jcap
January 21st, 2013, 02:14 AM
So I've asked a ton of people but either no one takes it seriously or no one wants to think about it on the spot.
I need to develop something with my group for senior project. The project has a lot of freedom. As long as it's cool and it interacts with users in some way, it's good. It's really best if it helps users in some way through a phone app or website. It shouldn't be too complicated. Basically, it should be relatively simple in concept, but "good". It cannot be anything that involves engineering (like building an electronic or mechanical device) or is solely research-based. However, it is okay if it interacts with the physical world in some way by reading from it. For example, reading RFID tags, or barcodes, or QR codes.
Unfortunately, the ideas my group brainstormed so far are either already taken, to complicated, or simply suck.
Here are some examples of prior projects that give you the jest of what is "good," since it's difficult to describe.
Several years ago, a group did a project that was for buying drinks from a bar either before you arrived (so they was a seat reserved) or while you were there, so you could order or reorder drinks at the press of a button from your smart phone. Then, once the order is placed, the bar receives the order and you're served. And they did some tracking in it so like it could track how many drinks you've had, so both the bar and you are aware of your BAC...And if you were the driver, it could stop you from ordering ahead of time.
A prior year, students created a substitution teacher database. Subs in a school district would be registered, and they would have a profile filled out with subjects they are able to teach. So if a teacher was out for the day, a sub could log in or check their email, and see a position that needs filling based on the subjects they know about. If they accept, then they get to download the lesson plans for the day, notes from the teacher, and a map with directions to the school.
One group is doing a social engineering/company policy test. Basically, an employee may be scheduled to take a training course every 6 months...they watch an educational video and then take a quiz based on the video. If they don't pass with a 100%, then they have two more attempts to take it before [something happens]. In addition, within a few days after they pass the test, a spam-like phishing email will appear in their inbox. If they click the link contained in the email, it tests whether they are applying the principles learned in the video...if they fail, then it forces them into mandatory training.
Other ideas that weren't prior projects which I think would be AWESOME projects.
BetterAuth - I JUST saw an idea that was a new method for two-factor authentication. Basically, instead of you needing to type in a code from a device after authenticating, it would just send a push notification to your phone asking you to "allow" or "deny" the login attempt. So then you don't need to type in that code all the time, which can be annoying if you log in a lot.
Unfortunately, this one is probably a little too complicated to do, but it's a great concept.
Blitz.io & LoadImpact - these are existing products I discovered recently that are totally awesome. They are a websites that do load testing for websites. So you can simulate user load on your website for a certain amount of time to see how it handles before you actually get that many users. Then it generates statistics based on how well your server performs...graphs and stuff on hits/second, errors, timeouts, latency from around the world.
Something like this could be a perfect project. It's easy to build, easy to generate statistics, and great for "selling" to the class
So I desperately need an idea. One important thing: the idea doesn't need to be 100% original. It can be based on something that exists, just improved a good deal. I mean, as long as the end product isn't a 1:1 clone of something that exists, it's cool. It can even take ideas from several different products with similar concepts and put them together. Of course, the important thing to remember is that it should be simple enough that it can be started and completed within a few weeks of time.
I need to develop something with my group for senior project. The project has a lot of freedom. As long as it's cool and it interacts with users in some way, it's good. It's really best if it helps users in some way through a phone app or website. It shouldn't be too complicated. Basically, it should be relatively simple in concept, but "good". It cannot be anything that involves engineering (like building an electronic or mechanical device) or is solely research-based. However, it is okay if it interacts with the physical world in some way by reading from it. For example, reading RFID tags, or barcodes, or QR codes.
Unfortunately, the ideas my group brainstormed so far are either already taken, to complicated, or simply suck.
Here are some examples of prior projects that give you the jest of what is "good," since it's difficult to describe.
Several years ago, a group did a project that was for buying drinks from a bar either before you arrived (so they was a seat reserved) or while you were there, so you could order or reorder drinks at the press of a button from your smart phone. Then, once the order is placed, the bar receives the order and you're served. And they did some tracking in it so like it could track how many drinks you've had, so both the bar and you are aware of your BAC...And if you were the driver, it could stop you from ordering ahead of time.
A prior year, students created a substitution teacher database. Subs in a school district would be registered, and they would have a profile filled out with subjects they are able to teach. So if a teacher was out for the day, a sub could log in or check their email, and see a position that needs filling based on the subjects they know about. If they accept, then they get to download the lesson plans for the day, notes from the teacher, and a map with directions to the school.
One group is doing a social engineering/company policy test. Basically, an employee may be scheduled to take a training course every 6 months...they watch an educational video and then take a quiz based on the video. If they don't pass with a 100%, then they have two more attempts to take it before [something happens]. In addition, within a few days after they pass the test, a spam-like phishing email will appear in their inbox. If they click the link contained in the email, it tests whether they are applying the principles learned in the video...if they fail, then it forces them into mandatory training.
Other ideas that weren't prior projects which I think would be AWESOME projects.
BetterAuth - I JUST saw an idea that was a new method for two-factor authentication. Basically, instead of you needing to type in a code from a device after authenticating, it would just send a push notification to your phone asking you to "allow" or "deny" the login attempt. So then you don't need to type in that code all the time, which can be annoying if you log in a lot.
Unfortunately, this one is probably a little too complicated to do, but it's a great concept.
Blitz.io & LoadImpact - these are existing products I discovered recently that are totally awesome. They are a websites that do load testing for websites. So you can simulate user load on your website for a certain amount of time to see how it handles before you actually get that many users. Then it generates statistics based on how well your server performs...graphs and stuff on hits/second, errors, timeouts, latency from around the world.
Something like this could be a perfect project. It's easy to build, easy to generate statistics, and great for "selling" to the class
So I desperately need an idea. One important thing: the idea doesn't need to be 100% original. It can be based on something that exists, just improved a good deal. I mean, as long as the end product isn't a 1:1 clone of something that exists, it's cool. It can even take ideas from several different products with similar concepts and put them together. Of course, the important thing to remember is that it should be simple enough that it can be started and completed within a few weeks of time.