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<title>CS-121 Project Prototypes</title>
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<h1>Computer Science 121</h1>
<h2>Prototype</h2>
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Throughout your project you will regularly develop prototypes.
You should follow the steps described below.
Your discussion, decisions,
and rationale should be documented
(and labeled "Prototype goals" and "Prototype results") in your planning/assessment notes.
Your efforts will
be evaluated using this <a href="./p1rubrics/prototypeRubric.html">rubric</a>.
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<li><b>Ask a question:</b>
A prototype should be developed in order to answer some question;
typically that question is about some risk.  Before
you decide what your prototype(s) will do,
you should figure out what question(s) you want to answer. 

<li><b>Devise an assessment strategy:</b>
A prototype will be far more useful to you if you decide how
it will be assessed before you build it!
How specifically will you test the prototype to answer your question(s)?
Will you have users test your prototype?  If so, devise a test protocol,
questionnaire, etc.
If it is a proof of concept, what specifically are you going to achieve?
What will constitute success?

<li><b>Choose your technology:</b>
Consider a range of technologies and choose the simplest that will work.
Consider paper prototypes and story boards
to flesh out game and UI designs.
Consider text documents to script out storylines.
Consider quick prototyping of simulations or algorithms in
languages like python, even if it won't be your development language.
And consider game engines to quickly prototype a game concept to
flesh out your understanding of mechanics.

<li><b>Define what the prototype will do in concrete terms.</b>
The previous steps may have gone a long way to answer this for you but if not, 
be sure you have very specific goals.
Answering questions like "can the team learn xna?"
can mean anything from "can we successfully load the sdk and run a demo?" to "can we
build the first level of our game?"
Be very specific about what you will build.
<li><b>Build your prototype and document it.</b>
<li><b>Assess your results.</b>
What did you learn?  Have your questions answered?  If not, what will you do next?
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