 ____       _          ____                        
|  _ \ ___ | |__   ___/ ___| _   _ _ __ ___   ___  
| |_) / _ \| '_ \ / _ \___ \| | | | '_ ` _ \ / _ \ 
|  _ < (_) | |_) | (_) |__) | |_| | | | | | | (_) |
|_| \_\___/|_.__/ \___/____/ \__,_|_| |_| |_|\___/ 
                                                   
  ____            _    _                 _    
 / ___|___   ___ | | _| |__   ___   ___ | | __
| |   / _ \ / _ \| |/ / '_ \ / _ \ / _ \| |/ /
| |__| (_) | (_) |   <| |_) | (_) | (_) |   < 
 \____\___/ \___/|_|\_\_.__/ \___/ \___/|_|\_\

RoboSumo Assessment Guide and Blog Guidelines

Assessment components

The RoboSumo project grade accounts for 50% of the Design Projects (DESI 1006) module grade. The RoboSumo grade comprises four equally weighted components:

Assessment Component	Assessment Criteria	Assessment Mechanism
Tournament ranking (25%)	The robot’s ranking in the final RoboSumo tournament.	A formula is applied to each robot’s tournament ranking. Usually, the same mark is awarded to all members of a team, but marks may be redistributed to reflect substantially different individual contributions.
Individual contribution to group process (25%)	Contribution to team organisation, planning and decision making. Knowledge sharing – explaining concepts to (or learning from) other team members. Engagement in team discussions.	In-class tutor observation. Analysis of submitted material.
Individual contribution to technical attainment (25%)	Project management / teamwork. Quality of team decisions. Design and implementation of robot (software and hardware). Technical skills.	Analysis of documentation. Inspection of robot. Tutor observation of process. Interview / quiz assessment.
Documentation submitted throughout project (25%)	Individual contribution to the documentation produced by your group.	Analysis of material presented on student’s individual blog.

Assessment of Documentation – Blog Guidelines

The documentation mark directly accounts for 25% of the RoboSumo project grade. However, evidence drawn from the documentation can contribute to other components of a student's grade (technical attainment, group process). Documentation is to be maintained on each student’s own individual blog. Each student must create their own WordPress blog (using the account provided for you on robosumo.eu).

Your blog should be used to document your work as you go along, rather than just at the end of the project. How often you publish new posts may vary over the course of the project, but as a general guideline, you should probably be adding one new post every couple of weeks on average.

The kind of things that produce highly graded RoboSumo blogs include:

Clear written descriptions of what work you carried out.
Clear descriptions of the group process. What decisions have you made? How are you making decisions as a team? What problems or priorities have you identified?
Minutes of your team meetings.
Explanation of your robot’s strategy or design concept.
Design sketches.
Circuit diagrams.
Original technical diagrams / illustrations.
Results of any tests you have carried out on the robot or its subsystems, including measured currents, voltages, mass, speed, times, etc. using correct units. Use graphs and/or tables where appropriate
Description of algorithm / robot logic, for example using flow charts or state tables.
C code you have written. Include a neatly formatted listing of every program you write for the robot – not just the final battle code.
Photos of what you have built or work you have carried out.
Videos of your robot or work you have carried out.
Clear explanations of background information or theory relevant to the robot design.

Presentation / Tone:

When technical content is presented on a blog, the expectations are different from a formal report or a document that you would present to a client in a professional context. A good rule of thumb is to present the content in a way that would be appropriate when sharing technical information with colleagues within a professional engineering team.

The content should be neat and tidy.
The communication should be clear (both written and visual elements).
Try to be economical in your writing. Avoid waffling.
Photographs of hand-written / hand-drawn diagrams, sketches, calculations, etc. are perfectly acceptable in this context. Writing and drawing on paper is a fast and efficient way of communicating technical information with colleagues. However, if you're uploading hand-written content to your blog, it should be neat and tidy. For example, do not use lined paper for drawings - it looks bad.
Code should be neatly formatted, correctly indented, and appropriately commented. Comments should be clear and accurate. Every code listing should include the name of the person (or people) who wrote it and the date it was last updated.

Remember: Presentation always matters.

Please ensure your blog conforms to the following guidelines:

One blog per student.
Ensure that the title and content of your blog present you in a professional light. In particular, avoid vulgar or offensive content. Readers will generally be comfortable with a degree of informality when technical content is presented on a blog, but portray yourself as an engineering professional.
Uploading photos of sketches, diagrams or calculations on paper is a very useful way of efficiently sharing technical information that is generated on the fly while you’re developing something. However, if you think something you’re writing on paper might end up on your blog, then please write on unlined paper, because it will produce a much more presentable image. Photos of drawings on lined paper almost always look unprofessional.