Redesign the dispatch
The capstone — propose a dispatch and pay algorithm of your own, and defend the fairness tradeoffs it makes, informed by all three regimes studied this semester
Due: 20 October 2027 · Weight: 40%
The brief#
Design one specific piece of a dispatch or pay system, and write the defence you’d give a sceptical regulator from either regime studied this semester.
This is not “design a fairer gig economy” — that brief is too big to build anything real in twelve weeks, and a vague answer to it is indistinguishable from a good one. Pick one mechanism (how ETAs are set, how a lateness penalty works, how pay is calculated per batch, how a rider is deactivated) and redesign that piece. Every design choice trades something against something else — say what you traded, and who pays the cost you didn’t eliminate.
The design-justice week (week 11) is the method: whoever bears a system’s risk should have had a say in designing it. Show your design was shaped by that principle, not just gestured at it.
What you submit#
A short specification of the mechanism (diagrams welcome, code not required) plus a written defence, in the tradition of the regulatory determinations you read in weeks 7–10: state the mechanism, state who it affects and how, and respond to the strongest objection a regulator from China, Australia, or the EU could raise against it.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- proposes a specific dispatch or pay mechanism, not a set of principles
- names at least two tradeoffs the design makes and who bears each one
- the defence responds to the strongest available objection, not the easiest one
- the mechanism is traceable to a named precedent from the course — a Meituan or Ele.me practice, a Fair Work Commission determination, or a Platform Work Directive provision
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Specificity of the mechanism (not a mission statement) | 20% |
| Tradeoffs named, with who bears each one | 20% |
| Response to the strongest available objection | 20% |
| Grounded in the China case study and at least one regulatory regime | 15% |
| Marker's holistic override — anything the criteria above miss | 25% |