COS 333: Project Ideas

Thu Aug 29 20:21:12 EDT 2024

Overview

There are many individuals and groups on or near campus who have really interesting problems that could be profitably attacked by folks in COS 333. Here are some of them. They have come from a variety of sources on campus. Many of them have come from Princeton's Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES).

If you're interested in working on one of the proposed projects, then you should contact the proposing organization directly. Typically the organization will agree to work with the first project team that makes contact, so it's important that you make contact soon.

The first proposals are new this semester, and are listed in chronological order by time of submission. The others are hold-overs from previous semesters but still of interest.

(new) First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury

Contact

Michael Lovaglio, Director of Youth Ministry (michael@cranburypres.org)

General description

Located 20 minutes away from campus, First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury manages several pantries. Their Christmas "closet" volunteers and donors distributed over 1,000 gifts last holiday season to local children in low-income households. The amount of gifts is expected to triple this year. To ensure sustainability, the church needs to streamline how information about gifts, distribution, volunteers, and other contacts is gathered and used. The app could be expanded to include the food pantry, baby clothes "closet," and other ministries at the church. This year's big day is Saturday, December 21 for families to come in and "shop."

Minimum Viable Product

A responsive web app that serves as an inventory control system for church's Christmas "closet."

Users: Administrators

There will be three administrators: Michael, a church administrator, and the director of children and family ministries. They must be authenticated, probably via Google login. The administrators must be able to enter or approve:

• Information on gift inventory (cost of items [retail and amount church/donors paid for it on sale], type of item, quantity, contacts).
• Data submitted by youth volunteers.
• Bulk amount gift requests from external organizations for their clients/participants (maybe somehow represent this in the inventory data? Example note on record: "Reserve" X amount of this toy or this type of gift).

The administrators also must be able to run dynamic queries on inventory and activity using tags (age range, market value price, real cost of item to church, item type). Example queries:

• How many items that we acquired for less than $15 dollars were distributed?
• How many toys/clothes/etc went out the door?
• How many pairs of shoes do we have left [and what size are they]?
• How many gifts do we have for 4-6 year olds? For 5th grade students? For high school freshmen?
• Which gifts go out on the holiday distribution day and which/how many go out during the year (for birthdays)?

Users: Youth

• Access inventory information.
• Log incoming and outgoing inventory with details like origin of donation (an individual, other organization, or store/company).
• Tag incoming inventory.

Stretch Goals

Some stretch goals include:

• Allow administrators to send notifications of sales to generate gift inventory (email list has not been effective in the past).
• Allow administrators to approve and share content with "registered donors" like big discounts or flash sales on toys in particular demand, or donations people want to make.
• Record gift item ideas/requests for the following year from holiday shoppers.
• Use AI to detect sales on Amazon, Target, Disney, etc.
• Generate reports containing data visualization, especially for grant applications and PowerPoint presentations.
• Support a third user group: "registered donors." Submit info for Admin to approve and share or otherwise act upon, like big discounts or flash sales on toys in particular demand, or donations people want to make.
• Support a fourth user group: general public for people to view inventory.
• Support a calendering feature.
• Allow families to submit information for review by administrators, like requests for inclusion in the distribution, specific toys desired, or shoe/clothing sizes of children.

(new) The Trenton Project

Contact

Purcell Carson, Documentary Film Specialist, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (acarson@princeton.edu)

General description

A database and public interface to showcase student documentaries made for The Trenton Project and its related classes (URB202 and HIS202), give more information about the films and filmmaking process, and solicit feedback. Our current site has about 40 films which we'd like to be able to sort thematically, as well as by year. We'd like to create a stand-alone presentation page for each film (we can start with 4-5 as a prototype) that includes related annotated photos, documents and interviews. We also want to create a discussion forum where the public can comment on individual films and materials. Our audience brings a lot of knowledge about Trenton to these films and has a lot to share. COS 333 students can imagine this project as a cross between a streaming platform, a behind-the-scenes window into the filmmaking process, and a post-screening conversation. One of our stretch goals is to design an interface in which students can solicit and incorporate community feedback on their films during their research and production process, thus deepening the extent of community collaboration.

Minimum Viable Product

Administrators must be able to:

• Add, edit, new content and secondary pages with filtering tags.
• Receive alerts when new comments are submitted.
• Approve/reject each comment that is contributed from community/general public.
• Decide which elements get posted for public view; what isn't ready/draft stage/stays on shadow application.

Community contributors (from Trenton and beyond)/general public must be able to:

• Browse materials and able to search by theme or other filter
• Register if they want to comment (require authentication)

Stretch goals

Some stretch goals include:

• An interface for a third user group: Princeton University undergraduate students enrolled in HIS/URB 202.
• Allow students during a semester – even as early as Spring 2025! – to add and annotate source material from their films in development.
• Allow students or administrators to add longer film clips or add other resources.
• Allow students to ask questions to the Trenton Project community or the general public
• Allow students or administrators to respond to questions submitted by community members/general users.
• Allow an administrator to easily send email notifications for content approval or rejection.

(new) Edu-Sports Academy, Inc.

Contact

Patricia (Pat) Lindsay-Harvey, Founder and CEO (pat@edusportsacademy.org)

General description

Edu-Sports Academy, Inc. is diversifying golf with its accessible and original patent-pending golf instruction pedagogy. Through its Swing 2 Tee Golf, everyone — ages 2 to 100, abled, disabled, at-risk youth and/or experienced trauma, in recovery or in reentry — has the opportunity to develop athletic skills while engaging in social-emotional learning. In group, in-school and after-school golf programs, players learn about the spiritual, physical, mental, career and therapeutic benefits of learning and playing the game.

Minimum viable product

There will be three kinds of users: administrators, instructors, and golfers (and/or their guardians).

The application must allow administrators to schedule classes and evaluate students, specifically:

• Integrate/upload class schedule into the application.
• Generate, edit, delete, (and maybe archive) budding golfers profiles, including the "Level" of a student.
• Approve, generate, edit, delete, (and maybe archive) instructors' profiles.
• Assign registered golfers and instructors to individual classes and view the entire class enrollment/roster; assign instructors to a class that aligns with the instructor's availability (which s/he enters into the profile they create).
• Send email notification to golfers when they can register for a new future session.
• Save and view information: golfers' registration and skills assessment, when needed (for levels 3 and up); attendance record; progress record.
• Allow administrators or instructors to input quantifiable performance measures into a golfers' progress record, like a checklist of skills for each Level (could be "yes" or "not yet accomplished" on a 5-point scale).
• Instructor could review golfers' records before weekly lesson to review skills to work on individually'

The application must allow instructors to:

• Create and update their own profile information and availability as needed; login credentials needed.
• Record the following information on golfers after each class:
• Skill progression, as free form notes, and auantifiable measures set up in the application (from checklist referred to above).
• Attendance (checkbox and free form notes field on any absences).
• Record free-form notes for each golfers' profile where goals for the year, for example, can be documented.
• Access golfers' emergency contact information

The application must allow golfers and/or their guardians to:

• Create a profile for approval by administrators: contact and medical info [emergency contact]), log-in credentials.
• Register for classes.
• View progress "metrics."
• For golfers in Levels 3 and up that visit and play on golf courses, allow golfer to record date, golf course name, and score.
• For golfers in Level 6 who compete in tournaments, allow user to record date, tournament name, and score.

Stretch goals

• Allow administrators to generate reports on the following: number of golfers and/or families impacted across settings (in school, after school, summer; a dashboard view of some kind that is downloadable as csv file).
• Allow administrators to collect required waivers from families; include a checklist of other registration requirements.
• Allow administrators to generate graphs of golfers' skill progress rates.
• In the registration process, allow golfers to input level of golf experience/mastery (self-assessed; then in-person evaluation of skills for placement required by an Edu-Sports instructor).

Information that COS 333 students will need in the beginning:

• Groupings: Wee [2-5 years old], Academy [Levels 1 & 2; ages 6-7], Club [Levels 3 & 4; ages 8+], Tour [Levels 5 & 6; 10+; Level 6 is the only competitive Level].
• Structure of classes: 6-week sessions, 1 lesson per week, class length is dependent on grouping.
• Checklist of skills for each Level.

Wish list of features to consider, as proposed by Pat

For administrator:

1. Dashboard - A centralized dashboard that provides an overview of program activities (lesson schedules, instructor availability, golfer participation).
2. Scheduling and Calendar Management – Tools to manage class schedules, book facilities, and coordinate events or tournaments. The calendar should sync with instructors' and golfers' schedules.
3. Enrollment and Processing – Online registration forms for new participants, with options to manage enrollment, track progress, and manage payments.
4. Payment Processing – Integration with secure payment gateways for processing lesson fees or event fees. The app could also handle billing and invoicing.
5. Communication Tools – A built-in messaging system or integration with email/SMS for sending notifications, announcements, and reminders to instructors and golfers.
6. Reporting and Analytics – Tools for generating reports on attendance, performance metrics, financials, and overall program effectiveness. This helps in making data-driven decisions.
7. Content Management – A system to manage and distribute learning materials, video tutorials, and announcements to instructors and golfers.
8. User Management – Admin capabilities to add, remove, or edit user profiles, including roles and permissions for instructors and golfers.
9. Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Game Coaching – Ability to upload mental game (positive self-talk), physical game (fitness) and spiritual (meditation) game coaching including visualizations and stress management techniques specifically designed for golfers.
10. Automated Financial Management – Implement advanced financial tools that automatically track income, expenses, and profits. The app could also integrate with accounting software to streamline financial reporting.

For instructors:

1. Lesson Planning - A lesson planning tool where instructors can create, save, and share lesson plans with golfers. It could include customizable templates and access to a library of drills and exercises.
2. Video Analysis and Feedback – A feature allowing instructors to upload videos of golfers' swings, annotate them, and provide detailed feedback. This can include side-by-side comparisons with professional golfers or previous videos.
3. Progress Tracking – Tools to track golfers' progress over time, including skill assessments, performance metrics, and achievement milestones. Instructors can update golfers' profiles with notes and areas for improvement.
4. Scheduling and Availability – A calendar system that allows instructors to set their availability, manage bookings and view their upcoming lessons or classes.
5. Communication with Golfers – Direct messaging to communicate with golfers, share feedback, or send reminders. This can also include group messaging for class participants.
6. Resource Library – Access to a repository of teaching resources, including videos, articles, and drills, which instructors can share with their students.
7. Attendance and Participation Tracking – A feature to track attendance and participation in lessons or events, allowing instructors to monitor engagement.
8. Gamification and Progress Challenges – Introduce gamified elements like achievement badges which indicates their advancing to the next skill level, and progress challenges that instructors can use to motivate golfers and track their improvement in a fun and engaging way.

For golfers:

1. Profile and Goal Setting - A person profile where golfers can set goals, track their progress, and view their lesson history. They can also input personal data like handicap and equipment used.
2. Lesson Enrollment – Easy access to view upcoming sessions or classes, enroll in sessions and receive reminders for upcoming sessions.
3. Video Tutorials and Drills – Access to a library of instructional videos, drills, and tips provided by the instructors, tailored to their skill group and level and goals.
4. Swing Analysis and Feedback – A feature where golfers can upload videos of their swings, receive feedback from their instructors, and track improvements over time.
5. Performance Tracking – Tools to track performance metrics, such as swing speed, accuracy, distance, and scoring trends, with visual charts and graphs.
6. Communication with Instructors – A messaging feature to communicate directly with instructors, ask questions, and receive feedback on their progress.
7. Event and Tournament Registration – Easy registration for events, tournaments, and workshops, with the ability to view upcoming events including lesson sessions and receive notifications.
8. Social Features – A community feature where golfers can connect with peers, share achievements, and participate in forums or group discussions.
9. Equipment Recommendations – Personalized recommendations for golf equipment based on the golfers' profile, skill level, and progress.
10. GPS Course Map – Integrated GPS maps of golf courses, allowing golfers to plan their strategy, track shots, and record scores directly within the app.
11. Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Game Coaching – Incorporate tools for mental game (positive self-talk), physical game (fitness) and spiritual (meditation) game coaching including visualizations and stress management techniques specifically designed for golfers.

Other potential features:

1. Multiplatform Compatibility – The app should be available on both mobile devices and desktops to cater to different user preferences.
2. Integration with Wearables – For golfers who use smartwatches or fitness trackers, the app could integrate with wearables to track swing metrics, heart rate, and other physical data.
3. Cloud Sync and Data Backup – Ensure all user data, progress, and lesson content are securely stored and synced across devices, with backup options.
4. Customizable Notifications – Allow users to customize notifications for reminders, new content, upcoming events, and more.

(new) Healing Waters Farming Project

Note: Not to be confused with Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc.

Contact

Tomia MacQueen (wildflowerhomesteading@gmail.com), Owner of Wildflower Farm and Founder of Healing Waters Farming Project

Organization description

Please note that NO KNOWLEDGE/EXPERIENCE of farming or other agricultural experience is required for this COS project. If you encounter domain-specific terms below that are not familiar to you, do not fret: you would still be able to work on this app.

Wildflower Farm is a 42-acre family farm in Pennington that is committed to sustainable, organic, and ethical agriculture practices to provide pasture-raised lamb, free range poultry, and culturally significant produce and seeds. Additionally, the Farm offers educational opportunities to communities of all ages. The Healing Waters Farming Project (Healing Waters) will be situated on Wildflower Farm. It is a land access equity program piloting in 2025 that is designed to support beginner BIPOC farmers of limited means. Members of this community represent three of the four categories of farmers or ranchers that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) designates as being historically underserved. Through private funding and USDA grants, Healing Waters will:

1. help 8-12 "resident farmers" establish productive ⅛ to ½-acre plots,
2. provide technical assistance and education,
3. facilitate farmer-to-farmer communication to learn from each other and build community, and
4. connect farmers to seasoned mentors.

Minimum viable product

There will be two kinds of users: administrator and resident farmer. Some stretch goal involve a third kind of user: mentor.

The MVP should be a mobile-friendly web-based app to help Healing Waters Farming Project resident farmers communicate with the administrator and each other, gather data on agricultural production, and schedule crop rotation and harvest times, including seed harvest times, which is a feature not available on current applications for small producers. The app should have user authentication for each user group.

The application should allow both user groups (or all three, as a stretch goal) to communicate in the following ways:

• View data that resident farmers/peers input and make comments.
• Respond to resident farmers/peers requests for information or assistance (e.g. "I'm looking to use fertilizer X. What do you all think?")
• Post announcements/alerts; examples include:
• "Look out for this pest. It was spotted on so and so's plot. Here's how you can defend your crops against it."
• "I'm on the farm in field X" upon arrival for safety reasons; then upon departure "I've safely left the property." Alternatively, this type of announcement can be a stretch goal where resident farmers and Admin can indicate their "status" (e.g. on/off property; sick or otherwise unavailable and therefore cannot offer assistance or reply to requests).
• Administrator (or mentors if third user group stretch goal is achieved): "Severe weather event expected. Prepare by doing the following…"

Administrator functions

• Approve, generate, edit, or archive resident farmers' profiles.
• Present meta-template for 12 crops with task lists that are relative to start dates (sowing or planting) or average dates for first or last frost, depending on the seed (i.e. generate dynamic, weekly reminders for resident farmers using absolute and relative dates).
• Pilot the app with 12 crops total. This will represent the 4 main types of crops from each primary plant family for each of the 3 growing seasons.
• Each of the 12 crop templates will have task lists for both crop production and seed production/preservation.
• Examples of tasks include when to: start indoor seeds, sow (into plot), harvest crops, extract and start dehydrating seeds.
• Resident farmers will have authorization to add information specific to the variety or type of seed they are growing
• Add or edit local and resources that are specific to Growing Zone 7A to a static page

Resident farmer functions

• Create a profile and edit as needed.
• Enter data (including, as a stretch goal, images) on crops mentioned above.
• Log all inputs/amendments used on their plot (by a multiselect dropdown list or, perhaps as a stretch goal highlighting on a "plot map").
• Track "events" on their plot, especially damaging ones related to: weather, disease, integrated pest management (or "IMP"), and wildlife.
• Document which crops are for which seed company and whether it is a "contract," "grow out," or "stewardship" crop including costs and income to assist with in-the-field decisions; this information can also be a multiselect dropdown list.
• Add variety or type-specific information to crop templates to ultimately aggregate the information to create seed database that can be shared with other small producers.
• Confirm whether an input or amendment is National Organic Program (NOP) approved, which can perhaps link to a static resources page. (Note - all crops in Healing Waters will need to be NOP approved.)

Stretch goals

• HIGH PRIORITY STRETCH GOAL (especially for IPM): Image uploading feature that are visible to the whole group.
• Create mentors as a third user group:
• Create profile for Admin approval with login credentials; edit own profile as needed.
• Respond to resident farmers' requests/questions.
• Provide resources or photos to help.
• Post announcements/alerts to all users.
• Add a seeding rate calculator to estimate total seed or crop yield for each variety which will help resident farmers determine if they should continue growing a particular crop.
• Allow Admin to run reports on agricultural data above for individual plots or a selection of plots (perhaps for comparative measurement).
• See and manage isolation distances between varieties of the same species amongst the plots and other locations on the farm - included in 12 templates then resident farmers can add notes on variety-specific information to get more granular detail on each seed variety.

(new) Daily Princetonian Project

Contacts

Clifford Wulfman, Periodicals Digitization Coordinator, Princeton University Library (cwulfman@princeton.edu) and Esmé Cowles, Assistant Director, Library Software Engineering, Princeton University Library (escowles@princeton.edu)

General description

The Daily Princetonian's 150th anniversary is next year, and they want to hold events where students, alumni, and visitors could interact with the archive to bring the history of The Prince to life.

Princeton University Library already has a system for searching, browsing, and reading digitized newspapers (https://papersofprinceton.princeton.edu/), including The Daily Princetonian. This interface provides a sophisticated reading tool and standard search capabilities, but we have extracted the full text of every issue from 1876 through 2015 into text corpus intended to serve as a data source for applications that employ natural-language-processing techniques, including data visualization, network analysis, and question-answering using Large Language Models.

We invite students to use this corpus to build a companion to the Papers of Princeton reading environment. It should enable users to engage with the text in ways not already supported by the Papers of Princeton interface.

Minimum viable product

• The data is initially loaded into a document database (like MongoDB).
• Subsequently the system dynamically reads data from that database.
• It enables discovery through textual prompts.
• Users should be able to comment and like/favorite items.

Stretch Goals

• Design the system to be a responsive/mobile web application that works well on both laptop/desktop computers and smartphones.
• Design the system to scale to include other periodicals.
• Build an LLM that supports a chatbot.
• Design the system to track usage patterns (how many users, how many distinct users, most popular queries, and so forth).
• Design the system to allow administrators to add new data to the document database dynamically.

Princeton Gerrymandering Project

Samuel S. Wang, Professor of Molecular Biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute

See a description of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

Art Museum Services

Stephen Kim, Associate Director for Information and Technology

• "Art of the Day": A service that introduces users to a single object from our collection each morning. Relevancy to the user could be built off a variety of potential sources (see next bullet point).
• "Tinder . . . for Art": An application that presents a pair of objects relatively devoid of context and asks for a simple thumbs up, thumbs down (or swipe left, swipe right). Then repeat "n" times, resulting in a visual "taste" profile driven by machine learning for the user.
• "Oh, that's what that's called?": A geo-driven tool that identifies the nearest pieces of campus art (the over 600 sculptures, portraits, and other objects outside the Museum building around campus) to the user's current location.
• "Scavenger Hunt": A service that leads users (could be students or all levels, both University and K-12) via clues to art objects around campus. Could be integrated with augmented reality or machine vision experiences.
• "Virtual Museum": A service that allows users to curate their own digital exhibition and share with others. Could include a virtual reality component.

Communities of Interest App: letting citizens talk back to redistricters

Sam Wang, Neuroscience

Citizens have opportunities to testify about their communities in public hearings. But that testimony is qualitative, and there is no way to integrate the comments in a unified way. It would be useful to have a graphical application for individuals to (a) draw their communities of interest (COI's) on a state map, (b) store the shapes in a standard format such as GIS, and (c) annotate the shapes with comments. Then, after citizens have participated, it would be useful to display all of the communities of interest in a single map for inspection.

An additional feature might be reduction of redundancy by combining highly overlapping communities in a single consensus graphical display object.

Dynamic Frist Displays

Abby Klionsky '14, Office of the Executive Vice President

There is actually documentation of all of this, in a very old-school, circa-2000 website that pairs photos of the quotes with photos and bios and explanations of the people who they are quoting: http://princeton.edu/frist/iconography.

This also covers the images in Cafe Viv and some of the Princeton-y flotsam that adorns the halls and walls. It would be GREAT if this could actually be a site that made people interested in looking at it!

Could we build a system that showed these images much more dynamically, perhaps with a rotating sequence of pictures that always showed something interesting. For each one, perhaps there could be a QR code that pointed to more details. Or maybe a touch screen would make it easy to get more details. Would it be possible to add new images and new text very easily without having to be an expert? Are there other things that would make the displays more appealing and encourage people to look at them more carefully?

Princeton Prison Teaching Initiative

Jill Stockwell, McGraw Center

Managing maps and geospatial data

Wangyal Shawa, Map and Geospatial Information Center

We are planning two projects to create and manage our scanned maps and create geospatial data. One project is related to creating a batch georeferencing tool that will georeference scanned topographic maps that are the same size and the same scale. There is one system called QUAD-G (open source) to process the United States Geological Survey 1:24,000 scale maps but this software does not work well if you have a smaller scale map series. We need to customize the QUAD-G software to work with smaller scale maps using the same programming language or redesign it with a different programming language using similar workflows.

Another project is to design an open source software system that will extract georeferenced scanned maps to vector geospatial data.

These projects will benefit many researchers and libraries.

Princeton Sustainability

Ijeoma D. Nwagwu (ijeoma.nwagwu@princeton.edu), Office of Sustainability

The Office of Sustainability's Campus as Lab (CAL) program facilitates the use of Princeton's campus for sustainability research and experiential learning to advance the Sustainability Action Plan. Explorations into the social, physical, and operational dimensions of Princeton can generate new knowledge to help advance sustainability on campus, in our broader community, and around the world. Over the years COS 333 students have worked on several CAL projects and can support the Office of Sustainability on campus-based projects by developing:

• a way-finding app to help the campus community quickly identify the nearest water refilling stations to encourage use of Drink Local/reusable water bottles.
• an app that educates, tracks, and rewards proper recycling/actions through a year-long competition.

Data collection and presentation for student outcomes

Jed Marsh, Vice Provost for Institutional Research

Themed historical tours of campus

Abby Klionsky '14, Office of the Executive Vice President