How to choose a project

Last updated January 2006

Experience has taught us that it really doesn't matter what project you do, so long as you are interested in it. The people you are working with have a major impact on your enjoyment and your success in this course. It is more important to choose the right people to work with and then as a team choose a project.

There are a number of things to consider when choosing a project and here are a few:

• First and foremost the campus that you study on will influence what projects are available to you.
• Each project has a difficulty rating, choose one that will challenge you, but make sure it is not beyond you. The difficulty rating shown is the one to indicate how difficult it will be during implementation. This rating could change, if the requirements change. A project with a difficulty rating of 4-5 should be taken on by a team who generally get HDs. A project with a difficulty rating of 2-3 should be taken by pass/credit students. No matter what the difficulty rating it is still possible to get a HD in project or a NN. The difficulty rating is meant to give you an indication of the challenge involved. You do not want to take on a project that is beyond you or that is going to bore you.
• Projects will fall into three main categories: Standalone Application(OO), 3D or 2D graphical(GM), Web-DB(OC). In recent times students have tended to choose Web-DB as these are relatively easy projects. The teams that have choosen to taken on the more difficult OO projects have all felt at the end that it was worth the extra effort because they give a greater range of experiences. Some of the GM projects are hard, while others are relatively easy. The type of project chosen should be made based on the interests of the people in the team.
• Projects will fall into three main categories for design: Object Oriented Design(OO), Game and Model Design (GM), Online Content Design(OC). All projects need to complete a requirement document, release schedule, RTM, technical report , prototypes and prototype reports. Projects involving a database will have to do some database design. Projects that involve OO Design will need to have the following as well: Scenarios, Rational Rose model (including class diagrams & sequence diagrams). The latter may put some people off, but this experience is EXTREMELY valuable for when you enter employment.