CS / IT Project Ideas | Computer Science & IT Project Ideas Third & Final Year
Numbers
Find PI to the Nth Digit – Enter a number and have the program generate PI up to that many decimal places. Keep a limit to how far the program will go.
Fibonacci Sequence – Enter a number and have the program generate the Fibonacci sequence to that number or to the Nth number.
Prime Factorization – Have the user enter a number and find all Prime Factors (if there are any) and display them.
Next Prime Number – Have the program find prime numbers until the user chooses to stop the asking for the next one.
Find Cost of Tile to Cover W x H Floor – Calculate the total cost of tile it would take to cover a floor plan of width and height, using a cost entered by the user.
Mortgage Calculator – Calculate the monthly payments of a fixed term mortgage over given Nth terms at a given interest rate. Also figure out how long it will take the user to pay back the loan.
Change Return Program – The user enters a cost and then the amount of money given. The program will figure out the change and the number of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies needed for the change.
Binary to Decimal and Back Converter – Converter to convert a decimal number to binary or a binary number to its decimal equivalent.
Calculator – A simple calculator to do basic operators. Make it a scientific calculator for added complexity.
Unit Converter (temp, currency, volume, mass and more) – Converts various units between one another. The user enters the type of unit being entered, the type of unit they want to convert to and then the value. The program will then make the conversion.
Alarm Clock – A simple clock where it plays a sound after X number of minutes/seconds or at a particular time.
Distance Between Two Cities – Calculates the distance between two cities and allows the user to specify a unit of distance. This program may require finding coordinates of the cities like latitude and longitude.
Credit Card Validator – Takes in a credit card number of a common credit card vendor (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discoverer) and validates it to make sure that it is a valid number (look into how credit cards use a checksum).
Tax Calculator – Asks the user to enter a cost and either a country or state tax. It then returns the tax plus the total cost with tax.
Dijkstra’s Algorithm – Create a program that finds the shortest path through a graph using its edges.
Text
Reverse a String – Enter a string and the program will reverse it and print it out.
Pig Latin – Pig Latin is a game of alterations played on the English language game. To form the Pig Latin form of an English word the initial consonant sound is transposed to the end of the word and an ay is affixed (Ex.: "banana" would yield anana-bay). Read Wikipedia for more information on rules.
Count Vowels – Enter a string and the program counts the number of vowels in the text. For added complexity have it report a sum of each vowel found.
Check if Palindrome – Checks if the string entered by the user is a palindrome. That is that it reads the same forwards as backwards like “racecar”
Count Words in a String – Counts the number of individual words in a string. For added complexity read these strings in from a text file and generate a summary.
Text Editor – Notepad style application that can open, edit, and save text documents. Add syntax highlighting and other features.
RSS Feed Creator – A program which can read in text from other sources and put it in RSS or Atom news format for syndication.
Post it Notes Program – A program where you can add text reminders and post them. You can have the program also add popup reminders.
Quote Tracker (market symbols etc) – A program which can go out and check the current value of stocks for a list of symbols entered by the user. The user can set how often the stocks are checked and the program can show green up and red down arrows to show which direction the stock value has moved.
Guestbook / Journal – A simple application that can be for online that can allow people to add comments or write journal entries. It can allow comments or not and timestamps all entries. Could also be made into a shout box.
News Ticker and Game Scores – A program which sits on your desktop and aggregates news and game scores from various sources on the net and scrolls them across the screen on regular intervals.
Fortune Teller (Horoscope) – A program that checks your horoscope on various astrology sites and puts them together for you each day.
Vigenere / Vernam / Ceasar Ciphers – Functions for encrypting and decrypting data messages. Then send them to a friend.
Random Gift Suggestions – Enter various gifts for certain people when you think of them and when its time to give them a gift (xmas, birthday, anniversary) it will randomly pick one and perhaps places you can get it.
Text to HTML Generator – Converts text files into web HTML files and stylizes them. Great for making online documentation of standard text documentation.
CD Key Generator – Generates a unique key for your applications to use based on some arbitrary algorithm that you can specify. Great for software developers looking to make shareware that can be activated.
Regex Query Tool – A tool that allows the user to enter a text string and then in a separate control enter a regex pattern. It will then run the regular expression against the source text and return any matches or flag errors in the regular expression.
Networking
FTP Program – A file transfer program which can transfer files back and forth from a remote web sever.
Get Atomic Time from Internet Clock – This program will get the true atomic time from an atomic time clock on the internet. There are various clocks across the world. Do a search for a list of them.
Chat Application (IRC or MSN Style) – Create a chat application that can carry on simple chat rooms like on Internet Relay Chat or a more direct chatting style like MSN. For added complexity, create your own protocol to facilitate this chatting.
Fetch Current Weather – Get the current weather for a given zip/postal code.
P2P File Sharing App – Create a program like LimeWire, FrostWire, Bearshare, or a torrent style application.
Port Scanner – Enter an IP address and a port range where the program will then attempt to find open ports on the given computer by connecting to each of them. On any successful connections mark the port as open.
Mail Checker (POP3 / IMAP) – The user enters various account information include web server and IP, protocol type (POP3 or IMAP) and the application will check for email on several accounts at a given interval.
Packet Sniffer – A utility program that will read packets coming in and out of the machine along with related information like destination and payload size.
Country from IP Lookup – Enter an IP address and find the country that IP is registered in.
Whois Search Tool – Enter an IP or host address and have it look it up through whois and return the results to you.
Zip / Postal Code Lookup – Enter a zip or postal code and have it return which city/cities that are in that zip code.
Remote Login – Create a remote desktop style application which can see and control the remote computer (given you have permissions). It may require the use of your own private network and a second computer to test with.
Site Checker with Time Scheduling – An application that attempts to connect to a website or server every so many minutes or a given time and check if it is up. If it is down, it will notify you by email or by posting a notice on screen.
Small Web Server – A simple web server that can serve HTML files that contain Javascript and other forms of non-code executing code. Added complexity would be to try and implement streaming video, create a server-side language, or serve up other stream types.
Web Bot – An automated program which carries out tasks on the web including checking websites, page scraping, and summarization of data or web posting.
Classes
Product Inventory Project – Create an application which manages an inventory of products. Create a product class which has a price, id, and quantity on hand. Then create an inventory class which keeps track of various products and can sum up the inventory value.
Movie Store – Manage video rentals and controls when videos are checked out, due to return, overdue fees and for added complexity create a summary of those accounts which are overdue for contact.
Airline / Hotel Reservation System – Create a reservation system which books airline seats or hotel rooms charging various rates for particular sections of the plane or hotel. Example, first class is going to cost more than coach. Hotel rooms have penthouse suites which cost more. Keep track of when rooms will be available and can be scheduled.
Student Grade Book Application – Keep track of students (with a student class that has their name, average, and scores) in a class and their grades. Assign their scores on tests and assignments to the students and figure out their average and grade for the class. For added complexity put the students on a bell curve.
Bank Account Manager - Create a class called “Account” which will be an abstract class for three other classes called “CheckingAccount”, “SavingsAccount” and “BusinessAccount”. Manage credits and debits from these accounts through an ATM style program.
Library Catalog – Create a book class with a title, page count, ISBN and whether or not it is checked out or not. Manage a collection of various books and allow the user to check out books or return books. For added complexity generate a report of those books overdue and any fees. Also allow users to put books on reserve.
Patient / Doctor Scheduler – Create a patient class and a doctor class. Have a doctor that can handle multiple patients and setup a scheduling program where a doctor can only handle 16 patients during an 8 hr work day.
Recipe Creator and Manager – Create a recipe class with ingredients and a put them in a recipe manager program that organizes them into categories like deserts, main courses or by ingredients like chicken, beef, soups, pies etc.
Image Gallery – Create an image abstract class and then a class that inherits from it for each image type. Put them in a program which displays them in a gallery style format for viewing.
Class to Handle Large Numbers – We know that the basic data types like integer, long, double, and floats only go so far. Create a class that can manage extremely large numbers like those used in space exploration.
Chart Making Class / API – Create a class, or a set of classes, that generates bar charts, pie charts, histograms, and scatter plot charts. For added complexity, make this a service where people can connect to a web server, supply information and it returns a chart image for them in gif or jpg format.
Shape Area and Perimeter Classes – Create an abstract class called “Shape” and then inherit from it other shapes like diamond, rectangle, circle, triangle etc. Then have each class override the area and perimeter functionality to handle each shape type.
Matrix Class – A class to manage matrices. Add, subtract and multiple matrices.
Flower Shop Ordering To Go – Create a flower shop application which deals in flower objects and use those flower objects in a bouquet object which can then be sold. Keep track of the number of objects and when you may need to order more.
Vending Machine – Create an application which takes money and dispenses various types of candy or other item. The user enters a number and letter sequence, like D9, and have it return an instance of “Item” which of the proper type. Example when they press D9 it will return a type of candy bar which is an instance of Mr GoodBar.
Josephus Problem – Create a program which links together various node objects and then every Nth object is removed until you have one object left. This last object is the sole survivor. Look it up on Google under “Josephus Algorithm”
Family Tree Creator – Create a class called “Person” which will have a name, when they were born and when (and if) they died. Allow the user to create these Person classes and put them into a family tree structure. Print out the tree to the screen.
Threading
Create Progress Bar of Download – Create a progress bar for applications that can keep track of a download in progress. The progress bar will be on a separate thread and will communicate with the main thread using delegates.
Download Manager – Allow your program to download various files and each one is downloading in the background on a separate thread. The main thread will keep track of the other thread’s progress and notify the user when downloads are completed.
Chat Application (remoting style) – Create a chat application which allows you to connect directly to another computer by their IP through the use of remoting and allow your “server” application handle multiple incoming connections.
Bulk Thumbnail Creator – Picture processing can take a bit of time for some transformations. Especially if the image is large. Create an image program which can take hundreds of images and convert them to a specified size in the background thread while you do other things. For added complexity, have one thread handling resizing, have another bulk renaming of thumbnails etc.
Web
WYSIWG (What you see is what you get) Editor – Create an editor online which allows people to move around elements, create tables, write text, set colors etc for web pages without having to know HTML. Think Dreamweaver or FrontPage but for online sites. If you need an example check out the DIC page used to create a post.
Web Browser with Tabs – Create a small web browser that allows you to navigate the web and contains tabs which can be used to navigate to multiple web pages at once. For simplicity don’t worry about executing Javascript or other client side code.
Page Scraper – Create an application which connects to a site and pulls out all links or images and saves them to a list. For added complexity, organize the indexed content and don’t allow duplicates. Have it put the results into an easily searchable index file.
File Downloader – An application which can download various objects on a page including video streams or all files on a page. Great for pages with a lot of download links.
Telnet Application – Create an application which can telnet into servers across the internet and run basic commands.
Online White Board – Create an application which allows you and friends to collaborate on a white board online. Draw pictures, write notes and use various colors to flesh out ideas for projects. For added complexity try building in picture tubes.
Bandwidth Monitor – A small utility program that tracks how much data you have uploaded and downloaded from the net during the course of your current online session. See if you can find out what periods of the day you use more and less and generate a report or graph that shows it.
Bookmark Collector and Sorter – An application that you can put online for people to upload bookmarks to, have it sort them, remove duplicates and export the entire list as a Firefox/IE/Safari bookmark file. For added complexity see if you can group the bookmark items into various folders.
Password Safe – A program which keeps track of passwords for sites or applications and encrypts them with a key so that no one can read them.
Media Player Widget for iGoogle – Create an iGoogle gadget which can play various song lists from your computer as well as share one song daily. Perhaps let people look up which songs you have listened to lately.
Text Based Game Like Utopia – Create a simple text based RPG like Utopia where you can create a civilization, gather resources, forge alliances, cast spells and more on a turn based system. See if you can dominate the kingdom.
Scheduled Auto Login and Action – Make an application which logs into a given site on a schedule and invokes a certain action and then logs out. This can be useful for checking web mail, posting regular content, or getting info for other applications and saving it to your computer.
E-Card Generator – Make a site that allows people to generate their own little e-cards and send them to other people. Can use flash or not. Use a picture library and perhaps insightful mottos or quotes.
Content Management System – Create a content management system (CMS) like Joomla, Drupal, PHP Nuke etc. Start small and allow for the addition of modules/addons later.
Template Maker – Make a site or application which allows the user to enter in various color codes, elements, dimensions and constructs a template file for a particular application like PHPBB, Invision Board, MySpace, Bebo, etc.
CAPTCHA Maker – Ever see those images with letters a numbers when you signup for a service and then asks you to enter what you see? It keeps web bots from automatically signing up and spamming. Try creating one yourself for online forms. If you use PHP, take a look at the image functions of GD.