Final Year Project - How does this sound?

dulpit

Hey, so heading into my final year of software development, we need to submit a proposal for our final year project by Friday... I'm nearly certain I'm going to go with this idea, just want opinions on what ye think.


The idea is a basic music player, it will be able to open any mp3 file on the computer and play it. It will also maintain a library of these songs so that you can play them again (like any other media player)

The 1 thing different about it will be it's random song playlist generator, it will work like this:
The user will, on the first startup, give a list of genres of music he/she likes. There will also be an option of which type of music is to be played more at certain times, i.e. more classical music at lunch, rock in the evening. Based on this & the time of day, a play list will be created...

I dunno how much more i'll add to it, it's pretty much a very very early draft of what i'm thinking...

I'm also thinking that I'll possibly set up a stream for this online, so that it, in effect, becomes an automatic radio station, but I don't know yet.


I'll be using Visual C# with the BASS.net libraries...


What ye think? Too small (that's my worry) too easy? (another worry)

Doodee

Well first of all, are you confident in being able to do all that?
If you are then it sounds good. But remember that the project is only worth 40% or so of the overall grade. its the process that you get marks for.

With any proposal, make sure you research the area first, know what algorithms and such that will be required, the language etc. Listen to your supervisor aswell! Having been one of those people who didn't I can tell you that its very important!

Don't worry about it being too small or too easy. The point of the project is to show that you understand the process involved in creating your arguement/software/proposal.
And you can always add features once its stable!

hope that helps in some way.

dulpit

Doodee wrote:

Well first of all, are you confident in being able to do all that?
If you are then it sounds good. But remember that the project is only worth 40% or so of the overall grade. its the process that you get marks for.

I would like to think so. Provided I don't come across any hiccups along the way.

Doodee wrote:

With any proposal, make sure you research the area first, know what algorithms and such that will be required, the language etc. Listen to your supervisor aswell! Having been one of those people who didn't I can tell you that its very important!

I've done some research into area, and apparently this BASS library for C# is one of the better ways of doing music related stuff. Definitely be listening to project supervisor, we had to do group projects last year, our supervisor really helped us. Just hope I don't get a crappy supervisor (I know of one or 2 lecturers who'd be terrible)

Doodee wrote:

Don't worry about it being too small or too easy. The point of the project is to show that you understand the process involved in creating your arguement/software/proposal.
And you can always add features once its stable!

hope that helps in some way.

Well I suppose the project head can always ask for more if he needs it. The main benefit i can see for this project for me is that it could be fun. I don't want to be stuck doing something dead boring for the next few months. I think I'll be submitting it alright, I'll update ye as I go along.

Tom Dunne

dulpit wrote:

The user will, on the first startup, give a list of genres of music he/she likes. There will also be an option of which type of music is to be played more at certain times, i.e. more classical music at lunch, rock in the evening. Based on this & the time of day, a play list will be created...

Have you seen Yahoo Music? It works somehting similar to that. It also does music videos.

The key difference is, it plays music like a "normal" radio station, except of course it streams the music. As it plays each song, you rate it - the idea being over time, it builds up a picture of what your genre likes and dislkies are.

You also get to rate the artist, based on this, it tries similar artists. I have been using it for a number of years now, and I find it pretty good.

As for a college project, you are basically creating a music player, as you correctly point out. The difference being, the algorithm that selects the music and builds up a profile is where the real work is.

As an end of year project, I must admit, I am not so sure. Then again, I don't know the standard of other projects in the college, so it's not really fair of me to put you off it.

I would echo what Doodee says, some solid advice there.

anniehoo

Sounds like Pandora.com that has now shut down! You entered what type of music you like and it generated a playlist of simliar sounding artists and songs. The playlist was linked to amazon so if you liked the song and wanted to buy the album you could do so. I loved it, although you couldnt repeat songs or fast forward too many times!

Merrion

I think it would be too small as the bulk of the work is already in the BASS library - but why not discuss it with your tutor first?

Giblet

True, I would try use as little of the BASS library as possible. It might not be the smartest choicefor a real world app, but you're showing your skill in coding, not using a library. Do the tag reading yourself if you can.

John_Mc

Whatever you do, LISTEN to your supervisor! At the end of the day, he/she will be deciding on your grade and trying to justify it to the second reader. As long as you keep him/her happy - you'll do well in your FYP!