Suggestions for grade 12 ISU?

[Reality Check]

Alright, I have programming next semester and I really want to go all out for my final project. Last year I made a pool game but it wasn't perfect because I started late. I want to start as early as I can this time.

Every year I make a game and I wanted to maybe do something different. In Gr. 10 I made paint for turing so I don't want to do that again. I was thinking of doing POSSIBLY a network for the school that signs out books and keeps a database of all of them and keeps track of lates and such. I have no idea how that'd work but I'll certainly learn, would that be too big of a project? I have a partner so I'm not alone. But is that too big of a project? Because if I did do it then I'd want to do it well enough the school would consider using it in their network. If I chose to do that, what are some things I'd need to learn before getting started?

Another idea was a game of sorts but not really. I wanted to maybe replicate the game called hell of sand and falling. If you guys haven't heard of it just google it. I love implementing physics in programming and this certainly has it. This one wouldn't be as hard as the other one since I think I know most of what I'll need.

But really, I wanted to do something very interesting and original while at the same time being realistic. I tried to do that all of programming through the years so rather than doing a typical game show or puzzle game I'd do something different.

Another idea I've really thought of it quite possibly making a mini OS. I'm not sure how hard it'll be since I haven't had real experience making a non-game program. Thanks for suggestions in advance!

[Tony]

The book idea is not too bad. You'd need to run an instance of a database server such as MySQL. Getting a bar-code scanner to work would also be nice.

An OS is not a "non-game program". I think you'll destroy a machine a few times, while trying to figure out how to bootstrap your OS at powerup

[StealthArcher]

The book idea sounds good.

But tonys already said that....


Hmmm....

Add the ability to extend, renew, as well as buy if overdue by large amounts of time.

[Reality Check]

Well I assume a barcode scanner returns an integer value which can then be used to match a book with that certain number. I don't think that'd be too hard. What kind of networking things would I need to know? Keeping track of lates, days a book has been kept out and so on shouldn't be too hard but I was wondering how I'd keep track of that while the computer is off? I'm sure I have to use the internal clock? Maybe everytime the computer is turned on it'd compare the the current time to the last time time before it was turned on.

Now, lets say I wanted to get the school to use it. Is that the schools decision or the boards? Because I'd love to put that on an application

[Nick]

well i got a problem thatd be great to fix...
i need a proxy server that will send bypass the network address and instead allow the user on a netwrk to connect the proxy server with the ip

[rdrake]

Reality Check @ Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:00 am wrote:

Well I assume a barcode scanner returns an integer value which can then be used to match a book with that certain number.

They return a string, typically ended with \n\r. I'm sure some return just integers, but the ones I've dealt with return strings too.

[Reality Check]

Either way, it won't be too hard for me to see what exactly has been scanned. In fact I imagine it'd be real easy.

[rdrake]

Reality Check @ Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:24 pm wrote:

Either way, it won't be too hard for me to see what exactly has been scanned. In fact I imagine it'd be real easy.

No, it's really easy. In fact if you're dealing with USB scanners it acts just like a HID (ie. a keyboard), so you just hook into the Windows keyboard events and collect key strokes until you find \n\r.