405 students: Your project is to replicate/verify the results from the Blondie24 book. You will work in groups of 3 or 4. Pick at least one "defect" from the Blondie24 process (e.g. initial population too small, too few generations, too few nodes/layers in neural network, ...) and compare the original to your "improved" version. You must create a graphical interface that allows you to watch any game played by your neural network. (This will also serve as a useful debugging tool ...) You will also need to collaborate with the other groups so you can play each other. We will have a tournament on April 29 in class.

605 students: You may work by yourself or with one other person. Choose a game of skill that can not be enumerated (e.g. chess, bridge, hearts/spades, reversi/othello, boggle, go, poker, backgammon, ...) and apply the evolutionary learning process described in Blondie24 to the game. Notice that some of the games (poker, backgammon) involve chance (cards, dice) and require a slightly modified approach.

Proposal & Presentation: Each group will give a 10 minute presentation describing their proposed project. You need to provide the following information:

• Who is part of this project?
• What are your goals?
• Are your goals meaningful and measurable?
• Are your goals feasible? (i.e. computer resources, programming effort)
• What resources do you have? (i.e. computers, programs, experts, web, on-line game sites, ...)
• Show a spreadsheet the verifies the computation you need to do
• How are you going to validate the results? (i.e. on-line playing, good player, good program, ...)
• What will you have done at each 2 week interval and will you be ready on April 29?

Turn in a 1-2 page written summary. This will form your initial proposal and will need to be approved by me.

Oral Progress Reports: Once the projects are approved, we will spend 1 class day every 2 weeks to review each group's progress. You will have 10-15 minutes to show what you have done and what is left to do. Demos/stats/examples are the best way to show this. You will be graded on how well you convince me that you are on schedule. You will lose points if you fall behind. Key metrics include board evaluations per second, average time to play a game, average time per generation. Any changes to your proposal need to be written and approved by me.

Grading
10% - Proposal
20% - Oral Progress Reports
10% - Tournament Results
10% - Final Presentation
50% - Final Report

Submit your group members by Thursday March 6.

Proposal is due by Thursday March 20.

Initial presentations will be Tuesday March 25.