When you open the Assignments Module, it may seem like a daunting list of things to do.

Calm down.

One of the things that previous students in the course have appreciated is that they get to work on a complete project -- from inception (requirements) to implementation. One of the things I have not liked previous years is that in order to do a complete project, there is a lot of repetitive work. Once you have done one system sequence diagram, there is very little additional learning effect of doing ten more (My father in law, a retired high school teacher, would disagree: there is a pedagogic point in repetition, he would sternly tell me). Also, if you get the start wrong, it is difficult to catch up in the next assignment since you do not have a firm base to stand on.

The solution is to:

Keep the project idea so you can try your hands at all parts of the process
Give you parts of the solution and let you focus your efforts on a smaller part of each step along the way.

When you look at the assignments, you will thus notice that most of them consists of input. These inputs may be the problem description, or some of the same type of diagrams that you are expected to do, or the diagrams that you should use as a starting point for the assignment.

So don't panic.

Read the input files, and try to understand my solutions. Then you can try to make your own solutions for the assignments. If you think it was difficult to do the assignment, then do some more similar diagrams for your own sake -- not for mine. The type of outcome from one assignment is often used as input for the next assignment, so you can "cheat" by looking ahead. Please do.

Above all, don't panic.