Before Science and Technology Council’s summer camp 2020 began, we asked the student community at IITK for suggestions for projects that the Programming Club could build. We asked for these suggestions because we believe that there are certain campus-specific problems that we could perhaps solve by building apps for them, and the suggestions of the students would help draw our attention to some of these issues.

We did choose some of those suggestions as our ideas for projects, but there were just too many suggestions and we could not have possibly chosen all of them. Among the ones that we did not choose, some suggestions deserve a reply as to why we did not move forward with them. This blog post serves that purpose.

Scope of projects

There are learning projects, there are exploration projects, and then there are projects that need to be used in real life. When we asked for the suggestions, we specifically wanted suggestions for projects that would need to be deployed and used. However, we received many suggestions for learning projects as well. That is not an issue, though. It was fun getting to know what people are interested in learning.

What I’d like to point out is that we also received suggestions for apps that had already been built. It is not our aim to rebuild stuff that already exists. I can think of 3 exceptions to this:

• If the project serves to teach people about some technology, with hands-on experience.
• If the project has some specific use-case in the campus, and the existing versions of the application can, for some reason, not be used for that purpose.
• If the project has a new feature (as in, innovation) that would make it different from the existing applications.

Apart from these exceptions, if something has already been built and is available for use (like an open source project, or an app/website), we should probably not rebuild it. There is absolutely no use building another Facebook - you’ll never reach that stage unless you have some innovative edge, or you are an already established brand (or you have a government which just bans your competitors :p)

The suggestions

The following is a list of some suggestions that we received, and my comments on those. The quoted texts are the texts from the suggestions that we received.

OARS/Pingala

Making a new pingala website..

Automate DOAA office

Improve OARS system

We would love to do that LoL. I once told a high ranked administrative official that if you asked the students to build something like Pingala, we would build something 10 times better than the Pingala you know. However, the administration is reluctant to entrust students with such an important system. This is because it is not a build-once-run-forever thing. It needs to be maintained and updated regularly, which should be done by a dedicated team. This, in their opinion, would better be handled by an outsourced team.

To be fair, the administration is correct in the regard that a dedicated team is needed for the maintenance of a system like this, and that students are definitely not the right people for this job. However, we cannot deny that the current state of these portals is pathethic, and needs to be improved.

Mess/Canteen App

Mess Extras App: An app where we can pre book the extras for lunch or dinner,sitting back at our room or academic area.Booking server will get activated 3-4hrs before the mess timings.All the extras available for the day alongwith their price and available quantity will be visible.The app will be connected to the mess database.As soon as one adds the extras to cart and confirms it,the cost will be updated to his mess record and an e-receipt(with date) will be given.The receipt will have a “given” button,which the mess worker will tap after giving so that a person cannot show same receipt twice.Mess Manager can manage the items and prices on daily basis from his account.

Completion of Mess App : It’ll be nice to have a mess app in every hostel that allows all the students to check out what is there on the menu on that day. It’ll also include functionality to get feedback about the food and also probably a voting system regarding what type of food should be prepared in the upcoming week. It’ll also have a system to push for changes in the mess timings whenever there is a need. Like during exams. Even the mess workers will be educated on how to use it.

Mess portal: we will create an app were students can login to their account and Buy extras in mess. Students will just have to show their mobile phone screen to take the food.

Build a server which connects campus shops and hall messes and canteens.Students can form an account and can configure using otp like puppy love.They can set a unique code like password or qr code.Then whenever they go to a hall canteen,mess , oat shops etc they can just tell their roll number and that code. Then finally at end of specific period they can pay it as gymkhana dues.This can be integrated with LIFE@IITK also.

This is one thing I’d definitely like to see being built and deployed. We could not choose this as a summer project because if this has to be deployed, then this needs proper planning and support from the administration of various halls. I’d like to mention that multiple such projects have been built but most of them are not in use, simply because the developers could not (or did not try to) convince the hall administration to use the app. We did not want to go down the same path.

For this to be executed, we would require the help of the Students' Gymkhana to convince the halls to use the application. Further, we’d need to support features that may be unique to certain halls. All of this needs lots of meetings and discussions. This could be built as a semester long project, once the logistics have been figured out.

Campus App

We all forget to check our emails or don’t remember the exact time, location of events.Making an app with all the campus activities listed on it with its time and location so that anybody can just check the app and attend the interested events

IIT kanpur map app listing where labs,lecture halls ,canteens,various shops ,oat,are

There have been projects similar to this (Dashboard, Life@IITK). Life@IITK has some logistic issues, and just needs a push. A beta version of the project was deployed in July 2019. However, people got busy when the semester started and the project was abandoned. We’ll try to see if we can build everything that’s left, and deploy the complete version of it. We just need to asses the remaining parts and perhaps finish the project during the upcoming semester.

Academic Apps

1.Provide a mobile platform for professors to share there notes,notices and some queries easily divided yearwise and branchwise.
2.making mobile app of prutor(if possible)

There already exist awesome platforms for this purpose (Piazza, Moodle, Brihaspati, https://onlinecourses.iitk.ac.in etc.), and it would make no sense to build another copy of those. The problem is that different professors use different platforms. However, we cannot force professors to converge upon a single platform, even though that would be so much better. We can try to request the administration to enforce a single platform, but such a request is unlikely to be entertained.

For the second suggestion, I don’t see any point of a mobile app for Prutor. Prutor is mainly a coding plaform. Are you planning to write code on phone? If the point is to be able to check the scores for your submissions, I believe that can be done by opening Prutor in your phone’s browser.

Instructors at IITK make their course content available in a number of ways such as using their own course websites, email attachments in IITK’s Webmail, Piazza, Telegram channels, etc. The project idea is to automate the process of downloading these course materials from these mediums as and when it is uploaded. The interface could have a way where users input the link where the content is available, (or the email id), and the medium, and then the files get automatically downloaded as and when in a designated folder.

When professors make their course materials available to the class, they do not give us the rights to share that content. The Academic Affairs office has a strict stand against sharing course materials. The major reason is that professors may sometimes want to publish books with that content, and therefore they may not want the resources to be shared with any unintended recipients.

If we make such a system as suggested, we’d need to download the resources to a database. We may not get the requisite permissions from the administration to do so.

Other interesting suggestions

Reverse image search in student search app and the website.

LoL I had exactly the same idea when I was in my first year. This is a project worth trying, though I’m not sure if we would be successful in building it. Afterall, we only have one picture per person. There have been recent advancements in face recognition using one-shot learning, and the method could be tried.

Syllable Detection using Machine Learning - Automatic synchronisation of subtitles/lyrics with video/audio.

This sounds like an interesting idea, and would be better suited as a research project. As a learning project, we could perhaps try to re build what people have already tried.

Every phone has a mic. We can create an app that can link it to the speakers in lecture hall.

This is a wonderful idea. We would probably need a central application running on a computer in the Lecture Hall, and every phone would need to open a web app to communicate with it. Again, if this is to be implemented, we’d need to get the administration to agree. We can try to do this once the classes go back offline.

Attendance using facial recognition instead of fingerprint

Multiple projects have been built upon this idea in IITK itself (RollCam, Paperless Attendance). They were not implemented either because they did not completely solve the problem, or because the developers did not try to convince the administration. I’m not very positive about the administration accepting such an idea - afterall, even now some professors prefer Pen & Paper attendance over Biometric attendance.

I’m tired now

That was a lot. I chose only those projects that I believe deserved an explanation for not being selected. If you had sent in a project idea and were disappointed that you could not find it here, ping me and I’ll include it too.