Into Industry: the Software Engineering Group Design Project

Phew! Just days after the (thankfully pretty successful!) conclusion of the performances of Romeo & Juliet by the Students’ Union’s Theatre Group in the Nuffield Theatre last week, I find myself thrown back into the directing chair for the next project, the Spring season show for the musical theatre society, Showstoppers. Called The Drowsy Chaperone, it opens in two and a half weeks, leading me to ask:

“Where on earth is the time going - and how is it nearly the end of February?!”

I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve found that time really does fly when you’re at university, particularly when there’re so many interesting things to be absorbed by along with so many ways to fill every day. Be they shows, projects, trips away or coursework assignments, it always seems that one day you’ll find yourself agreeing to take something on . Weeks of planning, meetings and effort later, you’ll be finishing it off, eventually leaving you wondering what actually filled all that flash of a time in between!

This was recently the case for me and my group with our Group Design Project, the Electronics and Computer Science equivalent of a Masters’ dissertation. As I wrote last time around, last week saw the conclusion of everybody’s projects with final presentations and Q&A sessions. Afterwards, we all headed to the Turner Sims Concert Hall on campus for a poster display and buffet event, where we got to chat to other groups about their achievements as teams since the start of the year.

As ever, the lure of a free buffet also helped bring people along to the session!

One common theme subject amongst these talks was just how quickly the overall timescale had seemed to shoot by. Given how we were assigned our project briefs at the end of September, all derived from problems in various scientific or commercial industries with real-world clients providing professional specifications, you’d think three or four months is plenty of time to put together a product.

However, if there’s one thing the project taught us, it’s that it’s seemingly impossible to account for just how much else goes on in that time, both in terms of academic activities, other commitments, and unexpected delays, and just how quickly time passes when all you need is for it to slow down!

Therefore it was incredible to see just how much people had achieved, with many a display of excellent work on show at the event. From interactive advertisement performance monitoring systems - which were positively stuffed with features - to electronic implementations of safety inspection forms which had already been put to practical use around buildings and worked to splendid effect, as well as others like systems for improving communications within airports (on an incredible scale!), the variety of work at the event was huge and made for many an intriguing conversation, particularly as, three months into beginning developing, we were all talking in terms relevant to our new found industries and thus had a lot to explain to one another!

On the whole, it was inspiring to see, with teams showcasing commendable levels of creativity, diligence and professionalism in delivering some outstanding systems in such a short space of time. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest that the majority of projects will end up going forwards commercially, which is a testament to just how well many groups performed, and just how close to industry the experience of the Group Design Project really is.

A huge number of brilliant projects were on display at the Turner Sims Concert Hall on posters abound!

As for our group, we were ultimately very pleased with the end result and had a brilliant experience in putting it together. With a few tweaks here and there, we believe we've provided a firm basis for future work in the development of a remote hearing test phone application. This was done through liaison with the on-campus Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) Centre, and hopefully will go on to have huge benefits for clients’ quality of life in the future – fingers crossed!

So as I head now firmly into job application season, and potentially thence into industry, it’s been a great experience having a taste of what a professional development life is like, providing another string to my metaphorical employability bow and another project to place in the portfolio. Thanks to all involved with the Group Design Project’s organisation and that of the wrap-up event itself – and congratulations to everybody on its completion!

Now, back to directing those Chaperone rehearsals…!

Robin