Timetable
Twelve weeks. One evaluated release. Every tutorial produces an engineering artefact the next stage can inspect.
Lectures: Mondays, 11 am–12 pm. Tutorials: Thursdays, 2–3.30 pm, in weeks 2–12 only, starting 4 March. Both meet in Systems Lab 2. Week 1 is lecture-only. Teaching pauses from 5–18 April; week 7 starts on 19 April. The midterm is 23 April, 11 am–12.30 pm.
In weeks 2–12, plan for a 60-minute lecture, 90-minute tutorial and about 210 minutes of independent work: six hours altogether. Each lecture page identifies the selected slides and preparation, practice and assessment tasks. The larger teaching packs remain complete resources; their 180-minute routes include a break for a full sitting and add no extra meeting. The midterm occupies its separate exam slot.
12 teaching weeks
- 01
Introduction to Algorithmic Romance
Meet Alex, check two invitations and distinguish observations from hidden state. Use supplied facts to test each claim in a fictional bio.
- 02
Platform Architecture and the Elo Hierarchy
Inspect Tinder, Bumble and Hinge disclosures, implement toy Elo and distinguish a visibility hierarchy from an observed measure of attractiveness.
- 03
Data Acquisition: Photography as a Quantitative Asset
Treat profile photos as traceable information assets. Test lighting, identity ambiguity and detection confidence using fictional image records.
- 04
Natural Language Processing in Profile Bios
Tokenise clichés, hold the photo constant and A/B test fictional bios. Explain why a pooled winner can lose in both exposure groups.
Quantitative Analysis of Local Singles Market · 19 March 2027 · 20%
- 05
The Mathematics of the "Match"
Calculate mutual-selection probabilities, constrain the travel radius and separate peak Sunday exposure from a higher match rate.
- 06
Interaction Protocols: The Initial Message
Classify opening messages with a decision tree. Compare context and cost, and expose why forcing a reply is a broken optimisation target.
- 07
Game Theory and Asynchronous Communication
Model reply arrivals, response games and ghosting as an observation timeout. A refusal remains terminal even when expected utility disagrees.
- 08
Threat Modeling and Anomaly Detection
Detect bots, financial scams and identity inconsistencies in synthetic cases. Calculate the cost of false alarms before trusting a flag.
- 09
Transitioning to Offline Environments
Plan the digital-to-physical handshake: public venues, transport, accessible exits, confirmation and an agreed approach to the bill.
- 10
Stochastic Modeling of the First Date
Propagate a fictional conversation through a Markov chain, check a simulation against exact probabilities and resolve the Who pays deadlock.
- 11
Post-Date Analytics and The "Second Date" Metric
Separate observed agreement from inferred subtext. Audit the time budget, evaluate a frozen profile and prepare a reproducible release.
- 12
System Maintenance and Graceful Deprecation
Design explicit relationship agreements, change requests and respectful endings. Reproduce the final release and document its maintenance.
Final Project: Deploying a Top 1% Dating Profile · 28 May 2027 · 50%