Swarm Intelligence: Project Proposal

• The due date for the proposal is Tuesday, May 22, BC.

• Please work in groups of two to four.

• I am mostly interested in projects that apply SI to new areas, rather than projects that apply them to areas in which we know SI works. Nevertheless, if you feel that your approach in an area where we know SI works is better than existing approaches, or sheds new light on existing approaches, that would be great.

• Please keep a journal of your work on the project. When it comes to grading the projects, I am happy to reward an A to projects in which team members worked hard on accomplishing their goals, but come to the conclusion that SI just does not work for their chosen domain.

• Specifications for the written proposals are as follows.
  • It should be two to three pages pages long (single spaced).
  • It should have a tentative title (can be catchy)
  • There should be two parts to your proposal:
    • A concise description of the problem you want to solve or the question you want to address. Give a one sentence description first and then elaborate in the next couple of paragraphs. Feel free to add diagrams if they help in explaining your proposal.
    • An initial review of prior work in your chosen area. Please use the web to locate papers and work in the area, and at least read the abstracts, in order to get a sense of the work that has been done. You also need to address how your work builds on the prior work or how it extends it.
  • References, i.e. resources that describe prior work.
  • The proposal must be spell-checked and use good grammar. In general, it is good style to write short sentences. Use paragraphs and sub-section headings where applicable.