You’re almost there!  Congrats on making it all the way here.  Pat yourself on the back for learning how to make good videos, do better documentation, take cut-n-paste coding to a new level and oh yes, did we mention, do a project?  This is computing in the real-world, right here, right now.  Oh yeah!

Yes, we know you still have so many features and refinements to do (and we hope you will do them), but it’s now time to set things aside and make sure you have all of your current work documented for your peers to review this coming week.  Yes, we also know you are doing so many other projects as the summer is coming to an end soon.

After the scramble to make all of your documentation by the 25th, in the week ahead, you will be judging the final outcome of your peers’ projects too.  Importantly, we need you to turn in your peer evaluations on time.  We need these evaluations on time, as we need to wrap up the Orbital grading, so as to meet the deadlines for assigning the 4 S/U credits for the course (CP3108B).

Look to the “Preview Forms” section in Skylab for the Evaluation 3 milestone criteria for which your project will be graded by.  In the week following your peer review, do keep in mind you will have to do one final evaluation of your peers’ reviews on your project, so that you can give credit and thanks to all of those reviews that were helpful (including your own advisors and mentors).

Good luck!  Stay strong — you’ve come all this way.  Give each other the encouragement to stay the course!  There’s only Splashdown to go!

P/S – speaking of Splashdown, Splashdown’s date is likely changing to the 24th of Aug (1 week later) due to conflicts with other School events.  That’s one more week to polish your marketing drive, video and demos (While your project is graded by the state it is in at Milestone 3, you can tell the staff through your advisor that you have made significant progress since Milestone 3, and that we should re-evaluate your project during Splashdown.

P/P/S – Thinking of withdrawing from Orbital?  For 80% of teams that dropped in previous cohorts, this is the time where you are severely tested for time.  We advise that you try your best to stay the course and finish — you get loads of self-confidence and Orbital chops for completing.  However, if you cannot manage it, please inform us — both via your advisor and directly to Orbital in Slack.  We need all members of your group to write in, so that we’re sure that all members assent to the withdrawal.