The School Assessed Task is the Major Assessment Task for the year in which you will develop a Software Solution that will solve a need (of a client) or opportunity (with potential clients / users) that you have identified.
The SAT forms 30% of your study score for Software Development, evenly split between Unit 3 Outcome 2 and Unit 4 Outcome 1
The SAT is based on the Problem Solving Methodology:
Analysis → Design → Development → Evaluation
Your software solution will need to include the following items:
User Interface: A GUI for desktop use
Data: entry, storage & retrieval (in files or a database etc), validation
Processes: Searching and Sorting or another Complex Algorithm (Physics Engine, AI, …?)
Security: of the solution and of the data/information
File Access, Backups, Authentication (logins)
Variations to the above need to be discussed with your teacher.
These requirements will affect the planning, design and testing of your software.
SAT requires you to identify a need or opportunity that can be solved as a software solution. You may reach out to relatives, other teachers, local businesses or community groups to determine the need or opportunity. Doing this provides you with a client from whom to seek feedback and clarification throughout the process.
You need to find a REAL need or opportunity that you will then address by developing a software solution
You will need to develop a Design Brief which you will present to your teacher for consideration.
When your proposal is accepted by your teacher you will work through the Problem Solving Methodology to:
Produce a project plan (including a Gantt chart) to manage your SAT
Complete an analysis that defines the requirements, constraints and scope of a solution in the form of a software requirements specification (SRS)
Design a folio of alternative design ideas (at least 3), criteria for assessing designs, and detailed design specifications of the preferred design
Develop a software solution that meets the software requirements specification
Evaluate your software solution and the process you went through to produce it
As a SAT, your work needs to be authenticated. As part of this, all of your code will be kept under version control (either through a VCS or dated backups).
All documentation will be completed in the provided Google Doc template on Google Classroom and submitted at teacher provided milestones.
Your Project Plan will need to be regularly updated - archived versions should be attached to the Classroom assignment.
The SAT is marked using rubrics provided by VCAA. For each of the Assessment Criteria, the student must provide evidence. Working down the page the evidence is then checked against the Performance Descriptors with those that best describes the student's achievement being selected. When all the Descriptors have been reviewed the assessor then looks at the completed page and chooses the most suitable overall Level of Performance for that Criteria by giving a score out of ten.
Please try to think of your own situation before looking here! These are from teacher and student discussions over the years and there is no guarantee that these are good ideas!
A café owner who shoves all her receipts into a drawer and then has to process them all for her BAS
A roster for cadets / shop staff / etc...
Task management / study planner & timer system
A carer who runs Family Day Care and needs to track the hours and charge for each child
Sports competition stats recorder – to output a ladder in a format to be uploaded into the website
Custom calculator for Methods / Further Maths / Physics / Chemistry etc...
Something to help Student Council organise events
Small business customers or sales
Personal/Family Inventory e.g. hobbies, clothing, household possessions (e.g., for insurance), family share portfolio, heirlooms, etc...
Community lending library (of books, tools, resources)
Business Inventory (plant nursery, used car yard, craft supplies)
maintenance roster (business equipment, school computers, etc...)
Sports competition management system (teams, venues, referees, etc...)
Golf (or other) handicap system
Address book for family or friends
Home crop planting records management
Budgie breeding management (or any other animal)
Managing booking a service
Timetabling classes or services
Reading and interpreting Fitbit (or similar) data
Create tutoring software (like a typing/math tutor)
Create a digital vehicle log book
Parent teacher interview booking system
Sports equipment borrowing system
Canteen ordering system and checkout (simulated) payment gateway
House Point System
A restaurant ordering system
A university course recommendation system
A gym workout scheduler
Most of these are distributed on Classroom each year; however, if there is something else that you want or you need an original blank template...
An assessment task notification from a similar HSC SDD project - includes more project suggestions
The assessment structure (especially the U3O2, U401 split) can be seen to require a fairly waterfall-ish approach to development. However, there is room within the external milestones (due dates) to be more flexible / agile.
As you are not highly experienced software developers, it is hard to know what is possible and to accurately plan. This means
you can and should be starting coding and trying quick ideas in the first part of the SAT - some of this can feed into your design selection process
you are definitely allowed to modify your plan during the second part of the SAT. Any modifications to your plan will then form part of your evaluation process at the end - i.e., give you something to talk about in the final criteria!