Project work

The project work is supposed to follow a predefined organization and time plan divided in four phases (at least seen from a reporting point of view):

Phase 1, requirements gathering and analysis.
Phase 2, architecture and design.
Phase 3, program implementation.
Phase 4, test and evaluation.

The four phases shall each result in a delivery consiting of suitable diagrams, documents, code, etc. As a complement to these intermediate results a final report and demonstration of the tested and evaluated solution is also expected.

Project Description

The project area that all groups are supposed to work with is called "Smart Commuting". The idea is that each project group should create a system that helps interested persons to reduce their cost for and the environmental load related to their transport needs for commuting and other travels. This by organization of coordinated transports and sharing of cars or similar transport vehicles by advertisement of resources such as cars and planned travels and traveling needs via a client part providing a simple web interface and then handle this in a server with a database that can be used to coordinate resources and travel needs. The user interface should preferably be made very simple so that it also can be accessed from and handled in a mobile phone if desired.

Each group should analyze the problem area and create an interpretation of the problem of their own, including a good architecture and implementation that finally also is tested and evaluated. Considering the short project time the solution can only be a prototype implementation but it should run and be able show the feasibility and enable discussion of interesting properties of the design.

The design should be partitioned in at least as many components as project members in the group such that each member typically is responsible for one component, or at most two, each component can be divided in subparts if needed. This to enforce that the design can be developed in parallel and that the different parts have well defined task responsibilities and interfaces that simplifies the integration to a complete system that also can be tested first as components and then as a complete system.

The result of each phase must be documented and reported as a partial resul at the end of each phase. These temporary results shall then be refined and aggregated in a final report.

Technical Design Base

The groups can select technology such as programming language, design tools, relational database manager, web page server, GUI tools or componenents on a free basis limited only by what is available or previous experiences

Typically I assume a two or three tier architecture solution comprising a database server and a light client user interface.

A list of typical technologies that can be used are:

Progamming Language: Java or PHP
Relational Database: MySQL or MS-SQL
Operating System: Linux or MS-XP
Design Tool: NetBEAN
Web Server: Apache

Due to short project time the search for and choice of suitable technologies as well as the necessary studies of these technologies must be carried out concurrently with the more "waterfall" structured development process.