Day who want to know more about your project.
Grading Scale
The course grade is a deterministic function of the weighted average, x, given by Canvas using the percentage weights in the Course Requirements section. The grading function is:
- 93 ≤ x < 100: A
- 90 ≤ x < 93: A-
- 87 ≤ x < 90: B+
- 83 ≤ x < 87: B
- 80 ≤ x < 83: B-
- 77 ≤ x < 80: C+
- 73 ≤ x < 77: C
- 70 ≤ x < 73: C-
- 67 ≤ x < 70: D+
- 63 ≤ x < 67: D
- 60 ≤ x < 63: D-
- x < 60: E
University Policies
Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
Your instructors are committed to improving the delivery of this course to encourage students with disabilities to participate in this course, as our common understanding of the course material is improved by the presence of different learning perspectives. In particular, note that technologies, including those developed as a part of this course, can create disabilities simply by not working for everyone. Students who can help me improve the course delivery or assignments for people with their disability are encouraged to contact me directly.
All written information in this course can be made available in an alternative format with prior notification to the Center for Disability & Access (CDA). CDA will work with us to make arrangements for accommodations. Prior notice is appreciated. To read the full accommodations policy for the University of Utah, please see Section Q of the Instruction & Evaluation regulations. In compliance with ADA requirements, some students may need to record course content. Any recordings of course content are for personal use only, should not be shared, and should never be made publicly available. In addition, recordings must be destroyed at the conclusion of the course. If you will need accommodations in this class, or for more information about what support they provide, contact the Center for Disability & Access.
Addressing Sexual Misconduct
Title IX states that violence and harassment based on sex and gender (which includes sexual orientation and gender identity/expression) is a civil rights offense subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, color, religion, age, status as a person with a disability, veteran’s status, or genetic information. If you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, you are encouraged to report it. The relevant University of Utah office is the Title IX Coordinator & Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. Be aware that your instructors are mandatory reporters and thus must, as a condition of employment, report to the Title IX office any information we hear about sexual misconduct or discrimination. If a report is filed, the involved student retains the right to decide whom they confide in, what information they share, and when and how they seek assistance. Information disclosed to OEO/AA is considered confidential and will only be disclosed to relevant university personnel on a strict need-to-know basis. If you do not feel comfortable reporting to authorities, the U's Victim-Survivor Advocates provide free, confidential, and trauma-informed support services to students, faculty, and staff who have experienced interpersonal violence. To privately explore options and resources available to you with an advocate, contact the Center for Campus Wellness.
Academic Misconduct
It is expected that students comply with University of Utah policies regarding academic honesty, including but not limited to refraining from cheating, plagiarizing, misrepresenting one’s work, and/or inappropriately collaborating. This includes the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools without citation, documentation, or authorization. Students are expected to adhere to the prescribed professional and ethical standards of the profession/discipline for which they are preparing. Any student who engages in academic dishonesty or who violates the professional and ethical standards for their profession/discipline may be subject to academic sanctions as per the University of Utah’s Student Code: Policy 6-410: Student Academic Performance, Academic Conduct, and Professional and Ethical Conduct.
Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and may be punished by failure on an individual assignment, and/or failure in the course. Academic misconduct, according to the University of Utah Student Code:
“...Includes, but is not limited to, cheating, misrepresenting one’s work, inappropriately collaborating, plagiarism, and fabrication or falsification of information…It also includes facilitating academic misconduct by intentionally helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic misconduct.”
For details on plagiarism and other important course conduct issues, see the U's Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
Collaboration Policy
Many of the assignments are group projects, for which you are expected to collaborate. Some other assignments are individual, for which you may talk with other students about the assignment but what you turn in should be your own work, not copied from anyone else.
Generative AI Policy
Generally, generative AI-derived text is poor writing, and any poor writing will be graded as such. Assignments are meant to give you practice in how to think critically about your project design and the impact of your design choices; using AI may negatively impact your learning and thus your ability to perform in your future career.
In any written assignment, this class follows the AI rules of Prof. Cecile Paskett (ECE 3030/3031 Instructor). Those rules say that the following uses of AI constitutes misconduct:
- Using AI to generate an outline or sequence of ideas, which you then expand using your own writing.
- Using AI to generate any text that you copy and paste into any assignment.
- Using AI to generate answers to questions in an assignment.
- Using AI-driven writing assistance tools, such as the paid version of Grammarly (the free version is okay).
- Using AI to create or generate technical graphics.
It is acceptable to use AI in this class for the following:
- to correct grammar or spelling (e.g., the free version of Grammarly, spell check)
- Using AI to brainstorm ideas and topics, which you will use as a starting place to generate your own ideas and begin your own research.
Do Not Plagiarize
Writing another author's ideas into your written document without attribution is plagiarism and is forbidden. There are two ways that your instructor typically sees plagiarism:
- Word-for-word copying of another person's written words is a quote; and must be put within quotation marks and cited. Without the quotation marks and citation, word-for-word copying is plagiarism.
- Paraphrasing another author's idea should be cited. Without that citation, paraphrasing is plagiarism.
A related third way is that AI-generated text is plagiarism in that it is generated from other's words and ideas, taken without credit. It sometimes contains word-for-word plagiarism which will then be flagged by a plagiarism detector.
In one sense, plagiarism is easy to avoid. When an author's words are so perfect that you want to use them word-for-word in your document, just put them in quotes and add a citation after the end of the quote. When you use an idea that you learned from another author, just end the sentence with a citation to the source. Then, put a reference list at the end of the document with a description of the source.
But plagiarism can be hard to avoid if you are disorganized. To prevent accidental plagiarism, you should never copy and paste text from a source. Instead, here are some ideas on how to keep ideas and words tagged with the source, so that you don't ever forget the link between them:
- Keep a printout or pdf of any source you read, and highlight parts you think might be useful.
- Use a research organizational tool like Zotero, which associates your notes with the source itself, and makes citation and reference lists easy.
- Keep a index card for each research paper or website you use for the project. Write on the card the full citation, and any notes of yours from the source, on the card.
In any case, these practices keep the words and ideas associated with the source that you got them from, so that when you write the document, you will remember which source each idea or quote came from.