Coming up in a few weeks is my final year project. We are supposed to come up with a realistic ''problem'' and create a program as the solution, and the person with the problem has to be real. I will be doing my project in Delphi/Pascal Generally it should include reading/writing to disk and some processing. It is generally advised we should pick a database or similar, although some people have done games. I''ve got a few ideas, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, and also wondered what kinda projects other people did? So far my base ideas are: Music database - keeping track of owned cds, and/or music on the computer, with a built in media player Computer part database - maybe difficult problem with the issuing of it Physics Equipment database - easy to do, maybe not so much implementation Board Game or similar - could use arrays or stringgrids or something Driving Test theory Soccer/Sport Fantasy League thing - a lot of possibilities Any ideas? the hard part is trying to get it as a problem.

Peer-to-peer CDDB. That''s a real problem. Unfortunately, the solution isn''t in the least bit trivial as you need to develop a background service that maintains the P2P network, and client software/interfaces that query this network. You''ll also need an index server to locate, at the very least, the closest node to the client.

If you can pull it off, though, it''d be great because we wouldn''t have to endure having our own work ripped off and sold back to us again.

(Working under the assumption that you know what CDDB is).

Which final year? Degree level (age ~21) or school level (~18)?

I''m assuming it''s not a degree level project (as it would be a damn sight bigger than what you''re describing).

The databases are pretty much no-nos; keeping track of things is typically going to be an Access front end. Too simple, and using Delphi is going overboard.

The kind of DB application I would suggest is a ''notes'' application; I did this for a project a while back. Allow the user to add a note, then parse for keywords and store. Keep track of junk words (and, or, the) and keywords in separate tables, and allow searching of the notes database by date, keywords, and combinations.
Quite a useful program actually, and you get to do some DB design and SQL.

Board games are good if you like GOFAI, and it''s easy to demonstrate. A multi-media walkthrough isn''t really very fun (that''s what the driving test theory would end up as).

I''d go for a notes project or a simple game (maybe checkers with a variety of simple heuristics).

HTH,
-Richard