EES&OR 341 Mini Project

This mini project is designed to provide you with an additional opportunity to relate your academic experiences with real life. The mini project is required of all students taking EES&OR 341 

Form Team

First, form a team of 3 or 4 people. Anyone enrolled in the class can be on your team. Teams are encouraged to communicate with each other but each team must submit a different project.

Select Problem

Second, select a real-world problem that you have either observed or read about that is related to any of the topics covered in class (if you are not sure if your topic qualifies, feel free to ask me or Oliver). The best sources of ideas may come from newspaper or journal articles, issues you observe within your company, or personal experience.

Analyze Problem

Third, analyze the problem using tools developed in this class. At a minimum, this includes formulating the problem, asking questions associated with the problem, and then providing a solution to the questions that you pose.

Grading

The oral report plus short written report will count for 15% of your course grade.

Due Date

The project will be submitted in the form of an oral presentation to the class on Monday June 2 and a written report handed in on Wednesday June 4.  The presentation should last about 5  minutes. You are encouraged to use overhead slides in the presentation. The written report should not exceed fifteen pages for the entire group.

Feel free to interact with Oliver or me on this mini project.

Some Advice

Be realistic about your goals. This is not a dissertation; it is unreasonable to expect that your group should produce a dissertation level project. It is a practical example of the types of issues we have discussed in class.  It should take no more work than one problem set.

You may not be able to get all the data you need. In fact, you almost undoubtably will NOT be able to get all the data you feel you need. Do the best you can, make estimates for the rest, and let us know what data you simply estimated and what data are real. Keep in mind what data could be available IF you were doing a dissertation or a major research project that was reasonably well funded.