Picking final project Comp Sci

Shicky

Shicky

Shicky

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13 Jan 2007
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Belfast,Northern Ireland
I have to do this for my final year of computer science....before the end of today and unfortunately im a very smart boy and working this out on a hangover so would appreciate some opinions.

I have previously narrowed it down to a few available choices but not sure which to choose

2.2 Creation of an Online Store for an Import/Export Company
Project Description
An online store is required to allow the customer to purchase items online, make payments, and track their order. All the information should be entered and managed through a database that can be manipulated by the agent.

Functions of the website would include:
- database of products, and their details
- interactive product selector, in order to help the customer select the item that best suits their needs
- ability to enter information taken over the telephone by the agent, as well as allowing the customer to enter the details themselves
- secure online payments to be filled in by the customer, or the agent, over the telephone
- details of trades people (plumbers/electricians) to make their services available for fitting and maintenance of the items sold online
- interactive installation guide, if the customer decides to install the item themselves
- stock control and cost management facility
- interactive troubleshooting process for the customer

Desirable Interests Internet solutions.

Resources Required PC/Mac with Apache/PHP/MySQL

Or

Re-doing the website for the university radio station.

A more detailed list of what we would hope for can be found below:

1) A retention of the Queen’s Radio colours already on the site (i.e. dark and light blue). We would however be open to introducing something extra, something to make it a little less bland.
2) Picture Gallery
3) Message box to email our studio – email address is [email protected]
4) Queen’s Radio top tunes board – perhaps we could have a mini player that could give samples of music from unsigned bands. Similar to what functions on myspace.
5) Interactive schedule – The best example of this is on the http://urn1350.net/ website.
6) Podcasts – The ability for us to be able to upload and stream podcasts or subscribe to an iTunes podcast which we would set up.
7) Ability to embed and upload videos.
8) An RSS feed for gigs and events happening throughout Belfast
9) Links to social networking sites (eg Facebook and twitter)
10) Link to our forum – although our forum functions we would be welcome to suggestions for alternatives or improvements.
11) A live stream to listen to our output (already in place but could be altered.)
Any other suggestions are welcome.

My first issue is that I am on for a first currently, and wish to keep things that way. Is there really enough work in either of these for a final project? What would you recommend I go for and why? I have a fair bit of web-design background but its very basic i.e. working with a CMS and editting HTML/CSS/PHP to suit my needs
 
Its not about the quantity of work. Its about the planning, the problems you encounter and how you deal with them and the writing up.

There was not a massive amount of project work in my dissertation but I still got a first based on a good report and proper background reading. My friend couldnt even get past the early stages of his project. It was something confusing about manipulating a GPS signal to super impose the coordinates over a webcam feed on Windows CE. Basically GeoTagging but before it was a known thing. I think he got the webcam feed to display and that was about it as he never got the drivers finished that would extract the GPS coordinates. Let alone work out how to overly the text onto the video on such rubbish hardware. The point is he had a plan and lots of research and had put a lot of effort in. Kind of the opposite of what happened to me. He had too much work and didnt get it finished but did well based on the report. I didnt have much work and did well based on the report.

The radio station sounds like a lot more work to me though!
 
J.B said:
The radio station sounds like a lot more work to me though!
Click to expand...

I totally agree but it all so sounds a lot more interesting purely becuase it's real, the first project appears to be for some hypothetical import/export company so all the requirments will be made up and who ever is behind them isn't likely to be very enthusiastic. The radio station is challenging but real, you will be working for a group of enthusiasts who are more likely to be open to ideas and sugestions and you will hopefully produce an end product that actually gets used which from an employers perspective maybe more valuable.

Also the first one could be done in 5 minutes downloading a couple of standard templates which isn't exactly a degree standard piece of work if you ask me!
 
From doing my FYP I'll recommend the following:


  • Make your project unique/interesting - When I was doing my FYP I was advised against doing some generic website/db application etc. Tutors have to read through lots of projects, make yours stand out a bit
    Try and grasp exactly how much work is involved - I noticed some people at uni under/overestimated how much work would be involved for their project. For example, some people really struggled to even reach the word limit for the dissertation just because of the lack of involvement required, or had a great idea but was too much to do, and consequently ended up with a sub-par application because they couldn't imeplement everything they wanted.

So based on the above I'd take preference to the Radio station idea. It's more of a unique project and if you progress quicker with it than you anticipated, you can expand it very easily and add lots of individual, unique touches.
 
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