Project 13 – Dropping Disks on Pegs
 
2. Should this project be considered for the Best Project award? (yes/no)
no 
 
3. Should this project be considered for the top 3 project awards? (yes/no)
no 
 
4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall organization/clarity 
of the project report? (1-10)
7 
 
5. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall project idea? (1-10)
9 
 
6. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall research 
contribution of the project idea, methodology and/or results?  (1-10)
4
 
Then write approximately 2 pages of helpful feedback to the project's 
author(s). The following questions should help you organize your 
feedback: 
 
* Overall, is the project report clear, concise, and well-organized?
This report is a vast improvement upon the proposal paper of only a few weeks ago. Organization has 
been greatly improved and typographical errors virtually eliminated. This paper is still significantly shorter 
than the specified 25 pages and the font appears to be more of a size 14 than a size 12, but I recognize 
that you were only a freshman working on this project alone. 
 
* How does the project idea and methodology fit within the framework 
of Developmental Robotics?
Including the proposals of the future work section, this project fits well into the framework of 
Developmental Robotics. He approached the task in a manner that emphasizes the learning of the task 
rather than the teaching of the task, and this is an essential component of research in the field of 
Developmental Robotics.
 
* Describe what you like BEST about the project?
The application of the previous work from the ISU lab into this new study is planned excellently. The 
plan to extend this work to algorithms for most-probable success and most-uncertain success areas is 
also very interesting.
 
 
* Describe what you like LEAST about the project?
The lack of data collected. 56 trials is very low for a project of this type. It would have also been nice to 
see the utilization of background subtraction for the image processing. Yet, I understand that time was a 
major constraint for this project.
My greatest recommendation for you is to find a team to work with for projects of this magnitude. There is 
much more that can be accomplished at far lower stress levels when you have others by your side. 
 
* Do the methods, results and contributions of the final project 
correspond to what was presented in the initial project proposal?
The methodology is the same as presented in the proposal. There were a few changes (such as 
accounting for a disk falling from the table) that were not thought about during the proposal stage but are 
expected with research of this kind. The framework was there, but there was simply not enough data 
collected for the results to be meaningful. 
 
* Are there any major details left out with regards to the methods, 
algorithms, or experimental design described in the report? 

No major details in methodology were notably excluded. Additional clarification of the “area” mentioned 
on page 9 would be very good to see. Also, a description of yourself and your qualifications would be 
welcome.
 
* Do the experimental results reported in the paper demonstrate success?
No. <10% success was recorded. I would say it is very likely that this is due to the limited data set. Once 
a strong data set is built and a “highest probability” algorithm created, success should be much higher. 
 
* Do you have any suggestions for improvement and future work?
As noted above, more data, more data, more data! Your short term extensions for future research are 
well thought through, and could easily be obtained with another semester of work. I would recommend 
that you pursue these avenues and see what you can do and what discoveries you can make. 
 
* How close is the final project report to being publishable as a 
conference or journal paper (consider the research papers that were 
part of the course reading)? What would it take to get there?
At this stage, not very close. The two most important things that need to be done are more data collected 
and presented in a longer paper. This will come when you have algorithms similar to the button pressing 
algorithms (guess and check [you’ve done this], highest probability, lowest probability, etc.) and the data 
and results from these.

In overall conclusion, I am greatly impressed with the progress that was done since the proposal. There is 
still work that needs to be done, but I believe that your progress was good when all of the factors were 
considered.