The ECE 499 Project is an elective course that can be taken once by a student in their 4A or 4B term. Note that this is a single-term course.   Once a project topic of interest is determined, then a supervisor should be found (typically a faculty member of ECE). The departmental web pages for faculty should be consulted to learn more about the research interests, recent publications and supervised graduate student thesis titles of the individual faculty members.

Each faculty member has an "official" web page here (maintained by the department) and additional links to personally maintained web pages of many faculty can be found here. There are also other resources available such as the department graduate calendar and other official publications too numerous to mention. After following the links and a potential faculty member(s) has been identified, then it is best to arrange a meeting and discuss the possibility of a 499 Project. The professor may already have some possible areas for a project and give you the opportunity to work with an active research team. Although most faculty have a narrow area of research interest, they also tend to have a wide area of expertise and may be willing to supervise a project that you are interested in. Many students have a topic that is of interest to them and then try to find a faculty member willing to supervise it.

In some cases, it may be permissible for a team of students (typically 2) to work on a project of sufficient complexity. The same regulations apply to a team project. 

A Project is also well suited to the student pursuing a combined Bachelors/Masters program. In this case, a Project is often taken in the 4B term to prepare for the research in the Masters program by actively joining the professor's research team during the project duration.

Once you have found a faculty supervisor for the project, then you can fill out the registration form. The registration form for a ECE 499 project is attached on the current page or can be found here: https://uwaterloo.ca/electrical-computer-engineering/sites/ca.electrical-computer-engineering/files/uploads/files/ECE499ProjectApprovalForm.pdf 

The faculty supervisor must also sign the form. When completed, then return the form to the course coordinator (mcrowley@uwaterloo.ca) and ECE Advising (ECE Advising eceadvis@uwaterloo.ca). You typically have until the term's final drop and add time to finalize an ECE 499 Project. It is generally expected that the Project Supervisor is a faculty member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Only under exceptional circumstances would the Project supervisor not be a member of the Department.

You are reminded that a formal report must be generated at the end of the academic term in which the 499 is taken. This report is read and evaluated by the student's supervisor as well as a second faculty reader. The report is to be submitted at/before the end of lectures in the academic term prior to the start of exams. This allows sufficient time for the readers to evaluate the report and provide a grade.