Here are some projects from past years that might serve as inspirations to you.
Turtle Tracker, Fall, 2019 — This team (David Dahms, Jonathan Ellis, Charles Kornoelje, Alex McDowell, Jonathan Winkle) built a map-based tracking application for the Calvin Ecosystem Preserve. Ellis and Kornoelje did further development on the application and the Preserve deployed it in Summer, 2020. This app was the first to use React Native and ElephantSQL, and it has proven useful to the Preserve in tracking the illusive box turtle.
Calvin Web Print, Fall, 2014 — This team (Tyler VanZanten, James Lamine, Eun Sung Kim, Kyle Kaczynski, Chris Diemer) built a Web front-end to the notorious uniFlow printing system. The system used to live at https://calvinwebprint.com and was written up here: Chimes article. This project provided significant relief from a burdensome interface; there was much rejoicing when it was released.
Class Booklist, Fall, 2013 — This team (Matt Greeley, Paul Jeon, Jiwon Nam, Peter VandeHaar, ZiYi Wang) built a web tool that provides users with a list of prices for their text books from their university book stores and from other text books sources, allowing the students to choose the source. The tool is was available online and had support for a number of universities (http://classbooklist.org/) and was written up here: Chimes article. I’ll remember this project as a disruptive technology in the line of the Book Connection that had a particularly amazing browser plugin that added lower book prices to Calvin’s bookstore website.
TTC, Fall, 2006 — This team (Sly Gang, Kristen Jongsma, Kyle Radosevich, Justin Searls, Jared Staal, Mark Van Holstyn) built a Palm-based, location-aware event finder. They were the first team to produce a promotional video, which used to live on the department’s TTC Trac site.
Book Connection, Spring, 2003 — This team (Ben Mouw, Tony Karston, Scott Hirdes, Justin DeVries) built a prototype of a book sales website for Calvin, and was ported to the CSX site (particularly by Ben Mouw, Andy Schamp and Dave Brondsema) and used to live at http://csx.calvin.edu/books/. I’ll remember this project as having resulted in the most useful system, for our department at least. Try it out if you haven’t.
Bess Filter Request System, Spring, 2002 — This team (Matt Koop, Chris Wieringa, Joe Ku, Dan Lindh), called the A-Team, built the first prototype of Calvin’s system for requesting that pages be (un)blocked in the Bess dorm filter. The system used to live at: /utils/opendns/changerequest.pl.
Page Panopticon, Spring, 2001 — This team (Steve Shultze, Jeff Plantinga, Ryan Tuuk, Adam Bultman, Shelley Nagel) built a web-watching collective site, which used to live at: http://pagepan.com. I’ll always remember this project as an interesting experiment in cyber culture and as having delivered the best final presentation ever.
Dorm Maintenance Request System, Spring, 2001 — This team (Matt Post, David Hutchful, Jordan Adema, Jeremy Hulford) built the first prototype of Calvin's system for reporting dormitory maintenance requests. Here is a link to the current system (authentication required).
GUMP, Fall, 1998 — This team (Abe Fowler, Brandon Wood, David Tong, Paul DeJong) built a prototype software engineering tool and wrote the course's first HTML-formatted, web-accessible documentation, which served as a model for years of CS 262 students. Here's their picture and their documents.
