Description

Master Theses and their associated projects are an extremely important part of the master.
The master thesis is worth 20 ECTS which represents 33% of the total 60 ECTS to be achieved to get the masters degree.
Students must invest a minimum of 650 hours of work in their project.

The master thesis and the project bring together all the knowledge acquired during CSIM.
Students must develop some sort of artifact, pose a hypothesis and either prove it true or refute it.
It is a perfect mix of hands-on design, construction and deployment of the artifact with scientifically sound methods to support, justify and evaluate everything.

CSIM students choose their master thesis from a broad list of proposals that the research groups prepare (around 40-50 different proposals every year).
The project proposals cover the breadth of topics exposed in CSIM and, therefore, students always find something fun, motivating and interesting.

Students are immersed in the research groups that host their master thesis project.
This immersion not only places students in a rich research environment with other master students, PhD students, post-docs and senior researchers, but also gives them acces to unique infrastructure that is not easy to find elsewhere.

Structure

A typical structure of the final report of the thesis would be the following:

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
- Problem statement
- State of the art
Methods
Design & Development criteria and strategies
Experimental design and set-up
Procedures used to obtain data and results
Key results obtained in the study
How did the results address the problem defined
What are the problems faced by the study
Validity of the results
Relevance with respect to state of the art
Future steps
Results
Discussion & Conclusion

More information More information

Schedule
The schedule associated to the steps followed in a master thesis are approximately as follows:
- Mid-October: Open house sessions from all the research groups related to our master
- End of October: List of project proposals i published. Students start to talk to supervisors and groups
- Early November: Students chose projects (their 5 top in preference)
- Mid November: Projects are assigned to students. Students start their master thesis project
- End of January: Students deliver their state of the art
- March: Students make their mid-way presentations before an assessment board. Students receive feedback on their progress and suggestions to improve and succesfully finalise.
- April: Students should have done their experimental work
- May: Students perform their statistical analysis and evaluations.
- June: Students correct any misalignments or extra needs and start writing their master thesis report.
- First week of July: Students deliver their final master thesis report and make their defense before an evaluation board to get their final grade.

Recent Theses Course 19/20

We link to the published thesis of the last CSIM promotion 19/20 in no particular order. Thesis were realized in the different research groups of the master FutInLab, TIDE, SPECS, AI-ML, MTG.

Title	Student	Year	Doc
Augmented Reality through a Heritage Experience: From Individual to group Interaction	Luis Miguel Palacio Restrepo	2019-20	Repo Link
Study of Turn-Taking Coordination for n-agents in Game-Theoretic Scenarios with Reinforcement Learning	Nikolaos Papadopoulos	2019-20	Repo Link
Effects of distributed learning patterns on elementary student learning of computational thinking	Lydia Casanova	2019-20	Repo Link
Assessing spatial orientation in the human hippocampus during virtual navigation	Marina Estévez Almenzar	2019-20	Repo Link
EMG / motion capture-based accessible music interfaces for rehabilitation	Max Dieckmann	2019-20	Repo Link
The Territory is the Map: Augmented Discovery in a Digital Cultural Heritage Experience	Paul Hine	2019-20	Repo Link
Analysis of interpersonal communication in a Mixed Reality full-body interaction experience to foster social initiation in children with Autism	Olga Galí Pérez	2019-20	Repo Link

Example Past Theses

We include some of the top theses from the past years as a reference of topics and correctness in executing and reporting the master thesis project (in chronologic order, hence not grade order).

Title	Student	Year	Doc
Motion-Based Navigation Interaction Performance in Visual Search Task Using mobile augmented reality as a control mode for motion-based navigation in a large two-dimensional information space	Stefan Acin	2013-14
Interactive Visualization of Complex Networks Dynamics: A Neuroscience Test Case Layout of a Simulated Environment Based on Connectome Dataset	David Cabrera Dalmazzo	2013-14
Combining participatory design methods and formative assessment strategies to improve design and evaluation of Full-Body Interaction Learning Environments	Marie-Monique Schaper	2013-14
Complex Network Analysis Applications To Human Brain Functional Networks	Hoang Le	2012-13
Sonification of large datasets generated from neuroscience in the eXperience Induction Machine	Panagiota Papachristodoulou	2012-13
Creativity Studies on the Reactable online community Assessing the validity of distributed creativity models in an online community of creators	Arthur Pointeau	2012-13
Wearable Devices Supporting Collaboration in the Classroom Testing the Signal Orchestration System within the context of a Jigsaw activity in an authentic face-to-face setting	Mara Balestrini	2011-12
Playing "Rock, Paper, Scissors" with the iCub Robot Can we enable human engagement with a humanoid robot through game playing?	Maria Pilar Guerra Arias	2011-12
InsectArcade: A hybrid mixed reality insect-robot system for the study of insect multi-modal navigation	Diogo Pata	2011-12

Example Publications

The following publications are the direct result of part of the work for the master theses of our students. Many of these publications have been achieved while still in the master, while some are the result of having finished the master and being able to disseminate full results. As it may be seen these works have been published in top journals or presented at first class conferences in their fields.

List of publications from 2009

Title	Student	Year	Doc
Topology of brain functional networks Hoang Le has been selected for a PhD position at Caltech, CA, USA given his work at CSIM/SPECS	Hoang Le	2013
Intensive language-action therapy in VR for a rehabilitation gaming system The study received a nomination for Best Paper Award at the ICDVRAT 2014 conference	Klaudia Grechuta	2014
Social integration of stroke patients through the multiplayer rehabilitation gaming system The study was conducted in collaboration with clinicians and won the best paper award at "Game Days 2014", 4th Int Conf on Serious Games, Darmstadt, Germany	Martina Maier	2014
Insect-like odor classification and locallization on an autonomous robot Awarded as best poster at Living Machines 2012	L. Lopez-Serrano, V. Vouloutsi	2012

Exhibitions

Some of the works by CSIM students lead to installations, kiosks or exhibits in public events, exhibitions or museum interactive exhibits. Below you may see some examples:

Here: Bergen-Belsen, Space of Memory

SPECS has developed these installations in the framework of the European project CEEDS (FP7, ICT Future and Emerging Technologies, 258749-CEEDS) the aim of which is to develop an application that will optimize the acquisition, storage and presentation of data that represents key aspects of the historical relevance such as the holocaust including its archaeological, social, cultural, psychological, medical aspects.

A number of master students have collaborated in different aspects of this project.

NanoZoom for Technorevolution Exhibition, La Caixa Foundation

CMTech has designed an interactive exhibit a full-blown exhibition for the CosmoCaixa Science Mueseum in Barcelona. The exhibition follows the success of its smaller version which was a moving exhibition in a trailer container. It deals with Converging Technologies: nanotecnology; la biotecnology, ICT (information and communication technologies), cognitive science and neuroscience. The trailer has travelled all around Spain.

The exhibit that CMTech has developed gives the users a better notion of how small the nano scale actually is by using full-body interaction. The interactive experience is the result of the master thesis of the alumna Natalia Rodríguez.

Interactive Slide

The Interactive Slide (UPF Patent) is a large inflatable slide that is augmented with interactive technology. The current configuration has a sliding surface 4 meters wide and 3 meters long, which acts also as an image projection screen. A computer vision system detects the movements, actions and attitudes of children to allow them to play with an interactive experience on the sliding surface of the slide. Myriad games and educational experiences may be designed and developed for the surface of the slide without having to change the underlying infrastructure.

This Exergaming platform is an ongoing research by the CMTech group and a number of students have worked on its development. The work has been exhibited in events such as: EuroScience Open Forum 2008, International Conference on Interaction Design and Children IDC2010, or the CosmoCaixa Science Museum in Barcelona.

NanoCancer for Technorevolution Trailer, La Caixa Foundation

CMTech has designed an interactive exhibit for a travelling exhibition (mounted in a trailer container) that deals with Converging Technologies: nanotecnology; la biotecnology, ICT (information and communication technologies), cognitive science and neuroscience. The trailer has travelled all around Spain.

The exhibit that CMTech has developed explains how nanotechnology can help in the development of drugs that can attack a cancer tumor in an more optimal manner. The interactive experience is the result of the master thesis of the alumna Sílvia Alcaraz.