Student Projects

Project Ideas

I've tried to make these all accessible to undergraduates, but the difficulty certainly varies. It's not a good idea to try to do a project that requires background in courses you haven't already taken. (E.g., you shouldn't try to take on a mobile app project unless you've taken the mobile app course.)

Playing Games

• I've written many playable JavaScript combinatorial games. It would be nice to implement more of these! Bonus: you could use my combinatorialGames.js script to start things off. There are many combinatorial games that haven't been implemented! Prereqs: Web 1.
• There are lots of non-combinatorial games that could have nice web-playable versions. Let's make one! Prereqs: (Advanced?) Web Programming.
• I think it would be really fun to write an online "Referee" that accepted AI player programs and ran a game or many games. This could be for Hanabi or Skip-Bo, or anything. Writing the code to run the game would be really hard. Writing the code for a single-working player would be pretty easy, but writing the code for an excellent player would be pretty tough. The engine is still the hard part. (That's what you have to code up.)
• We can use an arduino as a nerf turret. Can we use it in some robotics to make moves on a physical game board? The game would have to be something simple (like Semaforo or Tic-Tac-Toe). I really don't have any idea how this would work. Prereq: architecture, probably robotics.

Raspberry Pi

• There are some good lists of pi-projects. Remember that your project should be something new, but you might get some inspiration from things people have done before.

Math and Proofs

• Is it possible to prove whether it's possible for all eight players to simultaneously win a game of Tsuro? What about for all four players to win Blokus? (I think there you'd have to remove some pieces.) A simulation would take too long, but maybe there's a proof. (Apparently these have been shown, so we'd have to do something more general.)
• Think you've got what it takes to prove that a game is computationally hard with me? Let's do it! There are lots of games out there!
• Some non-combinatorial games I've designed have proving-elements to win the game. It would be fun to build a playable web version of these games that uses the proving part. Pre-reqs: Web 1.

Document Preparation

• I would love to have a web app that stitches together PDFs into one full thing for sequences of talks. Here's what I imagine: the administrator sets up the initial list of speakers (and times) as well as intermissions. Then the speakers load the website, choose their name from the drop-down menu, then upload their file. Everytime a file is uploaded, the overall PDF is updated to include all of them AND transition slides between them. This would be amazingly valuable! Pre-reqs: Web 1.
• The practice of figuring out finances during divorce proceedings is a bit antiquated. It would be nice to have a web-based system to speed things up, especially during mediation, which can easily cost the parties a total of $11 per minute. It would be nice to have a fillable-form that calculates all the totals on the fly and prints out to the standard formats used by NH courts. Even better would be if each party had a form, but could see the other's without editing it. One feature could be the ability to mark a challenge to the other party's document, then everything could continue until all challenges are gone.

Miscellaneous

• Hypermiling App: I'm very interested in hypermiling. When I'm driving in a new place, I'd really like to know what the hills look like coming up. Is there a way to combine Google Maps terrain with Google Navigation so that it shows me where the ascents and descents are coming up? Prereq: Mobile Apps.

Getting Your Project Set Up

1. Think of some ideas! They don't have to be any of the ideas I listed above.
2. Come talk to me about your idea(s).
3. Which course would this project be a part of?
   • CSC 4899 Senior Project: For projects done as part of the Senior Project course.
   • CSC 3951 CS Research 1: For a research project you're doing with a faculty advisor.
   • CSC 4952 CS Research 2: Doing an advanced research project. (You're probably doing a 3951.)
   • HON 3955/3956 Honors Directed Study: 3955 is Falls, 3956 is Springs.
   • HON 4955/4956 Honors Senior Thesis: 4955 is Falls, 4956 is Springs.
   • Note: If your project is not part of a regularly-scheduled course, then you probably need to fill out the Directed-Independent Study Form. (Choose the "Directed Study" option. I can help you fill out this form.)
4. Fill out a project proposal (.docx). (My proposal format is different from other faculty; let me know if that link doesn't work.) I want that proposal to be completed and accepted by me before I sign the forms to approve your project. That means you preferrably want it done before the semester begins.
5. After I've accepted your project proposal, clean it up by deleting the instruction/sample text. Send it back to me and I'll print it out.
6. Work with me to select a weekly meeting time for us. Find a time that works with my schedule. Meetings usually only last around 10 minutes, so we only need to find a 15-minute window to make it work. If we can't make a meeting time work for everyone in the group, we want to pick a time that works for the maximum number of you as possible. Make sure you come to my office for those meetings! What I'm going to do is check out how close you are to the stated goals for that week. If we miss for some reason, then I'd like you to be proactive in figuring out how to make the meeting up. It's only okay to have one unexcused missed meeing per semester. Any more than that, and I'm going to strongly consider cancelling the project.
7. Get to work kicking butt on your project!

Actual Projects

Here are the projects of past and present my students have undertaken.