Computer Science projects

Well what inspires you? And what criteria does your project have to meet?

One great thing about being in computer science: there is no shortage of work to be done [also, one bad thing, really... as you're never finished either]. Also, a test given to you from your highschool that tells you that you're super cool doesn't actually say a whole lot about where your skill level actually is. So, where is your skill level *really*? What do you have experience with and what have you done. Do you have experience with big projects? Team projects? Independent study? Any languages other than Java?... "a year of programming at a university" can produce programmers of wildly varying skill, and doesn't actually say much about the competency of the person in question. I've known some final year CS students who I wouldn't even trust to do my laundry, let alone touch my code, and some freshmen who were driven and eager to learn, who can be put to good use.

And of course, as was said already, what you're interested in has a lot more meaning with respect to what project you should work on than what we're interested in.

My senior year project was a robotic arm. All it did was sort white and black ping pong balls into cups, but it never failed to impress. I got top marks for it when I demo'd it at the end of the year in front of a panel of judges.

People are fascinated by robots, and if you are too then something like that could make for a very interesting project.