Client Project Proposals 2017-18¶

Below are the client project proposals for our 2017-18 Capstone courses that I have received so far. I will be updating this page as new proposals arrive. This year we have over 160 students in the course. A new record. This means we will have between 32 and 40ish teams (since every team must have 4 or 5 students). That is a lot.

You have two choices:

Choose to work on one of the projects below. If so, all you have to do is wait until I post a form a form on this site where you list your top 5 projects, in order. I will then assign you to a project, trying to give everyone their highest-rated project.
Choose to work on your own startup project. If so, you will have to find other students in the class (each team must have 4 or 5 members, exactly) and form your own team. Then tell me your idea and your team. If I approve, you are done.

It looks like many of the projects will be "startup" projects this year. You can use our gitter public channel to communicate with the whole class and find other people who might want to work on your startup project idea.

Body Consciousness and Stress Management

Possible titles: Movingwithease or Bodytime/bodylight (open to suggestions too)
Based on the Alexander Technique and other movement coaching exercises I have developed, this app guides people through daily practice of self-care that will improve their physical wellbeing and mental ease. It will include audio sessions and video instruction. There is daily practice, a learning series of short instruction sessions, video CGI movement instruction sessions, lying down body meditation, 40 quick tips for more improvement and periodic reminders to practice during everyday activities.
I plan to use this for my USC class, Acting from a Physical Point of View, taught every Spring. As well I will offer it for general public courses through my website. All video segments with voice over are available. I can develop the audio instruction segments and provide them before final production. One inspiration for this app is Headspace.com
Below I offer a draft of possible organization. I am very open to guidance, new ideas and ways of presenting this work. If it is too ambitious I am also happy to do a portion of it.
Daily Practice

A Series of ten 8-minute audio guided body consciousness exercises

Each session will guide the person to calm and tune into their body. Focus on breathing and physical sensations leads into a variety of ways to improve balance and ease, energy and wholeness.
Learning Series
Ten Separate audio instruction units 3 minutes each:
1. head turns
2. Leaning back and forward
3. Expanding breath capacity
4. Shoulder release and charge with energy
5. Energize legs
6. Flexing vision and coiling spine
7. Jaw and Whispered ah
8. Wholeness and healing
9. The pause
10. Awareness inside and out
One 15 minute lying down session for integration using Constructive rest
Video Series with images of your joints (5 minutes each)
1. Turning your head at the top of the spine
2. Lengthening your arms
3. Rotating your chest
4. Freeing your hips
5. Whole body swaying
6. Lifting and lengthening your legs
7. Flexing your feet
8. Rolling your spine
9. Freeing your jaw
10. Eight minute sequence
Scheduling audio reminders.
Once a day – Twice a day – every two hours – random
Tips: 40 Specific Video Instructions to help you with each movement These segments are 10 seconds to 60 seconds long
Professor Sarah Barker, Department of Theatre and Dance
SABARKER@mailbox.sc.edu
Musical Forest

I'm an assistant professor in the School of Music and I'm interested in developing a desktop application that would be used to run a large-scale installation that I am working on with a close collaborator of mine, composer Michael Pisaro (California Institute of the Arts).

Our installation, Congaree Abstraction, is a composed environment that attempts to make a reduction of the density of a location in the physical world, in this case, Congaree National Park. The work will use the sounds, sights, and patterns observed in the park as inspiration to create a work based on environmental cycles and trajectories, with the potential for contingent occurrences.

We are looking for an application that would allow us to program a large number of Arduinos driving physical output devices (motors, solenoids, speakers, etc.) that are attached to musical instruments/found objects. The program created by the CSCE Capstone Project students will allow for robust control in the sequencing of the actions of the output devices.

Composed of numerous independent systems, the installation is a 2-hour loop that repeats 365 times (or about a month in a gallery space). A system will be defined as one or more elements that comprise the Congaree landscape. For example, insect life, temperature, and day/night times (along with other elements) might each be defined as systems. The user of our imagined application will be able create sequencing programs for the Arduinos through an intuitive user-interface. The user would be able to input the following kind information into the application for a given system:
1. # of time-units in the 2-hour loop
2. durations of time-units
3. # of events per unit
4. durations of events
5. rules for how events are placed inside time units (i.e., random, regular, etc.)
6. information on how the system will vary day-to-day, season-to-season
I’ve placed a very simple graphical representation of what I’m trying to get at below:
In the image we see the four seasons. Each season is divided by a series of time-units. Each time-unit is given a # of events by the user, how long those events can be, and how they may be placed inside the unit. Starting with Fall, the sequencing program created for the Arduino by the application would vary day-to-day depending on what the user specifies. As the program passes through Fall it becomes more and more like Winter, where we see that the relative spacing of the time units is different, as well as the appearance/disappearance of certain units.

We are really excited about the possibility of working with the students on this if possible. In particular, how their creative input with the programming could take the work in unforeseen directions.

Greg Stuart
Assistant Professor of Experimental Music Performance/Music Literature
University of South Carolina
School of Music
gstuart@mozart.sc.edu
Gamecock Sailing Club

Below is a fairly complete description for a web application that the Gamecock Sailing Club would like to have to facilitate their crewing, sailing, and racing opportunities. We really, REALLY want to see this app selected by one of your teams this year. Let me know if there is something I can do to help encourage selection of this project! Maybe we can offer some sailing opportunities so that members of the development team can better understand the application requirements ;)
- Objective: Provide a closed service to match
  - Gamecock sailing club members who want to race, with
  - Boat owners who are members of the Lake Murray Yacht Racing Assn
- On a per-event basis
- Matching skills to requirements
- Matching boat type to desired type
- Via any browser – platform independent
GUI Requirements: GSC-side
- Register in a way that confirms the registrant is a member of GSC
- Categorize and self-rank sailing skills or qualifications of the GSC member
- Select preferred date of sailing opportunity
- Select type of boat or racing division desired to sail on
GUI Requirements: LMYRA-side
- Register in a way that confirms the registrant is a member of LMYRA (moderator?)
- Specify date that crew is/are required
- Select crew position(s) or sailing skills needed for crew member(s), multiple options permitted
- Specify type of boat, and racing division or practice/training of the crewing opportunity
Functionality
- After registration, show possible matches in a relatively-anonymous way
- User (either end) selects desired match
- User (other end) "accepts" desired match
- As soon as matched, crew and opportunity positions both disappear from the list of opportunities seen by others
- Provide mechanism to exchange dock meet-up details and/or contact details
- Provide mechanism to exchange any supporting information such as "what to bring"
Optional/Desirable
- Calendar view for all participants, with all active dates highlighted
- Mechanism to link dates for multi-day regattas (require attendance both days)
- Moderator/administrator view and controls
- Star-rating system for boat to rate crew claimed skills and crew to rate quality of sailing experience on boat
Roger Dougal
dougal@engr.sc.edu
Faculty Advisor, Gamecock Sailing Club
Professor, Electrical Engineering Department
Beacon

My name is Mitch Puechner and I am part of a project called Beacon with Dr. Galbreth, Dr. Ferguson, and Dr. Buchan from the business school. I am writing today to inquire about Beacon being a part of your senior design class this upcoming fall. We are a nonprofit group in need of help developing our disaster relief phone app. We were founded following South Carolina’s “Thousand Year Flood” in 2015, which left approximately twelve billion dollars of damage. In the flood's wake there was an immediate outpouring of volunteers and donations; however, there was nothing to coordinate the logistics of the relief efforts, especially among small and grassroots organizations.
This is where Beacon comes in. We are currently working on developing an app that will help coordinate volunteers and donations during natural disasters. In this app, there are three users: relief organizations, volunteers, and survivors. These groups would all see different interfaces upon logging in. Organizations would be able to request and adjust quantities of donations or volunteers needed. Volunteers can commit to providing requested donations to specific organizations. Survivors can use the GPS feature to locate organizations offering the resources that they need.
A base form of the app has already been created with help of Dr. Hu’s class this past semester, but it does need refining. If granted the opportunity to work with your class, we would like to separate the interfaces for our three targeted user groups and add additional functionalities to launch publicly, including but not limited to improving the GPS feature and increasing the user login data base, etc. We are currently using Ionic View to house the app, but would like to move to a free-standing app available on both the Google Play and iTunes App stores.
Please let us know what we need to do to have Beacon under consideration by your students. Thank you for your time and we look forward to working with you.
Mitchell Puechner
University of South Carolina ‘19
South Carolina Honors College | Darla Moore School of Business International Business and Global Supply Chain and Operations Management
puechner@email.sc.edu
iCinema

This is Nagarjuna Karnati. I live in columbia SC and I have found regarding custom made app development as part of student capstone project during my visit to USC for an international event night at russell house.

I graduated in computers systems networking and later I have found my passion to learn about mobile apps because of its powerful outreach. So I did brainstorm for so long to came with this idea of IMDB like an app where it lists movies releasing in each language that are running in theaters now. I have always wondered about having a common platform for world cinema where you go in watch trailers of various language movies releasing every weekend across the world.

I have deigned iCinema app prototype using apache cordova for a code day 24hr event and won best app certification. I did start with apache cordova but I am really confused about where to store data and make updates about movies every week. More over it was all static content that I have made where I hard coded youtube video URL's in each HTML page.

Please watch this video to get an overview of the app idea and let me know if there are any further questions.

What you want the app to do, and who will use it. A short paragraph is enough.

This app is a common platform for world cinema to list movies from different regions/languages that are running in theaters or releasing every Friday.

Any platform requirements you might have, such as: must be an Android app, must run on Windows, etc.

I really want my app idea to be up an running asap in either android or iOS whichever can get done quickly.
Nagarjuna Karnati
karnatn@sunyit.edu
Project Manager

A webapplication for faculty at USC to manage the funds in their funded research projects.
1. Sign in for each PI that will only allow them to see their reports.
2. Display basic project Information for each project per PI:
  1. Project Number and Name
  2. Project Start and End dates
  3. Report Date
  4. Overall budget, Total Expenditures, Commitments, Amount Remaining
Kay Dorrell <DORRELLK@cec.sc.edu> and Stephen Fulmer <FULMERSB@cec.sc.edu>
Recycling Bin Manager

I am Recycling Coordinator and Waste Manager in the Facilities Department here at USC. We have thousands of recycling bins on campus that we have to keep track of and a very small crew to do it with. If a crew member is out, it can be difficult for the substitute to figure out where stuff is or what needs to be serviced. I would like to have your class develop an app that could help us more efficiently deliver our services to campus, especially by tracking our inventory of recycling bins and recording which have been serviced.
Primary capabilities that we desire:
- Inventory management: ability to add and delete bin type, placement, etc. with specific building locations
- Route management: ability to assign certain buildings and containers to certain crew members on a specific daily schedule
- Service history: ability to quickly indicate that a bin has been serviced (time and fullness)
- Crew communications: ability to send messages/service requests directly to crew members’ devices within the app to efficiently assign tasks
- Data extraction: ability to export data from above capabilities to help identify service needs, billing, etc.
Platform requirements: Would prefer to have as an android app as well as have a web interface especially for communicating service requests from the office to the field and extracting data.
Larry Cook
Recycling & Waste Manager
University of South Carolina
Facilities Environmental Services
720 College St. Columbia, SC 29208
803-777-2223
www.Facilities.sc.edu/recycle
www.Facebook.com/CarolinaRecycling
Brain Gains

Exercises for survivors of stroke

Significance:
In South Carolina, having a stroke is the fifth most common cause of death and is responsible for over 15,000 hospitalizations each year (that’s half of all the students enrolled at USC). Strokes occur when there is a blockage or leak in the vessels supplying blood to the brain. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 80% of strokes are preventable. For those who survive a stroke, they are often left with disability including weakness, loss of touch, visual deficits, and impaired speech. Survivors are at the greatest risk for having another stroke, which is often deadlier than the first. Fortunately, physical activity and/or exercise can help reduce risk of another stroke (as much as an 80% reduction). The problem however, is getting survivors to exercise on a regular basis. One reason for this is that survivors often lack the confidence or knowledge to perform exercise. Having an app that is readily available to them will hopefully increase confidence and physical activity.
The App:
- Population: any one effected by a stroke
- Capabilities (in order of importance)
  1. The ability for a user to select from multiple exercises organized by body region (such as shoulder, chest, legs, heart and lungs etc).
    Embedded video or picture demonstrating safe performance of the exercise, as well as a more difficult and less difficult version
  2. The ability for a user to create their own custom workout by clicking the available exercises.
    For example, if I want to do a workout containing all leg exercises, I could select 4 exercises and the app may display “Do 20 squats”, then “rest 30 seconds”, and repeat until the end of a workout.
  3. A tracking feature that displays number of exercise minutes per week (either tracked by the app, or having the user input the number of minutes).
    For example, if the user completed three workouts of 30 minutes, they would have a total of 90 activity minutes. The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate physical activity for adults.
    
    This will help survivors stay motivated and keep pushing for that 150 minutes.
Platform: iOS or Android (iOS preferred)

My mission as a PhD student is to improve the lives of those around me through community-intervention. This app can make a positive impact for survivors of stroke in South Carolina. Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or for clarifications.
Reed Handlery, PT, DPT
PhD Student in Rehabilitation Sciences
University of South Carolina
handlery@email.sc.edu
Thumbajob

The mobile app is a job board with a rideshare feature enabling individuals to find employment along the natural commute of members of their social network. 90% of South Carolinians live in rural areas and public transportation is only available in the three largest cities of Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville. We want our rural residents to participate in the collaborative economy as well.
The app has three users: riders, drivers, and employers. The driver will input both their starting and final destination points. The driver’s profile page will also indicate how often they go to work and what their shift is.
The rider profile page consists of the rider indicating their starting location.
The employer profile page consists of the employer posting including the actual location of the employer location.
When a rider signs into the app, the rider will enter their home location and then all drivers within a 2 mile radius will appear. Once the rider clicks on a driver, the rider will see a list of potential employers who have opportunities along the route the driver travels every day on their way to work.
The rider can then go to the website and apply for the position. The rider and driver can chat and agree to ride with each other for a period of time. There will be a flat rate that the rider pays the driver to compensate for gas.
Tomeaka Fladger
info@thumbajob.com
Open Community Use

We do have a need for an App—either a mobile, web, or desktop [a web application that is mobile-ready (responsive design) would probably be best- jmvidal]. One of our doctoral students, Jack Reeves, just completed a Social Return on Investment analysis for Open Community Use (schools making their facilities available to community members). As Open Community Use is a priority strategy adopted by SC DHEC and partner organizations as part of the statewide obesity plan, it would be very helpful if public health advocates had an app to calculate potential SROI for a school or district considering adopting an Open Community Use policy. Additional information about Open Community Use is included in these documents: CR-011555.pdf, CR-011641.pdf.
Kelli Kenison, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor & MPH Program Director
Department of Health Services Policy & Management
Arnold School of Public Health
803-777-1309
Room 348, Discovery Building
915 Greene Street, Columbia, SC 29208
kenison@mailbox.sc.edu
GUI for Old Text-based App: Water Hammer

Dr Chaudhry has an old Fortran program called Water Hammer Analysis that reads in data from a file and outputs another file. The data represents pipes in a water system:
The computer program WH, incorporating up-to-date computational procedures, may be used to analyze transient conditions in a pumping system or in a hydroelectric power plant. The transient conditions may be caused by the opening or closing of valves, starting or stopping of pumps, and loading or unloading of turbines. The program may also be used to study the governing characteristics of a hydropower plant having a temporary droop or a PID (Woodward or ASEA) governor. The turbo-generator sets may be isolated or connected to a large electrical grid.

He wants a program that will take the output file as input and generate some nice graphics. Details of the graphs are TBD.

This is a to be a web application where the user uploads the file and then sees the graphs in the web browser.
M. Hanif Chaudhry
Mr. & Mrs. Irwin B. Kahn Professor,
Associate Dean (International Programs and Continuing Education),
College of Engineering and Computing,
Tel. (803) 777-8318 or 777-3652
e-mail:chaudhry@sc.edu
Puzzle Game

My name is Michael LeaMond and I am a recent graduate of the University of South Carolina. I am sending this email to formally apply for the Computer Science and Engineering 490/492 Capstone Computing Project. I will give a brief description of our app as well as leave links to the 2 developed games that we have thus far.

The app idea that my team and I have been working on is a mobile app that has a collection of puzzle games for consumers to complete in order to be rewarded coupons and discounts to local businesses in the Columbia area. From our survey data we have verified that puzzle games are by far the most popular mobile games and the 2 puzzle games we have made so far have been positively received within our small test groups. This product will appeal to both consumers and businesses as consumers will be able to play these games completely free of charge and get to learn about the many small businesses that are around the Columbia area that may interest them and on the side of small businesses they will be saving money in marketing costs by paying us to market their businesses in our product by provided coupons, discounts and other incentivizing agents to make consumers interested in going to their establishments.

The app will be written in Unity and run on Android and iPhone. As well if we can be informed about the visual direction that the students would be interested in going that would be helpful as we would want to make the games that go along with the app to have some level of consistency. Thank you very much for providing this opportunity to startups like myself and I hope to hear from you soon.
- Picture Match
- Picture Roulette
Michael LeaMond
mleamond@email.sc.edu
Record Falls

iOS- app

I am hoping to develop an app in which clients that are at risk for falls can more accurately record falls or near falls that occur. Often individuals will come to physical therapy and deny any falls or under estimate balance trouble in the home due to no physical injury occurring. I am hoping an app will give individuals a real time option to not only record number of falls but more accurately identify a fall to assist physical therapists in providing recommendations and interventions to minimize a fall risk. See below for the scale I’m hoping to include in the app. I also would like the ability to record (brief) circumstances surrounding the fall (ie I was getting out of the shower). Finally, I’m hoping this data could somehow be visualized over time (ie bar or line graph).

Alicia Flach PT,DPT,NCS
Board Certified Neurologic Specialist
Physical Therapy Faculty Scholar at the Parkinson's Foundation
Clinical Assistant Professor
Physical Therapy Program | Department of Exercise Science | Arnold School of Public Health
Blatt PE Center | 1300 Wheat Street | Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sph.sc.edu/dpt
adflach@mailbox.sc.edu
803.777.2416
Employee Scheduler

My name is Cedric Brown and I’m an alum from the ME department and an engineer/Operations Manager with Frito Lay. We at Frito Lay are starting a new portion of our business which will require approx. 150 new employees. Each of the employees will need to rotate between different roles daily and each will have different skill sets (not all will rotate between all roles).

Currently this process is manual and I would like to explore if it’s possible for a few students to build a program to make this process automated.

Some of the constraints include: Must be able to function with Windows, ability to make changes (absent team members, updating when training occurs), even distribution of work load (Ex: one team member touches an 3 times while another touches the area once), etc. [This will be a Windows app that stores its data/database in a local hard drive. -jmvidal]
Cedric Brown
Charlotte Plant GES Manager, PEPSICO
Office - 704-369-8590
cedric.brown@pepsico.com
Pothole Reporter

The app would run along the idea of a WAZE app and people could report road damage and potholes via this app. They would also be able to see what municipality, county or if it was a state road the proper POC's.
Thomas Scott, Executive Director
SC Cyber
1225 Laurel Street Suite 317
Columbia, SC 29201
O. 803-777-6951
tom.scott@sccyber.org
Cutsies
Auction Strategy Game Called Cutsies by Biltmore Ideas, LLC
Have you ever been waiting in line at a bar or nightclub and thought to yourself, “I’d pay extra if I could just cut the line”? We are excited to introduce Cutsies the first strategy auction game that allows people to entertain themselves in a long queue with the possibility of paying for the right to cut the line.
How it works?

Establishments that charge a cover like bars and nightclubs will enroll in our auction services. When the line outside starts to build the venue will initiate the first auction which will run for 300 seconds. People standing in line will compete against one another bidding in 25 cent increments (think hungry, hungry hippos at the end) with the last bidder winning the right to cut the line with up to three of their friends paying the auction price as their cover. In addition to the simple bidding process, we have a number of strategy upgrades that we plan to feature as well that would be disclosed with the team that looks to work with us!
Platforms

Both an Android & iOS Mobile App compatible with the latest operating systems
Intellectual Property

The Company would like each member of the chosen team to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the ideas exchanged over the length of the course. In return we agree to execute a MIT Licensing Agreement with the team members offering payment in exchange for the exclusive rights to all developed code and materials related to the project.
Graham Gintz [grahamgintz@gmail.com]
Find The Dance App

Find The Dance provides full information on dance events, locations, schedules, instructors' accounts, and rates in the U.S. and all over the world. Ideally, the user will be able to:
- Create an account
- Search for events
- Add and edit events
- Select favorite events
- Get notifications about the events
Why dancing?
Dancing has many positive health benefits. It is a physical and social activity that benefits mind, body, and spirit. Dancing improves mental acuity, and social connections. Dancing is a great way for people of all ages to get in shape and stay fit. As physical and social activity, dancing helps to fight overweight and obesity with all related health problems, such as strokes, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, higher blood pressure, heart disease. Dancing is proved to help cure mental illness, memory loss, dementia, Parkinson's disease, disturbed sleep, neurological disorders, social isolation. It fights solitude, depression, loss of attention. It reduces stress hormones and inflammation, districts from use of drugs and alcohol, and reduces the number of suicides.
Target group:
Our target group is social dancers of any ages and professionals, such as Instructors, DJs, Vendors, Club owners, Event organizers, Musicians, Venue owners.
Benefits for social dancers:
- Schedule regular dancing events
- Get info on big dancing events (marathons, festivals)
- Learn about instructors, DJs, performers, vendors and their goods
- Buy dresses, shoes, accessories, new and second hand
- Find directions to a venue
- Find dance clubs/schools next to them and worldwide
- Get coupons and discounts
- Educate themselves on dancing etiquette
Benefits for professionals:
- Plan their dancing activities
- Organize events
- Promote their business (teaching/sales)
- Bring more dancers
- Sell shoes, dresses, accessories
- Hire musicians, instructors, photographers
Find The Dance is an existing MVC web application. The database is constantly updated with current events and users; the app is still work-in-progress. We would like a mobile (Android and iOS) version of the app, which can connect to the DB to provide functionalities listed above. We believe this may turn out to be an interesting project for the Computer Science & Engineering students.
Marianna Simina, a USC alumna 2005
msimina@gmail.com
SEEMOREDESIGNS
seemoredesigns.com
Deep Network Visualizer

I am a graduate student here looking for a tool for visualizing deep neural networks. I want something similar to the existing Netscope tool but with additional functionality.
The basic requirements are that it should:
- Load and create graphs for networks defined in the prototxt files used by the Caffe deep learning framework (what Netscope already does)
- Allow the user to manually reposition nodes of the auto generated graph by clicking and dragging. This would allow the user to clean up the figure if needed.
- Let the user ‘group’ layers together so that they can be minimized and represented by a single entity if desired. This would be helpful for condensing a large figure of a complicated network.
You can look at the preset models on the Netscope page for an idea of what the application should do.

Netscope additionally gives information about each layer when you hover over it with your mouse which is also useful. However Netscope doesn’t handle custom layers very well so there may be a possibility of resolving some of these issues as well.
Any platform requirements you might have, such as: must be an Android app, must run on Windows, etc.
My only requirement is that it must run on Ubuntu. I have no preference towards a web app or stand-alone program, although the former may be more convenient for other users.
Theodore Stone
tstone@email.sc.edu
Pro-bono Physical Therapy Project:

This project has the potential to help many uninsured residents connect with physical therapists willing to provide needed care. This app would help us collect outcomes for pro-bono physical therapy services to uninsured SC residents. The patients will receive PT services at multiple locations. We would like to make it very easy for participating physical therapists to report outcome measures and basic information to the project. Information would be provided for each patient on initiation and on discharge of services. The app would need to translate to a report or email that could be pushed to or pulled by the project manager.

The app would be a significant part in helping gather data in a way that is easy and not time consuming for the PTs involved which could drive more participation and has positive impact on public health in South Carolina.
Elizabeth Regan, PT, DPT, OCS
PhD Student
Department of Exercise Science
Arnold School of Public Health
University of South Carolina
eregan@email.sc.edu
Star Trek Bridge Simulator

Using the open source software Empty Epsilon along with other standard tools and languages, we need a customized scenario, data tracking, and data reporting app developed. To conduct teams research, we need a game people can play which simulates a quality teamwork environment. We have selected and piloted the Empty Epsilon open source code. Empty Epsilon is a “Star Trek” style bridge simulator. Unfortunately, the game does not have code written to track or report the details we need. However, the game does create raw data that can be manipulated into meaningful scores. We need a custom scenario and app that will track and report out performance at the end of each game. We need performance at both the individual and group level. We need data gathered from up to 40 machines simultaneously, and we need a consolidated reporting capability across games/teams. This task involves networking, database, and visual information display challenges. From our pilot activities we know it is possible to solve these problems and have programmers who helped in the selection and piloting who can explain the details of the open source code and architecture. Further, the app team will have plenty of opportunity to add its creativity to project.
Requirements.

It must be able to run on windows machines and work in the Darla Moore network environment.
Ormonde Cragun
Ormonde.cragun@grad.moore.sc.edu
435-553-8036
Obstacle Avoidance Signal Processing App

Background:
The WHO estimates that 285 million people are blind or visually impaired worldwide. An estimated 8,000,000 people in the USA fall into this category. The significance of these statistics points to the need for the development of assistive technology to aid people with vision loss to avoid obstacles in their path and to safely navigate from one point to another. Since the WHO reports that over 90% of the vision impaired reside in low-income environments, affordability and ease of operation of the device becomes paramount to help as many people as possible attain a level of self-reliance and increase their mobility.

Advanced electromagnetic sensor technologies are being developed for guiding autonomous vehicles and robots. These imaging sensors can provide position and reflectivity information over a wide field of view with high frame rates. These sensors are being road tested by nearly all major automobile manufacturers and their partners. The objective of this Senior Project is to develop an Android application that reads data from radars (which we will provide) creates a visual representation of that data for the the user, as well as allowing the user to save readings (to a file) and modify radar settings. If possible, the app will also implement some simple signal processing to alert the user of obstacles in front of him.

This project will be co-supervised by Dr. Tong, who does research in image processing.
Peter B. Mumola, Ph.D., LLC
1871 Pierce Street
Charleston, SC 29492
pbmumola@sbcglobal.net
Survey App

I created a step-by-step protocol with some colleagues for evaluating data from single-case research, which is an experimental methodology that is used widely in special education. Currently the protocol is a jotform survey (sample) where questions appear conditionally based on the respondent’s answer to other questions. I would like the app to show these questions one at a time, open the next question conditionally based on whether the respondent answers yes or no, display the graph, and include a pop-up or drop down with each question that contains text and graphic explanations and examples (this last feature is not yet included in the jotform). If the app could also include back-end scoring of the respondent’s answers based on weighted values we’ve assigned each question, that would be fantastic. The app would be used by single-case researchers, faculty members, and students who are learning about this methodology.

I believe a web app would be the most desirable platform for me to have this in.

NOTE: The team will build an app that lets users build these type of surveys. Many users, many surveys, each one different. -josemvidal
Katie Wolfe, PhD BCBA-D
KMWOLFE@mailbox.sc.edu
Assistant Professor
Programs in Special Education
University of South Carolina
Pulmonary Disease Management

My company is a small startup about three to four years in specializing in pulmonary diagnostics. We are also a member of the USC Technology Incubator close to campus.. I am writing in response to the request for project in the 490/492 Capstone Computing Project Class.
Project proposed:

To develop an app for pulmonary disease management. This solution will utilize the Vitalograph Lung Monitor device (see 4000 Range) to collect spirometric data from the patient user which will transmit to the phone via bluetooth. In addition to accepting lung monitor data, the app will ask a series of questions about of a patient diatry to track symptons and medication use, and coach them in steps to follow their action plan. The ultimate goal would be to transmit diary and device data to local providers (ie doctors' office, electronic medical record, payers) for medical management and needed intervention. Data transmission will need to be HIPPA compliant.

CDS will provide your students with a Developers Kit which contains the devices and info needed (see attached developers kit). I would like the app to be functional in android and apple ios. There is a tremendous need for these solutions in the healthcare market today and will only increase as telehealth services become more prominent. This is a very condensed version, I would be happy to provide more detail if desired.

This is will be an iOS app. Only choose this project if you own a Mac.
Amanda K Clark, RRT
President
Carolina Diagnostic Solutions, LLC
1225 Laurel Street Suite 219 Columbia, SC 29201
amanda@carolinadxsol.com
Powerswitch – energy game

Powerswitch, LLC is a start-up company that has a patent pending game concept which is both fun and educational. This game started out as a board game and is being developed within several other different platforms such as a video game, mobile/tablet applications, educational videos and so forth.

The game involves various vehicles which utilize various forms of power sources (or energy resources) to get from point A to point B. The players have the chance to switch vehicles, and therefore switch power sources, “on the fly”, throughout the game. The game involves both chance and strategy while building an awareness of the advantages/disadvantages about the different power sources being used. The ultimate object of the game is to use your energy wisely and to finish your journey as smartly as possible before running out of energy. Being familiar with the different types of energy resources, the random effects of the environmental conditions around you, the fluctuations of the energy market, energy conservation, game strategy and pure chance are all involved in playing this game.

The mobile application/PC game version to be developed as part of this Senior Class would involve game players being able to choose their vehicles and pathways (and switch throughout the game), choose their power sources (and switch throughout the game), become aware of some of the dvantages/disadvantages of the different energy sources used, and compete on multiple levels of difficulty within the game. This project invites innovation and creativity from the entire team.

The intent is for the game to be played by both youth and adults and for a mobile applications to be developed for Android.

Note: Any and all work done on the game application(s) are understood to be the exclusive rights to the client (R Thomas Cannarella/Powerswitch LLC). [ ONLY CHOOSE THIS PROJECT IF YOU ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT THESE TERMS. I also note that a Capstone team implemented this game 2 years ago. -- jmvidal ]
R. Thomas Cannarella, PE, PP, LEED AP
Powerswitch, LLC
powerbncenergy@gmail.com
803-607-0007
Powerswitch iOS

Same as above, but for the iPhone.

Same license requirements as above.

[ Only choose this project if you have a Mac. You need a Mac to develop for iOS. --josemvidal ]
Gamecock Social Media Listening

The USC International Center for Event Research and Education housed in the College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management would like to propose the development of a social media listening tool that will allow USC faculty to engage in research that tracks social media posts and visual content across multiple social media platforms. Recent research has shown the top five social media platforms according to ebizmba.com (July 2017), are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit, but social media research also can include mainstream news, blogs, forums, and forum replies. By developing an easy to navigate user interface, faculty can undertake searches of social media posts which include specified keywords and phrases and exclude other specified keywords and phrases. Once the social media searches are concluded, the software will display visually appealing screens for an easy graphical review of "Sentiment" analysis, Wordclouds, keyword and date line-charts and list all original responses for a more detailed review. Searches must be able to be restricted by date and geography (Geofencing).

This will be a web application.
Brian J. Mihalik, Ed.D., William McFall “Mac” Pearce Professor
Director, International Center for Event Research & Education
Former Dean with a joint appointment:
School of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Management
Department of Sport & Entertainment Management
College of Hospitality, Retail & Sport Management
Carolina Coliseum, Room 1018
Office: 803-777-0146
Email: bmihalik@hrsm.sc.edu
Tasks App

We need the app to be able to be available on the apple App Store [so, iOS. Only choose this project if you have a Mac --josemvidal]. The app is a task app, where people who need things done, and people who need things done for them can get connected. For example, if someone needed something from the store, their lawn cut, or any variation of a chore done, they would post in the app that they needed that specific thing done for them, and then the people who are seeking work would be able to sign up to do that specific job. If this sounds like an app the students would want to work on, we have an outline drawn up on powerpoint, of how it works and how we would make money off each transaction. Anyone over the age of 16 would be able to use this app. We would want to do all we could to still own the app code and the idea, so if that is possible let us know any further necessary information. Thank you, have a great day.
Brendan Drew
Student
brendand@email.sc.edu
An AahaRx App for Diabetes Management

Diabetes represents a significant economic and public health challenge, particularly in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) undergoing the nutrition transition. In 2015, 69.1 million adults in India were estimated to have diabetes. The AahaRx program represents a partnership between One Acre Venture (OAV) and the Sambit Diabetic Clinic (SDC) to bring together clinicians, nutritionists, and persons with pre-diabetes or diabetes to monitor and manage their diabetes. Clinic-based physicians diagnose, monitor, and write vegetable and fruit prescriptions for patients to fill with FV vendors; nutritionists educate patients on the ingredients of a healthy diet, providing recipes and other dietary recommendations.

The proposed project would involve the development of an application that would create a patient-centered ecosystem in which patients, clinicians, and nutritionists would be able to interact and exchange information digitally.

Features of the app would include:
1. Self-monitoring/recording of glucose levels, weight, diet
2. Having diet information available to nutritionist for assessment
3. Personalized diets provided to patient from nutritionist
4. Scheduling of clinic appointments
5. Having clinical data and information available to patients
6. Receiving fruit and vegetable prescriptions from physician
After development, the app would be tested and evaluated among AahaRx participants. Future functions would be added to these basic elements.

[The app must be a mobile app, preferably on both iOS and Android (so, a hybrid framework like ionic or react native) but most users have Android (so, if hybrid is not good enough, it is Android) --josemvidal]
Spencer Moore
Associate Professor
Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior
Arnold School of Public Health, USC
mooreds4@mailbox.sc.edu
What’s the deal with electronic cigarettes?

Electronic cigarettes are becoming increasingly popular, but little is known about their long-term benefits, harms, or their effectiveness as a smoking cessation tool. We want to develop an iPad app that can give smokers up-to-date information about what we know and do not know about using electronic cigarettes. The objective is to help smokers make an informed decision about whether they should use e-cigarettes or not to help them quit smoking regular cigarettes.
Target population:

Cigarette smokers would be using this app while waiting for their appointment at a doctor’s office, with later distribution more broadly. The app would need to be usable by adults with a range of ages and education levels, as many adult smokers are from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not have much experience with new technologies.
App Functionality:
Using an iPad, users would first scroll (or click) through a series of informational slides that include pictorial elements and text (potentially short videos), with links to more information. Primary topics include:
- Smoking cessation options
- What is an e-cigarette?
- Potential benefits of using e-cigarettes
- Potential risks of using e-cigarettes
Next, smokers will answer a series of multiple choice type questions on their thoughts about e-cigarettes and smoking cessation. This information will be saved, compiled, and shown to the smoker. Ideally, data from the survey will be able to be emailed or uploaded to an online patient “portal,” so that their health care provider can potentially access and use it in a dialogue with their patient.
Jim Thrasher, PhD
Associate Professor
Arnold School of Public Health, USC
thrasher@mailbox.sc.edu
Activity Registration and Logger

My name is Adrienne Ross and I am the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Manager for the USC School of Medicine Palmetto Health CME Organization. I am writing in regards to becoming a client for your Senior Capstone class project. Funding is low for our office and we are trying to offer innovative ways for physicians, residents, and other healthcare providers to receive their continuing education credits. One of the ways, I would like to do this is to streamline our attendance process. Currently we rely on a lot of ‘paper’ to log the attendance of our learners. We utilize an online system to manually process attendance on the back end, but I would like to streamline this process and allow the learners to easily log their attendance for our activities.

I would like to design an app that attendees could use to log their attendance to our activities. We would create a schedule of activities in our system using a PC. A user can then login to the App and register for activities. Or if the user registers for the activity via our online site (we have a system that we use) they can see the activities they are registered for when they log into the App. On the day of the activity, the user signs into the App to log their attendance. The attendance is then reported back to our office. One way I was thinking this could be done is for each activity a code is provided at the end and the user can enter that code into their App to receive credit for attending. I would like for the App to be used on Smart Phones.

[I am thinking this will be a mobile-ready webapp. --josemvidal]
Adrienne C. Ross, M.Ed | Manager, Continuing Medical Education
Office of Continuous Professional Development and Strategic Affairs
USC School of Medicine-Palmetto Health CME Organization
3555 Harden Street Ext., (15 Med Park) Suite 100 - Columbia, SC 29203
Email: adrienne.ross@uscmed.sc.edu
| adrienne.ross@palmettohealth.org
Web: http://cme.med.sc.edu
| www.palmettohealth.org/phcme
Seismic Station Fieldwork App

The South Carolina Seismic Network operates seismic recording stations across South Carolina. While in the field servicing these stations, it is often very useful to verify data is flowing into the central recording site and to take photos of the installed equipment. We would like an app, ideally both android and ios, that allows a seismologist in the field to easily:
- display in real time the seismic waveforms being recorded at the station for data verification, data retrieved via an existing web service
- take photos, automatically tagged with the closest seismic station based on known station locations, allowing optional comments and then securely uploaded the photos to a web service
- improve the current web site to display photos, including search within the comments
- check current station equipment in the inventory database against what is actually installed
- display data from recent earthquakes at the closest station
This would initially be used by just in South Carolina, but if successful could also be used by other seismic networks across the country.
Philip Crotwell
Dept of Earth and Ocean Sci, USC
crotwell@seis.sc.edu
Virtual Reality Boeing

Required Equipment: [ Provided by Boeing ]
- Unity3D (free license available)
- HTC Vive
- Capable computers:
  - GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, AMD Radeon R9 290 equivalent or better
  - CPU: Intel i5-4590, AMD FX8350 equivalent or better
  - RAM: Minimum 4GB
User Story: Boeing’s Final Assembly building is the final factory that the 787 model will go through before being delivered to the airline customer. Airlines are given the ability to ask for certain custom options for their planes that are implemented within Final Assembly; one of the most noticeable options being interiors. Planes with extremely unique interiors can disturb and bottleneck the production system, delaying delivery times. These interior parts are manufactured by third-party companies and are not delivered to the factory well in advance. Because of this, the interior integration team has little time to be fully prepared when a highly unique plane is ready for interior installation at Final Assembly.

Currently, the third-party companies that manufacture interior parts provide Boeing with engineering (CAD) models and intensive installation text documents. Alone, these two artifacts do not provide an efficient means to prepare for the actual installation. Boeing South Carolina is investigating the use of Virtual Reality to create immersive simulations that can help familiarize the interior integration team with the interior parts. VR presents an opportunity to improve the production system through realistic training, efficient prototyping, and intuitive design review. VR has the capability to bring a human factor and ergonomic aspect to simulation that traditional simulation method cannot. BSC is looking for ways to integrate VR simulation in a scalable and adaptable manner that would provide low cost solutions for simulation needs.

Using the engineering models and text documents, can Boeing and the University of South Carolina establish a methodology for creating VR applications that utilize several simulation and visualization techniques to provide an efficient and valuable experience for the interior integration team?
Value-added Business Cases:
- Immersive training: 3D simulation to serve as training e.g. assembly/disassembly of parts, scenario preparedness, visualize a new incoming part (see Code 1 Business Class Seat VR project)
- Efficient Prototyping: capability to provide prototyping for new part designs, processes, or systems without the cost of physical materials e.g. visualize new manufacturing process to-scale,
- Design Review: intuitive controls that allows users to visualize and annotate designs in a to-scale environment.
- Human Factors and Ergonomic: capability for simulations to allow user to experience realistic motions in a fully immersive environment e.g. simulate confined spaces on manufacturing floor (See Propulsion VR project)
Expected/Desired Results:

Teams will evaluate the feasibility and develop programs to accomplish as many of the deliverables listed below as possible. It is expected that the program is developed generically so that it can be applied to any random assembly with minimal (ideally no) unique programing to adapt to that model. The original models will be native to CATIA V5 and converted over to Unity3D.
- Ability to easily Sequence parts together – Example: quickly assign a sequence to an assembly. Provide some visual feedback to the user on that sequence.
- Flexible wiring/tubes – Wires and flex tubes typically load in as rigid sticks. Would like to explore the ability to have a flexible part that can be bent, flexed, and wrapped around curves to simulate actual attachment during installation.
- Explodable Assemblies – Ability to grab the top of an assembly and lift it away. While you lift the top part away, the remaining parts in the assembly also start to explode at the same rate that the top part is moved away, or unexploded if moved back in.
- Feedback for a user (prompt or visual cue) – As you touch a part, you can see the part number and description of the part pop up in a window for example. Visual cues as to where a part should go, or which part should come next.
- Gamification of training – Some way to make interactive training more fun. For example, racing head to head against a co-worker while you build the same assembly/installation.
Stretch Goal:

Develop new ways in which AR/VR technology can be incorporated into the Boeing South Carolina (BSC) engineering and production system with low cost and high impact.
Other Expectations:

Teams from the University will develop a project plan and schedule providing bi-weekly deliverables and reports to the BSC team. Process documentation, rationale and justification for any findings must be included. Where applicable, specific recommendations for implementation should be detailed.
Eric Hatch
University of South Carolina Deputy Focal
eric.d.hatch@boeing.com
Kyle Starck
kyle.j.starck@boeing.com
Joe Clegg
joseph.r.clegg@boeing.com
Hydration Manager

Purpose:Develop an app that calculates hydration status changes in university varsity athletes.

Population: Two populations will be served 1) Certified athletic trainers who work the Gamecock athletic teams 2) Gamecock athletes across all sports

Project Background and Problem: dehydration and hyperhydration both predispose athletes to heat illnesses, changes cognitive abilities, and decreases performance. Changes in hydration status can easily be measured via weight checks pre and post practices/games. However, calculating the hydration status and notifying players of their status is time consuming for athletic trainers who take care of Gamecock athletic teams. By tracking athlete hydration status over time, clinicians can intervene with education to correct deficits or prevent a dangerous condition (i.e. heat exhaustion or hyponatremia). Athletes will benefit as performance will be improved by avoiding dehydration.

Outcome Measures Desired: the app will provide an interface for athletic training students to enter pre and post practice/game weights inside the locker rooms. After a post practice/game entry, the app would calculate the hydration status automatically and generate a report for the head athletic trainer to review. The report would color code each player as green, yellow, or red. Green would mean the athlete stayed hydrated or only dehydrated minimally. Yellow would mean the athlete was moderately dehydrated. Red would mean the athlete was significantly dehydrated or hyperhydrated. For those athlete who are color coded red, the head athletic trainer would receive an instant text message of their status in order to intervene before the athlete leaves the locker room or athletic facility. Depending on development, there is interest in generating a weekly report for the Gamecock dietician that shows how each athlete’s hydration status changes over time. This would allow the dietician to provide an education intervention for athletes who are chronically dehydrated and more likely for heat illnesses and performance decrements.

Any platform requirements: App must run on any type of phone and reports must be able to be read and downloaded on desktops and laptops. [ This means a hybrid app: ionic, react native, etc, or maybe just a webapp that is mobile-ready. --josemvidal]

Other: Applicants would like to be able to develop the app further in future years for athletes outside of USC with possible commercialism.
Susan Yeargin PhD, ATC
Associate Professor, Athletic Training Education Program
Korey Stringer Institute Medical and Science Advisory Board Member
syeargin@mailbox.sc.edu
Department of Exercise Science, USC
Predictive Maintenance

Increasingly, industries around the world are embracing the concept of Industry 4.0 to attain greater levels of business, asset, and maintenance optimizations—previously unattainable using traditional business management practices. Industry 4.0 signifies a framework composed of advanced development, analytics, and management technologies which leverage computer-aided engineering, sensing systems, data-based and physics-based modeling, machine learning, fault diagnostics and prediction, insightful data visualizations as well as artificial intelligence. More simply, Industry 4.0 can be represented as the introduction of predictive analytics to all facets of a business entity, transforming the orientation of such entity’s operations from reactive or preventive to proactive.

The Center for Predictive Maintenance (CPM) at the University of South Carolina has contributed substantial resources to expedite the implementation of predictive analytics in military and commercial operations. Consequently, this project would be aimed at consolidating the Center’s work in this field.
Scope:

Industry 4.0 spans all major aspects of an organization’s operations from the creation of its services to the distribution and support for such services. Due to this unique structure, implementation of predictive analytics requires the fusion of specialized knowledge and skills from different disciplines to realize the full potential of Industry 4.0-driven business operations. For the purpose of this capstone project, implementation of Industry 4.0 practices will be limited to the following areas.
- Data Modeling
- Fault Diagnostics and Prediction
- Data Visualizations
Data modeling represents the creation of models to identify valuable relationships in data sets. Such data sets comprise of historical data available from databases and real-time sensor data from assets such as industrial robots, material curing and processing machines, as well as military and commercial vehicles. CPM has developed data-driven models using advanced statistical tools for identifying trends in incoming data sets. However, the value of data-driven models can be significantly improved through additional physics-based modeling. The creation of physics-based models for the Center’s assets will be a valuable addition to the data modeling toolset.

Fault diagnostics and prediction encompasses the creation of algorithms to identify faults in assets after the characterization of data in the modeling process. Such algorithms are prone to a high false positive rate without the introduction of machine learning to the diagnostics process. CPM has created algorithms for predicting the real-time status of its assets. However, these algorithms require improvements to maintain their fidelity and relevance.
Data Modeling, Diagnostics, and Prognostics

Data visualization completes the Industry 4.0 framework. This section remains paramount to the realization of the benefits of Industry 4.0. As such, many corporations have failed to harness the power of predictive analytics by neglecting the unique needs of most end users. CPM has made considerable efforts to address this challenge through the creation of web dashboards and mobile applications to provide user-specific interfaces to end users, enabling them to engage in meaningful interactions with their assets. Augmenting the features available on the interface remains a core interest of the Center. Such features include providing more information on specific parameters like temperature, pressure, vibration and flow rate of assets and creating templates for illustrating annual and monthly reports to aid asset management.
Background:

Increasingly, industries around the world are embracing the concept of Industry 4.0 to attain greater levels of business, asset, and maintenance optimizations—previously unattainable using traditional business management practices. A top-down approach is advantageous to view not only the health of a system of assets, but individual assets and components as well. Data visualizations will increase readiness and reduce the downtime of mission-critical assets at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
Objective:

Build upon previous efforts on a web application that will enable all levels (executive, engineer, and maintainer) to view the real-time health of assets. Data is currently being output from a physical system and stored for display on IBM's Bluemix cloud service. This webapp will display current system health, condition indicator trends, fleet-averaging, work-order management, and the predicted health of assets based on models that are currently being developed.

We would like the team to continue building the webapp I showed. For the front-end we used HTML, CSS, and Javascript; the back-end is written in Javascript. Feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions!
Edward Bell
BELLER2@cec.sc.edu
Graduate Student, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Abdel-Moez Bayoumi
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
BAYOUMI@sc.edu
Predictive Modelling of Brain Tumor Outcomes

Background: Brain tumors affect patients through a complex set of processes. Decision-making and treatment planning require accurately balancing the risks of the disease process against the risks of surgical treatment. The aim of this project is to assist the medical decision making process by implementing robust models to accurately visualize healthy vs diseased tissue for patients with brain tumors.

Objective: Design a web application with an interface for doctors to input 2D image data files (X-ray, MRI, and/or CT scans) and receive a 3D image output showing tissue that is either healthy or tumorous. The team will be given sets of formulas and threshold values to interpret the input files that will be optimized over the course of the year.
Hope E Holt
HEHOLT@email.sc.edu
Graduate Student, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Abdel-Moez Bayoumi
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
BAYOUMI@sc.edu
Open Source Policy Center

I’m an assistant professor of economics in the Darla Moore School and am writing to bring to your attention an open source project that I’ve been contributing to and which might provide opportunities that are of interest to some of your faculty and students. For the last three years, I’ve been working with the Open Source Policy Center (OSPC). This group aims to make policy making more transparent and democratic by providing access to open source models for policy analysis. OSPC helps to develop and host web applications that run models developed by economists, policy makers, and software engineers. All of this is open source – from the models themselves to the web applications (such as TaxBrain) where users can interact with them.

I am contacting you because OSPC projects might provide a valuable place to look for class projects or other work your students might want to do to get experience developing software. There is the ability to contribute in many areas - from scientific computing to web development to dynamic visualizations. One can engage in small, contained projects such as developing widgets to help view the output of these policy models or contribute to larger scale projects and help with open issues on those.

Of course, there are many open source projects your students could get involved in, but I wanted to bring OSPC to your attention for two reasons. First, I think it’s making a valuable contribution to public policy. Second, since I am here on campus I can easily interact face-to-face with someone if there were questions about the subject matter, etc.

The project will consist of: [ We will figure out how many of these features it is reasonable to implement for this class. --josemvidal]
1. Develop widgets that allow users to visually explore the results of models of economic policy, such as those hosted in this gallery. A list of potential widgets that use the results of open source models of economic policy can be found here. The goal is that such widgets can be shared and embedded in media articles on topics to which these policy models can speak to.
2. Modify the Cost of Capital Calculator web application to handle inputs of additional parameters (from a webform and from JSON files). For discussion GitHub issues OpenSourcePolicyCenter/webapp-public#458 and OpenSourcePolicyCenter/webapp-public#357.
3. Create a results page for the Tax Brain web application that embeds dynamic visualizations of the output (which is currently available in only tabular format). The web applications hosted by OSPC (as well as the economic models underlying them) are written mostly in Python (with some JavaScript in the web apps and visualizations). Contributors would be encouraged to work in the same languages.
Jason DeBacker
Assistant Professor of Economics
Darla Moore School of Business
University of South Carolina
jasondebacker.com
Alumni Social Media Platform

The purpose of this project is to develop a reference data base linking existing social media products into an integrated system to facilitate communications between the University and its graduates and to create a peer-to-peer communications system making it easy for the graduates to stay in touch with classmates and for the university to stay in touch with its constituents after they graduate. Currently, when students graduate it is difficult for the University to keep in contact with the students for many worthwhile purposes that add benefits to the students after they graduate. There is not a central point at which the parties’ interest merge. Other colleges do a better job of linking their graduates into a social network. This is an attempt to enhance the value of social media networks for a specific use and purpose.

Free social media products like Linked-In, Facebook and Twitter are excellent tools to create linkages between people of common interests for social and business purposes. However, there are also not easy methods for aggregative interests. For example, the development office could use the application to invite students to its annual Homecoming party. The app would make it easy for the students to contact other students about job prospects or to make general social inquiries across the class. If the tool is found to be effective, it could be the basis of a university-wide development effort to be more inclusive for all Carolina Graduates. Currently students may exchange “friending” information on Facebook and Linked-In but there is no formal way for it to be inclusive. The purpose of this app would be to enlist the entire class of graduates in a test of a personal and professional connection program. Students do not understand the benefit of this program now but they will appreciate its easy of use later in their careers when they are looking for their second job. Most opportunities are created by people we know not responding to blind inquiries.
Christopher Gintz, ’79,
USC IRB Member
cjgintz2@yahoo.com
Joe Neary,
03.777.2565 (office)
nearyj@mailbox.sc.edu
www.linkedin.com/in/josephneary
Senior Director of Development of the College of Engineering and Computing
Parking Spot Tracker

This is an app for sharing and reserving parking spots in a condo. An apartment building has 1 parking spot allocated to each unit. But at any given time, probably 1/3 or more of the parking spaces in the garage are open. People are gone for several days, or longer because they have another home somewhere. Informally, several people have told me they’re happy to share their parking space while gone, but there’s no good, up-to-date directory or other means to keep up on this.

I envision a simple app with two main functions for members of a closed group:
1. Allow people to inform the group when their parking space will be open, and
2. allow people to borrow up to some fixed number of open spaces for a limited time.
Barry Markovsky
Professor of Sociology
University of South Carolina
barry@sc.edu