Projects

The full project list is below. The projects are now listed in order of talk time. Please check that your group is there! If you have a problem making the talk time, let me know as soon as possible and I will try and reschedule.

If your project has not yet been approved, or has no title, get in touch with me immediately.

Each group will be given exactly 15 minutes to talk, and every member must present something. The time schedule is very tight as we have to cram 3 presentations into a 50-minute session, so I will stop groups if necessary. The talk times are given as slots in the session - for a 10am start, slot 1 will start at about 10:05, slot 2 somewhere between 10:20 and 10:25, and slot three at about 10:40.

Group leader	Other group members	Project name	Presentation time	Presentation location
Kohleth Chia	Brendan Duong	Is attendance at tutorials	Slot 1	Russell Love Theatre
	Tiong Tjin Saw	associated with higher exam marks?	Tuesday, May 19	Richard Berry
Kirsty Albion	Kokulan Ganesamoorthy	Is it the university's fault you were late?	Slot 1	Agar Theatre
	Simon Walter		Wednesday, May 20	Zoology Building
Hannah Lew	Rebecca Hrvatin	Chug, chug, chug!!	Slot 2	Agar Theatre
	Nitasha Randall		Wednesday, May 20	Zoology Building
	Victoria Wyatt
Louie Li	Yen Li Chang	What factors affect the ability to hold one's breath	Slot 3	Agar Theatre
	Aileen Tan	for the longest possible time?	Wednesday, May 20	Zoology Building
James Maino	Su-Ann Koh	Predicting packaging of processed products	Slot 1	Agar Theatre
	Hung Lai		Friday, May 22	Zoology Building
Galina Daraganova		How social are we?	Slot 2	Agar Theatre
			Friday, May 22	Zoology Building
James Walter	Sumeet Dhar	Lifespan of a candle	Slot 3	Agar Theatre
	Prudence Rice		Friday, May 22	Zoology Building
Ralph Wilson	Julia Borovkova	Trends in petrol prices	Slot 1	Agar Theatre
	Hwa Loong Soh		Monday, May 25	Zoology Building
Marc Eames	Michael Crocker	Exploiting AFL bookmakers:	Slot 2	Agar Theatre
	Gordon Leslie	How to survive the GFC (global financial crisis)	Monday, May 25	Zoology Building
TBD	Nassif Nabeal	Untitled	Slot 3	Agar Theatre
	Clinton So		Monday, May 25	Zoology Building
Sean Filmer	Sam Brain	The first steps to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease	Slot 1	Russell Love Theatre
	Jacob Egwunye	- using linear models	Tuesday, May 26	Richard Berry
Kiran Chellaram	Muhammad Nor Abd Wahab	Blood pressure dangers	Slot 2	Russell Love Theatre
	Misha Marchev		Tuesday, May 26	Richard Berry
Toby Cooper	Jordan Brown	Effect of sleep on alertness	Slot 3	Russell Love Theatre
	Jacklyn Chu		Tuesday, May 26	Richard Berry
Izzah Jasni	Weiling Foo	Factors affecting the height of green beans	Slot 1	Agar Theatre
			Wednesday, May 27	Zoology Building
Sami Rafei	Nevin Atik	Untitled	Slot 2	Agar Theatre
	Hivin Ramadan		Wednesday, May 27	Zoology Building
David Xu	Kelly Chiu	5 week life of Mr. Mung Bean	Slot 3	Agar Theatre
	Jonathan Chow		Wednesday, May 27	Zoology Building

Project information

The purpose of the project is to give you some experience in study design, data collection, data analysis, report writing, teamwork and oral presentation.

Working in groups of size 3 (other group sizes will only be permitted under special circumstances, and will need to be approved by me), you are required to design and conduct a study of your (group's) choice and to analyse the resultant data.

We will form groups in the first practice class (Tuesday, 3rd of March), so make sure you can come.

You are free to use any idea or question that you want for your study, as long as it provides you with an experiment that you can design and conduct. In other words, pick something that you would like to know the answer to and go nuts! Some previous projects studied include:

• An investigation into whether people gain more enjoyment from more expensive wine;
• A study of the factors which affect the ability to bounce a basketball; or
• An exploration of the effects that different factors have on the boiling time of water.

There are 3 deliverables for the project:

Outline

Due: 30th March

Before collecting any data, groups must submit an outline of their proposed study to me for approval. The outline should be brief (no more than 2 pages). It should specify the question to be addressed by the study, the type and (an estimate of) the amount of data you intend to collect, and an indication as to how you intend to analyse the data.

The outline will not be graded, but is required to get a mark for the other project components.

Presentation

Due: Last two weeks of semester

Each group will present their findings in a talk of 15-20 minutes length. Every member of the group will be required to present something, and marks will be given based on each individual's presentation.

The presentation is worth 5% of your total mark, and you will be marked based on:

• The content that you present;
• The clarity of your presentation.

Report

Due: 29th May

Each member of the group is required to participate in the writing of a report (one report per group) in a style that follows, as far as is practical, the format of a research paper, namely:

1. Abstract -- a half-page (or thereabouts) overview of the paper.
2. Introduction -- literature review and statement of purpose.
3. Method -- description of the experiment and method(s) of analysis.
4. Results -- report of the statistical analyses using a combination of text, tables and graphs.
5. Discussion -- interpretation of findings, possible shortcomings of the study and conclusions.
6. References -- a list of books and/or papers referred to in the report.
7. Appendix -- a place for more technical details and computer output.

The report is worth 5% of your total mark, and you will be marked based on:

• The design of your study;
• The analysis and discussion of your data; and
• The clarity of your report.

The important thing is that you understand what you are doing and think scientifically about your study. Ask yourselves questions, such as:

• Are there any possible sources of unseen bias in my study?
• Is there a better way to analyse my data?
• Should I take into account more explanatory factors, or drop some of the factors I already have?
• If I were to do this experiment again, what would I do differently and what other questions would I ask?
• What are the important findings in this study that I can communicate to my audience, and how best should I communicate them?
• How can I structure my report so that my points and results are communicated clearly and unambiguously?

I strongly recommend that you use L^ATEX  for the preparation of your report, and also recommend it for your presentation. If you don't know about it, L^ATEX  is a mathematics-friendly typesetting system which is much better than anything else for the production of mathematical documents and presentations. It is also surprisingly versatile -- everything in this course was produced using L^ATEX. This includes the lecture slides, the assignments, and the website.

A good distribution for L^ATEX  is MiKTeX -- you can then run L^ATEX  from the command-line or download a front-end such as WinEdt or TeXnicCenter (Windows) or TexShop (Mac). I personally (on a Linux machine) edit my files with gvim and run L^ATEX  from the command-line. I also use the beamer class file for my presentations.