Pre-Qualifying Project

Summary

In C-Term of 1997, our team was enrolled in a pre-qualifying project (PQP) with Professor Barnett. The PQP is a credit-course worth ½ of a normal class and is taken along with the normal course load of a student.

During our PQP, we met with Professor Barnett once per week and worked on a number of topics relevant to learning about Australia and the establishment of a WPI project center. Among these topics was the refinement of our speaking skills - giving presentations about ourselves in front of a "mock" audience - and researching previous bootstrap projects done in China and Korea. Also, we met with other IQP advising professors, garnering information about what they expected from students, how things were run in project centers which they oversaw, and what they thought would be the best approach to establishing a new project center. One meeting of particular importance was with Dr. Thomas Balistrieri. We met with him as a way to look into some of the more "personal" aspects of living in another country with a group of students for two months. It was tentatively decided that he might be someone all IQP groups should talk to prior to their leaving for an overseas project center in the future.

Another important aspect of the PQP was the creation of a website. The website was to be used as a way for us to post written documentation of what we had already completed on the project and as a way for us to organize our material. Hosted on a WPI UNIX account, it was viewable from anyone in the world and made for an excellent venue to share information.

The last important aspects of the PQP which needed to be dealt with prior to our leaving were the obtainment of passports and all other necessary travel documents, purchasing and scheduling of plane tickets, and setting up an apartment in Melbourne.

Before we left, we met with Professor Ward after he arrived from Washington, D.C. and showed him (a bit poorly) how we were going to present the IQP to companies and agencies once we got to Melbourne. It was also agreed that contact via email would be kept up once per day with updates of our progress (this was discontinued due to the posting of a daily journal on our website).

Student Biographies

Bootstrap Reports

WPI Staff Interviews

Project Proposal