COMP10003 Personal Project 2021


Part 1: 10% of Subject Marks

This project has three parts:

1. Design I: A storyboard of a proposed system (this part) – 10%

2. Design II: An outline and code fragment – 10%

3. Implementation: A basic prototype of around 50 lines of code – 20%

Both submissions are to be submitted to the LMS. The code may also include a cover-page to explain the code context. Please ensure that your submissions include your name and student number (e.g. as comments in the code).


Part 1: Design – Deadline Wednesday 15th April, midnight (Melbourne time)

The design is worth 10% of the subject marks. Your design should contain:

Storyboard: One side of A4 (hand-drawn and photographed is fine), with a storyboard of the system, with 6-10 ‘slides’ showing a sequence of the system being used. The design story should have a clear beginning and end, and indicate the interaction between the user and the system.


Marking scheme for the Design:

Presentation (20%): tidily organised, formatted and laid-out design for the submission as a whole.

Storyboard (80%): A description of the proposed design in storyboard (graphical) form. This should make clear the overall intention that your final prototype will reproduce in a prototype.

Detail work: clarity of the individual storyboard parts – do they make clear the idea of the design? Is the user and system clearly depicted?

Overall story: is the storyboard as a whole well structured, with a clear beginning and end? Do the parts clearly link together?

Increasing marks are allocated for clarity of the description of the system, and for clear justified explanations as to what the system is intended to do. Remember to use annotations or supplementary text to explain particular ‘slides’ in the story.


Potential Projects

You can choose one of the following four example projects, or provide a similar one of your own. If choosing a personal example, please check with the subject leader (George Buchanan) that is both sufficiently complex, but not overly complicated! You should provide your code in Python.

The aim of the project is to create a prototype system that demonstrates the concept in principle, rather than an entire complex implementation. Mocking up parts of the system so that (for example) part of the control is from standard input, rather than a mobile app, or an on-screen image rather than a physical object is perfectly acceptable!

Note that some of these projects will require some graphics programming, but this will be covered in class after the Easter recess.


Idea 1: A simple guessing game

This mini game can be fun to play with friends or alone. You can build a small program where a computer randomly chooses a celebrity from the provided list. Then the program gives a hint to the user. Every time a user guesses the answer wrong, the program gives another clue, but the score gets reduced (in a way a use can buy clues with their score points). This game can have a single player mode or a multiple player mode.


Idea 2: A simple calculator

Make a program that would create a simple calculator of your own. The challenge of this project is to create a graphical user interface for the calculator that can respond to user’s interaction. This project might require you to go a step further and use Python’s graphics libraries. You will learn how to build a user interface in Python and map functions to buttons. If you would like to take this project further, you can extend your simple calculator to include scientific functions.


Idea 3: A simple quiz application

Create a standard quiz application that presents a user set of questions one at a time. It is up to you if you would like to design this project as a multiple-choice question, or not. The program should take the user’s answer and give user a feedback if it was correct or not. The program should also count user’s points. You can include additional options such as timer, and if the user did not give an answer within a specific time frame, they do not get points. Furthermore, this project can be extended to a mode for multiple users. This project can be used for your Trivia nights with friends or to help you to prepare for your exams.


Idea 4: A simple “guess the word” game

This game can be a variation of the famous “Hangman” game with a small difference of not creating/drawing the actual “hangman” (although it is possible if you would like to take this project a few steps further). The program can show the user a hidden word in a form of “underscores” and should ask the user to input letter guesses. The number of guesses should be limited as well as the user’s input should be limited to single letters, not words. The program should give a warning if the input did not match its criteria (i.e. invalid input, or the letter does not exist in the word, etc). This game can be extended to a multiple player option.