got any ideas?

[Brandon Martus]

Hi.

I was just wondering if anybody had any input on what I could do for my senior project. I don't have all the details yet (the class hasn't started yet), but I'm pretty sure it's got to be a large program and a large paper to accompany it. (ill update this after my first class on Tuesday)

So -- I figured I would ask all of you.. maybe I can do something that would eventually be integrated into chiefdelphi.com

It's got to be large enough to take 2 to 2 1/2 months (so no easy stuff )

I'm hoping to use PHP/HTML/mySQL..

Anyway -- any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Kyle Fenton]

In my school I am doing a school project called the CIM with a project with Digital Video. Basically to theorize of a codec that can achieve the lowest bitrate at the high quality. So far I am still working on it.

Brandon, for an example, I would suggest designing a website to make it easier for people to shop and want to shop.

Just set it up like my CIM project.

What are the problems with the current internet shopping?

--Not like retail store, to 2d
--Antisocial, not meeting people
--Except for software, can't try anything out, like clothes or other products
--Very hard to browse like a regular store
--Takes a long time for shipments to come in
--Economy making shopping in general hard to overcome
--Like Darel Hamond said on SNL, "No one wants to spend 40 minutes online to save nine cents on a can of peas"

Than you say, how can I improve these current limitations?

--Use Adobe Atmosphere, makes it fell more like a retail store
--Incorporate audio and chat with people who are currently looking at similar products
--For trying out clothes, maybe you can invent a java or flash application that can caculate what a specific piece of clothing would look like on the person that is buying them. I know someone right now (forgot specifically who) is using webcam technology to achieve this by letting people see themselves with simulated clothes on the internet
--With Adobe Atmosphere, browsing would be simpler and more user friendly
--Maybe you can draw up a plan to have regional warehouses so cheap shipments can come faster to a consumer
--To solve the economy problem, you would have to talk to a finical adviser, I am not an expert in the stock market.
--Try to get people excited to use the internet instead of criticism from comedians

This of course it just an example on what you said you wanted to use.

[Robby O]

That would be way cool. You could give people the option to build thier robots in different ways, which would dictate how far they could move, how many balls they can pick up, and the chance of them breaking. Give them a spending budget of points and each part they put on costs a certain amount so there is no perfect robot.

Each turn they have a certain number of things they can do, once again, based on the speed of the components of thier robot. Each turn could last like 2 seconds, and they can choose to move thier robot in a direction for a certain amount of seconds, or reach for a scoring object or whatnot. Base it like real rpg.

If I am not mistaken, PHP has some really cool graphical commands. You could take what options the player chooses and create a new image each time it is submitted that shows the position of the robots and all. Whacha think o dat???

[Jay Lundy]

I would say think of something very difficult to do, that a lot of people would love to have, and work on it hard so that it far surpasses the quality of any other versions of the same thing (if there are any other.) A good example, vBulletin. They took something that was very difficult to write, worked on it and worked on it until it was near perfection, and now it is probably what every forum writer tries to copy.

Kyle's idea is probably a very good one. I don't know how many companies (if any) there are out there that give (or sell) shopping cart services. You might want to do some research first, but if you find that you can write something better than anything out there right now, do it. Kyle also had some great ideas about improvements, though user bandwidth might be a problem if you go too overboard with atmosphere. Then, once you have a bug-free (or almost bug-free) and user-friendly (and admin-user-friendly) application, create documentation and a website for it then release it. You could even write a windows application for the admin to make the setup process even easier.

Anyway, something like this would definately take 2-2 1/2 months and maybe even more. Oh and maybe you can include other easier things with your shopping cart program, like a guestbook program, a forum program, and a news editing program (like newsPro). Maybe I'm going a little overboard here, but you could even allow people to have their own mySQL database on your server to make it easier for them since free web hosting services that give you mySQL access are hard to find.

[EddieMcD]

I was thinking like Robby, except I thought more of an action FIRST game, with all the years of competition included. In order to win a certain year's competition, you have to design the robot, build it with a budget and by the deadline. Then you have to configure the controls on your keyboard, and drive it through the regionals and nationals, which could be made up of AI of various levels. And maybe there could be an option to roam the pits scouting (and the occasional pin collecting ). Actually, this would make a killer FPS (First Person Sim, no pun intended).