University Design Team

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

We will create a Queen's Blockchain Design Team where students collaborate on Cardano Projects.

We will create and make publicly available onboarding & tutorial videos to help students new to Cardano.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Team consists of 3 computer & 2 electrical engineering students.

Relevant experience:

Plutus Pioneers 3rd Cohort.

Marlowe Pioneer 1st Cohort.

Internships @ Honeywell, NASA, Ericsson, AMD, IESO.

Tons of coding experience.

Three years of University working on other design teams.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

How you perceive the problem you are solving

The problem is that many students and Queen's University would benefit from being able to collaborate on Cardano Projects, but there is no current team to collaborate under leaving them without peers to collaborate with and without resources to gain more experience. Additionally, not having a Blockchain Team, in general, is a large gap in the education of many engineering students.

Creating this Cardano Design Team brings interested engineering students together to collaborate on Ecosystem projects. Additionally, this allows for Cardano to be introduced to first year engineering students who have not heard of or are unfamiliar with Cardano and Blockchain Technology, enabling them to grow in the team for the entirety of their undergrad into a fully-fledged Plutus/Cardano/Blockchain expert through the help of upper-year students.

Your reasons for approaching it in the way that you have

We are approaching it this way as there is precedent within the Queen's Engineering Community to support and engage with Design Teams. This gives us confident in the solution as it has worked many times before for other teams. Additionally, providing learning material to first-year students is a good approach as it allows them to onboard very rapidly and can be reused to assist future years of first-year students assisting in the longevity of the Team. Naturally, the learning material will be made publicly available to anyone who wishes to use it, whether that be students of other universities around the globe, or anyone at all.

Who your project will engage, or who its stakeholders are

The project stakeholders are Queen's University Engineering Students, The Queen's Engineering Society, the Catalyst Community, the Cardano Developer Community, and Cardano Community as a whole. The students as it is being built by them for them. The EngSoc as they oversee Design Teams and Clubs within the Engineering Faculty. The Catalyst Community as their continual support and assistance is crucial to the success of the project. The Developer Community as resources created will assist them in their everyday development and with onboarding new developers. The entire community as the projects created will add value to Cardano Ecosystem.

How your project will be implemented

Project will be implemented for the September, 2022 school year. Design Team / Club will be created through the Engineering Society. Onboarding. Workshops, and Tutorial Videos will be created and made publicly available throughout the year. Created by fourth and third year engineering students.

What you will produce

Outputs of the project are a Cardano Design Team / Club where students can collaborate on Ecosystem Projects, a series of YouTube videos assisting students learning and getting started with Cardano, and a Dapp. Project aims to produce continual improvements to the ecosystem through applications, developer tools, and applications.

What will happen as a result of your work

Result is that many students will be introduced to the Cardano Ecosystem and have assistance in learning and developing within it. Student's will create projects under the Design Team. The Team will live on into the future for many years to come bringing in many students over the years. Continual production of Haskell Developers.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

This solution directly addresses the Challenge as it is specifically designed to encourage and assist students enter and collaborate in the Cardano Ecosystem. The solution brings new students into the Cardano Ecosystem while continually providing support for them to learn and create projects. Additionally, it creates videos and documentation that allows the development of much needed Plutus, Haskell, and Cardano Developers in general.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

One risk is that students do not join the Design Team. It is unlikely that they are uninterested in Blockchain Technology given the degree they have chosen. It is more likely that they are unfamiliar with Cardano or are uncomfortable making the first step to join the team. A mitigation strategy is to have an outreach events at the design team fair at the beginning of the year and message students through the engineering email newsletter that is emailed to all students every month.

Another risk is that the Design Team dies after this year when the founding members, students in their final year, leave university. It is crucial to elect a younger student to lead the team into the future after we are gone. Thus, it is imperative to find this individual and leave funding for the future of their team. We will proactively onboard and assist younger students to expedite their learning for the longevity of the Design Team. Additionally, may be valuable to onboard a professor in the field as they will be at Queen's for the years to come and they will be able to provide oversight as well to the students if needed.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Late August 2022

Team Creation and Engineering Society Logistics

Early September 2022

• Outreach
• Onboarding Students
• Design Team Fair Day
• Club Information Event
• Commence Website
• Frontend Development

September October November 2022

• Cardano Workshop Event
• Finish Website
• Create Tutorial Video Series
• Cardano Overview
• Setting up your environment for Haskell Development
• Working with Cardano-CLI etc.
• Tutoring
• Finish Whitepaper of Teamwide Project
• IdeaTBD. ADA Debit Card?

January February March 2023

• Work on Teamwide Project

April 2023

Ensure team is logistically set up for next year and the years to come

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

750 - Team Creation & Outreach.

Nearly the most important item as it makes students aware of the team and brings them into the club. This will include an in person event within the engineering building to introduce students to the club and the goals of the club. This will also include the design team fair day where students visit all teams looking for what interests them. These are the two biggest events for onboarding students and require a good showing.

500 - Website Creation

Website to host team information, documentation, and tutorials. The primary resource for students and the community looking for onboarding and developer documentation.

1250 - Tutorial Videos & Cardano Workshops

Tutorial Video Series made to assist the students in their understanding and development. Also made publicly available to all who wish to use.

Cardano Workshops going over Marlowe, Plutus, Cardano Node, Ouroboros, Development Environment etc.

1500 - Teamwide Project

Depending on the project, price can be increased or decreased. Taken/Given to the funds for next year.

1000 - Future Team Budget | Longevity

Funds allocated to the longevity of the team. Funds left to the Team to use in the following year. Naturally, they will need to secure their own funding, but this will give them a leaping point.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Adam Cooke - 4th Year Computer Engineer

Neural Network Internship @ Ericsson

Plutus Pioneer 3rd Cohort

Marlowe Pioneer 1st Cohort

Created Cardano Lookup - Search Tool Chrome Extension

Jared Yeates - 4th Year Computer Engineer

Intership @ Honeywell (JWST NASA Contract)

Advanced Backend Experience

Jacob Zakaib - 4th Year Electrical Engineer

Internship @ IESO

Hudson Robidoux - 4th Year Electrical Engineer

Internship @ Ericsson

Dennis Gavriline - 3rd Year Computer Engineer

Internship @ AMD

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

There will be no reason to seek funding again this year as the budget is more than compensated for.

Depending on the Challenges of Fund 12/13, if the team needs funding for the following year, it is possible they will return to Catalyst in September of 2023.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will measure the amount of students who join and participate in the club. This will show us how our efforts of outreach were received and give us insight on what ways we can improve them for the following year. A successful outreach may see 5-10 students join within September (expectations for a established design team are around 10-15 new students per year).

We will measure the amount of people watching the educational content online. This will show us how well received our video and documentation is to students at Queen's University and to the Cardano Community as a whole. Success can be defined by growing viewership numbers in educational content over time, demonstrating people returning to gain more experience having found previous videos helpful.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success Definition:

Students and the Queen's Engineering Community will know of the Cardano Blockchain Design Team / Club. The team members will be excited to continue working within the team for the years to come. Students will be comfortable with Plutus Development, the Cardano-CLI, and the Cardano Ecosystem as a whole. Students will experience hands on development experience in the creation of a Dapp. The Dapp will be used by real individuals. Number of Plutus Developers will increase.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is entirely new.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

This proposal is aligned with Quality Education and Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. Depending on what project the team decides to create in the second half of the year, more issues may be included.