CS486 Course Schedule

Fall 2025
(Tentative. Dates may be adjusted slightly and other assignments may be added)

 
Class Meeting Planned

Week	Topics and Assignments	Deliverables
1 (8/25)	Welcome! First day of class: Friday, 29 August, 2025 Kickoff Meeting: Opening Comments and Introduction.	Reference: Weekly Task Report Template Reference: Sample Task Report
2 (9/1) Labor Day 9/1	Task: Communication Strategy Memo Assmt: Software Design Document	Due: Comm. memo task Class Meeting Planned
3 (9/8)	TBD
4 (9/15)	Design Doc Draft Due to mentor	Due:Draft of Design Doc
5 (9/22)	Design doc, final version due	Due: Final Design Doc Due: Peer Eval #1 Class Meeting Planned
6 (9/29)	TBD	No Meeting
7 (10/6)	DR2 Presentation guidelines spec
8 (10/13)	Design Review II presentations (as Videos) DR2: Special video format instructions Assmt: Full Prototype Tech Demo Milestone Spec. (Demo "Flight Plan" Template)	Due: DR2, Step1, videos posted Prep for Alpha Prototype Demo! Class Meeting Planned
9 (10/20)	Alpha Demos this week	Due: Schedule/hold tech demo with mentor Due: DR2, step2, your review due back to your assigned teams Due: Peer Eval #2
10 (10/27)	Assmt: Software Testing Plan Assmt: Capstone Poster	Due: DR2, step3, final versions due
11 (11/3) Veteran's Day 11/9	Review: DR3 Presentation guidelines spec Hard work! Testing, refinement of prototype	Due:Software Testing Plan Due: Schedule Poster review with your mentor
12 (11/10)	Design Review III presentations	Friday: Design review Presentations! Due: Peer Eval #3 Due: Posters must be emailed to the Sanghi College of Engineering Front Desk ( SCE@nau.edu ) by 14 November
13 (11/17)	CAPSTONE Conference! SICCS FEST, 10am-5pm, Friday Novemeber 21, 2025 Assmt: Project Mini-Video (final version) Assmt: Completed Team Website Assmt: Capstone Presentation (+ Dry run)	Due:Schedule Capstone dry run with your mentor Due: Test Demo: schedule with your mentor by end of week
14 (11/24) Thanksgiving 11/27 & 11/28	Assmt: Final Product Acceptance Demos (demo plan template)	Due: Peer Eval #4 and completed Team Website
15 (12/1)	Project completion work: Finish up reports, documentation, user manuals, deployment prep Assmt: Final Project Delivery (Product Delivery Check-off sheet) Assmt: Final (as-built) report Task: Team Reflection Document	Due: by Friday, in class December 5th: Capstone Presentation Due: Completed and Accepted Demo Due:Project Mini-Video, posted on team website, plus email to mentor Class Meeting Planned: Presentation Day!
16 (12/8) FINALS WEEK		Due: Final project report (Monday December 8) Due: User manual and completed checkoff sheet, signed by client (Monday December 8) Due: Team Reflection Document (Tuesday December 9) Due: Peer Eval #5 (Tuesday December 9)

In the table above:

• Unless explicitly specified otherwise, due dates are generally given *by week* rather than as a specific date, simply because various teams have their mentor meetings at different times. Most teams will want to present deliverables to their mentor at their regular weekly meeting but, at latest, deliverables are due to your team mentor by Friday 5pm.


• A TASK is a small, fast job that you need to get done. Tasks may or may not have deliverables; if they do, they are generally very short, e.g., send me and/or someone an email. Due dates for tasks are generally expressed in "days after task can start", which usually means after I tell the class to get it done.


• An Assignment (Assmt) is a larger deliverable that you will want to get started on right away in the week that you see it in the schedule. Assignments are generally larger deliverables that will take the team a week or more to prepare.

 

Don't forget:

• All deliverables (hardcopy or electronic) should have a cover sheet with team logo, team name, team members, class, assignment title, date. For evolving documents, a version number is also desirable.


• For smaller hardcopy document deliverables (<5 pages), a staple is adequate. Larger document deliverables should be bound in a professional report cover. No paper clips, dog-ears, or other "alternative" methods of grouping papers allowed.


• For document deliverables that are allowed in electronic form, they must be packaged in a single, professional, and clean PDF document.