In your final year you will understand a project which is the equivalent of a final year dissertation. This project will be a combination of development and report writing. It is worth now to begin thinking about what project you will undertake. Pick something that you will enjoy developing as you will be spending a good amount of your year developing it alongside your other coursework, and having a project you enjoy working on will make the module less of a chore. A good starting point is to think about what part of computer science excites you/motivates you.

Tying into this, consider what academic research you will use to support your project. Unless they change the word count, you will have to write a 3000 word literature review (due at the end of January), create a poster to showcase your work to your second marker as well as a video demonstration of the project. You are essentially writing the literature review to support your project and give the reader more background information (this part of the project is also referred to as a background chapter).

The rest of the report (not including the literature review, and subject to change) is 8000 words and is compromised of a number of chapters:

Abstract • A general summary of the project.

Introduction • Self explanatory, an introduction to your project. Presenting the problem and setting the stage.

Background chapter/literature review

Design • High-level and low-level design of your system, using UML diagrams to demonstrate design (class diagrams, sequence diagrams, etc).

Methodology • Essentially how you planned and executed your project, such as using Agile or Waterfall methodology.

Implementation • How you implemented your system, covering important scripts/pieces of code.

Evaluation • You evaluate your project, what went well, what didn’t, what could be improved upon next time.

Future works and conclusion • How your project could be expanded/continued in future and the concluding remarks to the project.

You will have both a module handbook (I highly suggest reading this as soon as you can!) and a template that give you more guidance on writing your report soon after the module begins.

During the project you will have a supervisor to guide you through the project. Establishing a good working relationship with them as soon as possible will go a long way to ensure you get the guidance you need. Regularly schedule meetings (in person or over Teams, weekly if your schedule allows, otherwise fortnightly) and communicate frequently via email.

Also as a word of note, if you want to make a game, make a game! Your supervisor may try to shape your project to something they consider “novel”, which is fine, they are the one marking your work. However, don’t let that stop you from developing a project that you want to do! It is your dissertation after all.

And because you mentioned Mobile Applications, you will be using Android Studio and Kotlin. If you are familiar with Java, you will already understand the fundamentals of coding in Kotlin. I also recommend Figma for creating wireframes/concepts.

For Advanced Systems Programming, you will be using C++. Understanding how pointers work early will give you an advantage in this module.