Week 2 Tutorial: Dispatch lab

A hands-on session reverse-engineering a real delivery app's ETA and batching behaviour from the outside

Graded checkpoint, checked live at the start of the session · Weight: 2%

Before the session#

Build a cart in a delivery app and step through to checkout — no need to pay — logging the ETA it shows at three or more points: cart added, address entered, checkout reached, and any jump in between. A phone screenshot with a timestamp is enough; a spreadsheet row per reading is better, since week 3 reuses this log’s format.

In the session#

Working in pairs with your logged readings, reconstruct where the shown ETA moved and why — a batching assumption changing as the cart grows, a recalculated distance once an address is entered, a jump between checkout steps that has no obvious cause. Groups compare notes across apps: does Menulog’s ETA move the same way Uber Eats’ does?

Afterwards#

Your ETA log becomes raw material for week 3’s case-study reading — keep it.