POSTECH Microscope: Grand Prize Winners of the UGRP
POSTECH Microscope: Grand Prize Winners of the UGRP
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  • 승인 2022.03.29 02:52
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▲(from left) Hwang Yewon, Han gangmin, Kim Sohyun, Lee Hoseok, and Hong Jungi of the Mueunjae department
▲(from left) Hwang Yewon, Han gangmin, Kim Sohyun, Lee Hoseok, and Hong Jungi of the Mueunjae department

 

The Postech Times interviewed one of the Undergraduate Group Research Project (UGRP) teams that was awarded the grand prize: the team of Hwang Yewon, Han Gangmin, Kim Sohyun, Lee Hoseok, and Hong Jungi.

Please introduce your UGRP research topic.
(Kim) We developed Pooding, a meal recommendation app for Postechians. We improved on the latent factor collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm. Pooding gives personalized recommendations and context-based recommendations by considering factors such as the popularity of the menu and type of food. Additionally, it provides information on restaurants around the school. 50 beta testers were recruited, who gave us positive reviews.

How and why did you choose your research topic?
(Hwang) It was for a simple reason. As Postechians ourselves, we knew the needs of Postechians well. As most students live in dormitories, I think that, like us, many consider what to eat at every mealtime, so we thought it would be great to have a personalized recommendation app to help us decide.

What difficulties did you face and how did you overcome them?
(Kim) None of us had experience in app development. At first, I didn’t know what to study and how to split roles. When we needed advice and directions, we emailed experienced programmer students directly. Another difficulty was the short time frame (1 year). We invested a lot of time during the school break as well as during the semester. It was hard to balance research with schoolwork, but we were successful because we prioritized the project and worked with passion.
(Hong) The most difficult part was not knowing what to study. In school, we are given things to study, but in the UGRP I had to decide what and how to study. As I managed the servers, I first learned the basics of servers, then found and studied related topics for coding.
(Lee) I oversaw the algorithm. It wasn’t hard to learn what other people had already made, but it was difficult to newly make and apply algorithms to our specific data collecting methods and app peculiarities.

What did you learn?
(Han) We learned good communication. We did not understand each other’s research area since we were all inexperienced in app development. To solve this, we met two to three times a week to share our research and decide what to do next.
(Kim) Not only did we learn a new language, but we also learned the structure of app development. We also faced numerous bugs which we solved through the internet. We found it to be a powerful source of knowledge. In my case, I became confident in my choice of major in CSE.

When did you feel most rewarded?
(Hong) I felt most rewarded when we first successfully downloaded our app on our phones. It was the fruit of all our hard work of developing, registering on the app store, and installing. I will remember this UGRP project for a long time.

Any last words for Postechians?
(Lee) Just start with enthusiasm. Make a small and achievable plan, then expand and develop it. Don’t give up, and you will learn many things in UGRP.
(Kim) App development is expensive because of the server cost and store registration fees, but with the funding of POSTECH, we had this amazing opportunity. I strongly recommend participating in the UGRP program.