Project Ideas

These are project ideas which could be developed into undergraduate research (CS 398) or Master's Projects. Before registering for either one of these, we would need to talk about this and agree on the details of what would be done.

The Moth Story-Telling

OK, so this one is probably not for a course credit, but it would be fun to gather students, faculty and staff for a session where we take 10 minutes to think about and create our own stories.  Those who want to could put their names in a hat to actually tell their stories.  This would be modelled after one of my favorite podcasts, The Moth Radio Hour.

Identity Buttons

I'd like to create software that allows people to select a couple of flags (national or gender identity or ?) and have them intersect on a button / sticker that we can then print out or create on the spot.  They could optionally select keywords or phrases that describe why they choose these and how these identities combine.  This would be an effort to help the average person think about different intersectional identities.

Elevator Virtual Window

I'd like to take video from the outside of the building, dropping the camera down from the roof on some guide lines. Then the resulting image could be played on a screen in the SEO elevator, giving you a virtual window to the outside as you go up or down. Once this proof-of-concept is done we could then implement this at the Willis Tower.

Copy Jim Campbell

Jim Campbell is an artist who creates 2d and 3d sets of LEDs and then plays images through them. I want to make one, maybe partnering CS and ECE folks together to make a really nice exhibit for somewhere on campus.

Educational Consultant

This project would involve partnering with several Chicago-area schools as a technology consultant, while a student at UIC. This project would be appropriate for someone interested in eventually being themselves an educator. This "consultant" would visit the schools, learn what computer technology is being effectively used in the classroom and for educational infrastructure, provide assistance where possible, provide training, and make recommendations on software/hardware/networking that could be used. One version of this would be to work with both a school that extensively uses technology, as well as a school that doesn't use technology much. We might try to partner with some people at UIC's School of Education for this.

Music Transposer

Music is often represented by chord charts, using only words & chords. This project would take as input a text file and allow transposing to any arbitrary key, maintaining the chord spacing relative to the original word placement.

Additionally it would be nice to parse the chords and include chord diagrams for all chords in the song. The final product should live on a web page and allow users to paste in their songs and click on a few buttons to do the transformation.

iPhone / Android App:

Ever been jogging with your music playing, only to notice that your pace changes along with the music? This would be an app that allows you to choose a pace (or sense it using your accelerometer) for your running, and then resample your music to fit, keeping frequency constant.