Assignments
Assignments for this course are slightly different from other courses, in that they're meant to mimic the training or development milestones for proof-of-concept prototypes. And since the final goal is a completed prototype that can be shown at the IBM Cogntivite Computing Challenge, the milestones are meant to drive and monitor progress towards that final deliverable.
The first two "assignments" are a crash course in Watson technology on the first Saturday of the term, and a data-gathering exercise in the second week. Participation in the first is highly encouraged, and participation in the second is mandatory. If you are unable to attend the Watson Hackathon session on the Saturday, let the instructors know as soon as possible by email them at csc490@cs.utoronto.ca to arrange a demonstration of your Watson abilities.
Note that while these two assignments are primarily skill-building exercises, the final goal is the creation of a unique, creative, innovative product. If your goal for each milestone is to get high marks for that milestone, you're missing the point of these assignments (and possibly the course).
Watson Hackathon
Some documentation to get you started:
Corpus Training
For this task, you must use the skills that you used for Assignment 1, by creating and testing a corpus for an area of the target domain. This involves the following: