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Choosing a Project
Choosing a Project
In order to pick a suitable NEA project you need to consider:
Your own confidence levels in programming
The difficulty of the techniques a solution will require
Project scope
End-users
Languages
Design strategies
Time frames
Exam board requirements
You can choose to complete almost any type of project for you NEA. The following will all make good A Level projects:
Games
Mapping or route-finding applications
Automation
Use of Raspberry Pi or Arduino technology
Data set analysis
Using APIs to collate and analyse real-time data
Mobile phone or tablet apps
Dynamically generated websites with database backends
Membership systems
Scheduling or timetabling systems
You need to be using a high-level text based programming language to complete the project and you need to make sure that your project and solution allow you to access the advanced technical skills in Group A in the specification.
What is the Difference Between a Problem and an Investigation?
What is the Difference Between a Problem and an Investigation?
Most students will undertake a project that tackles a specific problem rather than completing an investigation, but what do they both involve?
Problems
Problems
For this type of project, you will find a problem that needs a solution for a group of users or single end-user. You will will need to analyse and develop a solution for this problem.
Investigations
Investigations
If there is a particular area of interest that you have, which you would like to investigate further AQA allows you to investigate and area of interest that requires a significant amount of programming. In order to complete this type of project you would need a teacher that has some understanding of the area being investigated.
Generating Project ideas
Generating Project ideas
You need to make sure that you generate a good idea for your project and this may not be the first idea you come up with.
The general idea here is to start with a list of ideas and narrow them down to a final project. You could try this technique to help:
Write down as many ideas as you can based upon potential problems that you think you can solve and areas that interest you. Try to come up with 20-30 ideas.
Wait a day or so and come back to your ideas adding any further ideas you have had since.
Wait another day or so and then pick your top ten ideas.
The next step is to narrow the list further down to five ideas. To do this you might want to discuss your ideas with someone else so that they can help you develop or reject the ideas.
Next you should take each of the five ideas and write a small project brief for each thinking about what success criteria you would include.
Now you should narrow your ideas down to three and then develop a project proposal for each thinking about whether you can reach the right technical skills in the project.
Once you have reached this stage you will probably have a favourite and know how you can take this idea forward to your final project.
Project Inspiration
Project Inspiration
The links below are to ideas on the internet for projects and further project guidance.
To do List
To do List
Choose a project title
Complete project proposal
Check project has scope to gain maximum marks for technical programming skills
Make sure your project is of A Level standard
Consider whether the difficulty and size of your project is achievable
Choose your user(s) if solving a problem or supervisor if completing an investigation
Choose programming language you will use
Chose IDE you intend to use
Get approval from the teacher
Create a project plan with milestones.
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