There are two Software Development Lab instructors for next year. Some of the following projects are assigned to a specific instructor, but others will be determined based on interest. Continuing projects include both those under current development and ones that were developed in the past. In some cases the technology is specified, but in others the team can help pick the technology with the product owner's approval. Projects are in alphabetical order and numbered for convenience.
We will send a survey to all students who are likely to take SDL in the fall. The students will rank the projects by order of interest; instructors will form the teams based on the interests. We are generally able to place everyone in one of their top choices, but this is not always possible. If a student does not rank projects, then that student will be assigned to whatever team has open positions. You will work on the project for a year, so it is important that you express your interests.
Do not worry if a project uses a technology that you are not familiar with. You will have time to learn it, and in fact learning new technologies is one of the good things about SDL!
PO: Dr. Hasker
Returning project: You likely used esubmit in the C++ course. A barrier to it being used in more courses is that assignment setup and management is incomplete and contains errors. The goal is to streamline assignment setup, preferably starting with a set of input files and a correct solution, and ending with an assignment ready for submissions by students. In addition, the system has preliminary support for submission via git repository, and this feature of the system needs to be hardened for general use as we move to more git-based assignment submission. There are also opportunities to update the website styling. This is a Ruby on Rails project with Angular.
PO: Menominee Tribal Enterprises
New project A group of honors students developed a game to support forestry efforts for Menominee Tribal Enterprises. They would like to have a phone app version developed. There are likely opportunities to add additional features as well. The development platform is yet to be determined.
PO: Prof. Pezewski
New project: Navigating a campus is always confusing for new students. MSOE's Science Building makes that even more challenging since the room numbering scheme is not obvious. There may also be opportunities to use sensors to help students find free areas for studying. This would be a web-based application; the team would have input on the technology to be used.
PO: Prof. Jones
Continuing project: This project is to develop a assembly language training tool. Students will use it to write, assemble, debug, run, and visualize programs in the PLP assembly language through a custom Integrated Development Environment. Previous teams have built a JavaFX-based GUI system, and the AY26 team will add additional features. This project has the potential of impacting many students who study assembly programming.
PO: TBD
Continuing project: A team in a previous year developed a system that facilitates using YouTube videos in courses. This system allows students to take notes in real time and simplifies searching for key portions of videos. A previous team developed a version based on videos in VidGrid, but this system no longer works because of changes in the campus environment. The AY26 team will provide support for VidGrid videos and other features. This system would be very useful to MSOE students in hybrid and flipped courses. It also contains components that could be useful to students with disabilities. This is a JavaScript/React project.
PO: Michael Hinder, MSOE
Continuing project: Previous SDL teams developed the highly successful website that students use to arrange tutoring on campus. This tool has had dramatic impacts; a large percentage of students on campus use some form of tutoring services. The tool is essential for RCAS operations. The AY25 team added support for Success Allies, but there are additional types of meetings to be arranged. There is also an opportunity to restructure the user interface now that the project scope has changed, and some of the underlying structure needs a refresh. This is a Ruby on Rails project.
PO: TBD (Residence Life)
New project for SDL: An MSOE team has developed a management application for Residence Life. This will used at front desks to handle packages and equipment and is expected to grow into new areas, for example adding reporting tools and integrating cameras to take photos of There is also a need to redesign key elements. The front end is in React, and the back end is in JavaScript using FastAPI and Firebase.
PO: Dr. Hasker
New project: Instructors in SWE 2410 and other courses need to review the structure of student solutions. A great tool for that is to use reverse-engineered UML class diagrams similar to the ones generated by Enterprise Architect. However, EA is not convenient to use because it includes too much detail in its diagrams and the instructor has to load each project separately. We would like a tool to reverse engineer Java, C++, and Python projects to create simplified UML diagrams for grading. The user should be able to control what detail appears on the diagram, and the user should be able to run it as an IntelliJ plugin or from the command line. The tool should be published as open source with minimal dependencies on external libraries. Class diagrams would be supported initially, but support for sequence diagrams may also be added. The technology for this project has yet to be determined.
PO: Dr. Riley
Returning project: Previous SDL teams have developed a Rosie Dashboard that can be seen on the screen next to the Diercks Hall Data Center on the second floor. It provides key information about the datacenter, AI, and MSOE. A hardware update in 2024 added an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano as well as a webcam and directional speaker. A senior design team has created prototypes around these, but they need significant work before being deployed. This project would revisit the code base and integrate new components. The front end is built using React. The back end is a Ruby server and uses a number of technologies including Ganglia and RRDtool.
PO: Xorbix
New project: A common task in the professional world is to transfer information from conversations to digital forms. This is tedious, error-prone, and diverts valuable time from core responsibilities. This project's goal is to develop a system that captures spoken interactions, extract relevant information, and places that information in a form. It will include a flexible prompt builder to define information extraction parameters, a customizable output formatter to align with destination system requirements, and a robust connector framework to integrate with diverse applications across multiple industries and use cases. This system will use React for the front end and C# .NET with SQL for the back end.