Unit 3 - Coursework
Although we won't be tackling the coursework until you are in Year 13, I will still be expecting you to come up with an idea for your project and to begin thinking about how you're going to go about it. There is very little guidance on what you can and can't do, so longs as it is "not trivial." Which is helpful...
Past projects students have tried:
Things you shouldn't do:
Things you could or should consider doing:
What do OCR say?:
Not a lot actually, and that's the beauty of this project - you can do as you like within reason. Our examiner feedback has been consistently excellent and highlights a few things:
Whatever you consider, please run your ideas by me before going off and making anything - you don't want to end up repeating work you've already done.
Past projects students have tried:
- 3D first person shooter (complex - the report alone was over 200 pages long)
- 2D RPG using Unity
- Neural Network for an AI which plays the game Snake
- A property and lettings management system
- AI for connect 4
- Local football club management system including stadium booking
- Blackjack AI and training system
- Text based combat adventure
- Online reviews validation system - how trust worthy is a review?
Things you shouldn't do:
- A website that displays the contents of a database
- A simple booking system
- Think you're going to create GTA V by watching Youtube and copying some example code
- Anything based around simply reading and writing records to a database
Things you could or should consider doing:
- Something you love or are interested in - you are doing CS because you're interested in technology, right? How could you put it to some good or creative use?
- Some kind of game - these do not have to be graphical at all. Take a dive in to gaming history to discover text based adventures... (You should absolutely click here and play this for a while...)
- Something that is the solution to a real problem, not something you imagine or you ask me to make up - it is so much easier to work in the real world.
- A useful utility - what do you find yourself doing repeatedly on your phone or PC? Is there a program that could make your life easier in this respect?
What do OCR say?:
Not a lot actually, and that's the beauty of this project - you can do as you like within reason. Our examiner feedback has been consistently excellent and highlights a few things:
- They will check your code and for plagiarism (as we do before it goes off) so don't think you can use tutorial code as your own
- They love originality and it helps you get higher marks, because the project is your own! You'll have more to say about it and more interest in it.
- Use the language that suits the project. Just because you know one particular language doesn't mean it's the right one for your chosen task
- Planning your time effectively always leads to better results. We give you from September to February of Year 13 to do this project, which seems like forever but guess what... it isn't and you've got a lot to do in that time. We will give you deadlines for when sections of your report should be done but it's up to you to keep to them,
- We will not hold your hand during this project and it should be an independently undertaken task - the exam board can see and recognise that we do this and it makes it really obvious when other schools are in cheaty cheat mode.
Whatever you consider, please run your ideas by me before going off and making anything - you don't want to end up repeating work you've already done.
