Welcome to the Java Programming Forums


The professional, friendly Java community. 21,500 members and growing!


The Java Programming Forums are a community of Java programmers from all around the World. Our members have a wide range of skills and they all have one thing in common: A passion to learn and code Java. We invite beginner Java programmers right through to Java professionals to post here and share your knowledge. Become a part of the community, help others, expand your knowledge of Java and enjoy talking with like minded people. Registration is quick and best of all free. We look forward to meeting you.


>> REGISTER NOW TO START POSTING


Members have full access to the forums. Advertisements are removed for registered users.

Results 1 to 17 of 17

Thread: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

  1. #1
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Hello all. I'm sort of a newbie at java. I know most of the basics, just starting to learn how to use the API, and I still use Scanner methods to collect all my information.


    - I've created Login Systens(A few, Their getting more advanced each new one I make...)
    - Up N down game, you got to go above the computer randomly drawn number ect..
    - Football Data Input program.. Input stats about quaterbacks and puts into array and prints back neatly.



    Those are all things i've made personal projects. Now think back to when you were a newbie what project did you have fun doing the most and yet taught you a lot? Thanks for the input guys, please remember I cannot write things outside the beggining of advanced...
    Last edited by Emperor_Xyn; December 14th, 2011 at 02:35 PM.


  2. #2
    Crazy Cat Lady KevinWorkman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    5,424
    My Mood
    Hungover
    Thanks
    144
    Thanked 636 Times in 540 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    You might want to check out Project Euler. That has tons of challenges for novice through experienced users.
    Useful links: How to Ask Questions the Smart Way | Use Code Tags | Java Tutorials
    Static Void Games - Play indie games, learn from game tutorials and source code, upload your own games!

  3. #3
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Is that on these forums? I couldn't find it. I tried searching too.]

    I also googled it.. I think I found it but I don't know if its what i'm looking for.

    Looking for something not so math heavy.. and boring.
    Last edited by Emperor_Xyn; December 14th, 2011 at 02:42 PM.

  4. #4
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    48
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    I dived in at the "deep end" I suppose.

    One of the first projects I did as a novice was a multi-tabbed Swing GUI which allowed two simultaneous connections to two (different) databases through JDBC, reading connection information from an XML file using a SAX parser. It was multi-threaded and tested locking strategies and transaction isolation levels and database cursor options. (It ran, of course, under commitment control). I still have the utility and it works well.

  5. #5
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Dang, you really did dive into the deep end.. Good though if you learn fast. I don't see how I could of possibly did that without prior programming knowledge.

  6. #6
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    48
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Sounds impressive doesn't it. But it really, really isn't. It took a couple of days only and there was only one bug that I can remember, that took me a while -- the parser was occasionally truncating data because I didn't realise I needed to make more than one call to a method for text over a certain length.

    When you set yourself your own project, it is so, so much easier because you are not trying to figure out "where the instructor is going with all this". It is all your own creation, and the motivation is X100.

  7. #7
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Very true^ I think I kind of ran out of ideas and was hoping someone could recall one of their first projects that was fun and taught them a lot.

  8. #8
    Member snowguy13's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    In Hyrule enjoying a chat with Demise and Ganondorf
    Posts
    339
    My Mood
    Happy
    Thanks
    31
    Thanked 48 Times in 42 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Hmm... I can relate a ton to what you're saying. Right now, I'm working on a tower defense game (mainly because it's something I've always wanted to do). As 2by4 said, I've found that if it's my own idea and something I find interesting, my motivation just skyrockets. I feel like a wrecking ball when I run into a problem, because my motivation not only gives me endless energy but surprising patience.

    So, what all that means is that if you can think of something that you're interested in (besides programming, unless you want to make an IDE ) and find a facet of that passion to put into code, you'll find it much more intriguing and much more of a learning experience.

    However, I can offer you some suggestions: perhaps a battleship game, tic-tac-toe, or checkers game (with a built in AI); a new type of game of your creation and innovation; or maybe something to improve the ease of something you do commonly (for example, I made functions that get the least common multiple, greatest common factor, and prime factorization as well as functions to find prime numbers in a certain range). There are many things you could do, from little activities and functions to large projects.

    Here is a site I found on a quick search; hopefully it may inspire you.

    Hopefully this helps!
    Use highlight tags to help others help you!

    [highlight=Java]Your prettily formatted code goes here[/highlight]

    Using these tags makes your code formatted, and helps everyone answer your questions more easily!




    Wanna hear something funny?

    Me too.

  9. The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to snowguy13 For This Useful Post:

    ch103 (December 19th, 2011), Emperor_Xyn (December 14th, 2011), Melawe (January 20th, 2012)

  10. #9
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Exactly^ I think i'm going to try and get into the game development after I finish learning all the syntax first.. Keeps me interested.

    Thanks for the links and the suggestions, I may try tic tac toe, it's easy, but last time I tried I failed hard. Lol.

  11. #10
    Forum VIP
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    317
    My Mood
    Bored
    Thanks
    47
    Thanked 89 Times in 74 Posts
    Blog Entries
    4

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Games are great for intermediate level programmers, but they can be frustrating for beginners. Here are a couple of exercises that I undertook when learning games programming in C++ / Direct3D.

    1. Bouncing ball.
    What: A simple program. A screen and a single ball that moves diagonally and bounces of the edges.
    Why: Teaches you sprites, bliting and collisions.

    2. Multiple bouncing balls.
    What: Every time the user clicks on the screen, it creates a new ball at that location that moves diagonally and bounces of the edges.
    Why: Teaches you dynamic object creation, mouse listeners and the importance of alpha channels. Can be improved so that the balls bounce of each other (which illustrates the problems with basic collisions) and delete balls by clicking on them.

    3. Pong
    What: Your first real game! It should be very easy once you get your head around the above two exercises.
    Why: Basic AI (very dumb, just follow the ball's horizontal position), score boards, level resets, pausing, basic OO in game design.

    4. Breakout
    Why: You can skip the above and move onto breakout which is a whole lot more fun. It utilities the same concepts as pong but it is a little more advanced in that you will need to make use of collections and visualize the layout of the blocks and create an appropriate loop to construct them. It is also a great introduction to polymorphism if you include blocks of different properties (unbreakable, hard, soft, different colors, etc).

    5. Mandelbrot generator
    What: Do a google search if need be. It is terrific, exhilarating fun. I literally spend hours at a time exploring my own generator and the first time it comes to life you will be blown of your chair screaming "Did I do that!"
    Why: Brilliant introduction to complex mathematics (that's the imaginary type, not the hard type . You get to see how real mathematicians formula's are written for a computer and best of all the formula is infinitely variable so there will always be room for tweaking/improving/modifying.

    6. An Object persistence app
    What: Doesn't really matter what the object is (but keep it simple and useful). I went for a library program that I could record books I have read. You will want a GUI and a way to create, edit, save and delete records.
    Why: There are many ways to achieve persistancy (text file, binary file, XML, relational database and Hibernate to name a few). Get familiar with them because it is absolutely vital if you plan on writing anything substantial.



    If you can get through all that then you are about on par with a first year computer scientist. The difference is, computer science lectures generally lack imagination when it comes to assignments and always lack context. Make things relevant to what you are interested in and you will be a superstar programmer in no time.

  12. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to ChristopherLowe For This Useful Post:

    ch103 (December 19th, 2011), Emperor_Xyn (December 17th, 2011)

  13. #11
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Quote Originally Posted by ChristopherLowe View Post
    Games are great for intermediate level programmers, but they can be frustrating for beginners. Here are a couple of exercises that I undertook when learning games programming in C++ / Direct3D.

    1. Bouncing ball.
    What: A simple program. A screen and a single ball that moves diagonally and bounces of the edges.
    Why: Teaches you sprites, bliting and collisions.

    2. Multiple bouncing balls.
    What: Every time the user clicks on the screen, it creates a new ball at that location that moves diagonally and bounces of the edges.
    Why: Teaches you dynamic object creation, mouse listeners and the importance of alpha channels. Can be improved so that the balls bounce of each other (which illustrates the problems with basic collisions) and delete balls by clicking on them.

    3. Pong
    What: Your first real game! It should be very easy once you get your head around the above two exercises.
    Why: Basic AI (very dumb, just follow the ball's horizontal position), score boards, level resets, pausing, basic OO in game design.

    4. Breakout
    Why: You can skip the above and move onto breakout which is a whole lot more fun. It utilities the same concepts as pong but it is a little more advanced in that you will need to make use of collections and visualize the layout of the blocks and create an appropriate loop to construct them. It is also a great introduction to polymorphism if you include blocks of different properties (unbreakable, hard, soft, different colors, etc).

    5. Mandelbrot generator
    What: Do a google search if need be. It is terrific, exhilarating fun. I literally spend hours at a time exploring my own generator and the first time it comes to life you will be blown of your chair screaming "Did I do that!"
    Why: Brilliant introduction to complex mathematics (that's the imaginary type, not the hard type . You get to see how real mathematicians formula's are written for a computer and best of all the formula is infinitely variable so there will always be room for tweaking/improving/modifying.

    6. An Object persistence app
    What: Doesn't really matter what the object is (but keep it simple and useful). I went for a library program that I could record books I have read. You will want a GUI and a way to create, edit, save and delete records.
    Why: There are many ways to achieve persistancy (text file, binary file, XML, relational database and Hibernate to name a few). Get familiar with them because it is absolutely vital if you plan on writing anything substantial.



    If you can get through all that then you are about on par with a first year computer scientist. The difference is, computer science lectures generally lack imagination when it comes to assignments and always lack context. Make things relevant to what you are interested in and you will be a superstar programmer in no time.
    I appreciate this post alot. I'm not sure if I can complete one of those projects yet, but I will deffiently try and accomplish one of those.

  14. #12
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Wi
    Posts
    8
    Thanks
    3
    Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Have you try do a project like google jam code there alot of math in that it more like computer science probs they use.I hope that helps.

  15. #13
    Forum VIP
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    317
    My Mood
    Bored
    Thanks
    47
    Thanked 89 Times in 74 Posts
    Blog Entries
    4

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Quote Originally Posted by Emperor_Xyn View Post
    I appreciate this post alot. I'm not sure if I can complete one of those projects yet, but I will deffiently try and accomplish one of those.
    Well it's kind of important to push your skills if you are going to improve them but I do understand that it those may be a bit ambitious; you will require several sittings to complete them. So because I got those nice 'thanks' for my last post, I'll go through a few more basic programs you could work on.

    1. Basic proposition / calculation.
    What: If I drop a ball from the height of 2m how fast will it be traveling when it hits the ground? (at earth gravity, no air resistance).
    Why: I started becoming a serious programmer by coding these types of high school physics questions with my Casio graphics calculator (mainly to cheat . By the time I graduated I had nearly one hundred such programs covering everything from simple v=u+at to nuclear physics and special relativity. They are very easy to code; you ask a few simple questions and calculate an answer. No loops or GUI's needed.


    2. Basic monetary text game.
    What: Pick a theme and write a text based commerce adventure game! Make sure there is a way to win and a way to loose (bankruptcy) with an option to restart at the end. It could be a simple simulator like a game of roulette or lottery. I wrote a fun one called 'Fish pot' where you are the manager of a fishing company. Each 'round' you can purchase boats and pots with the money brought in from the catches (which are random but depend on the value of the boats and pots) and you must pay out wages and costs, loosing the odd boat along the way.

    Why: Basic loops, user input (and validation), testing, random numbers and OO design (optional)


    3. Math stuff
    What: prime number sieves, n'th Fibonacci, probability calculators and Project Euler
    Why: Programming is heavy on math, it is all computers really understand and they are terribly good at it. These kind of problems will get your brain thinking like a programmer and will pay dividends if you ever end up working on something special like dynamic algorithms.

  16. The Following User Says Thank You to ChristopherLowe For This Useful Post:

    Emperor_Xyn (December 20th, 2011)

  17. #14
    Member Emperor_Xyn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    66
    My Mood
    Devilish
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Thanks =p That monetary game i've kind of completed but it was very basic. But thanks for those ideas, I can try and take it a lot farther now, maybe try your boat idea =p

  18. #15
    Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    271
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 7 Times in 7 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Here are some other ideas:

    http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/to...ct-ideas-list/

    Project Ideas.... - C# | Dream.In.Code

    Java Student Projects

    If you are interested in a programming group, I've got one.

    -Mel

  19. #16
    Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    271
    Thanks
    21
    Thanked 7 Times in 7 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Here are some other ideas:

    http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/to...ct-ideas-list/

    Project Ideas.... - C# | Dream.In.Code

    Java Student Projects

    If you are interested in a programming group, I've got one.

    -Mel

  20. The Following User Says Thank You to Melawe For This Useful Post:

    Emperor_Xyn (December 20th, 2011)

  21. #17
    Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    94
    My Mood
    Amused
    Thanks
    5
    Thanked 8 Times in 8 Posts

    Default Re: Give Me Some Project Ideas!

    Quote Originally Posted by snowguy13 View Post
    Hmm... I can relate a ton to what you're saying. Right now, I'm working on a tower defense game (mainly because it's something I've always wanted to do). As 2by4 said, I've found that if it's my own idea and something I find interesting, my motivation just skyrockets. I feel like a wrecking ball when I run into a problem, because my motivation not only gives me endless energy but surprising patience.

    So, what all that means is that if you can think of something that you're interested in (besides programming, unless you want to make an IDE ) and find a facet of that passion to put into code, you'll find it much more intriguing and much more of a learning experience.

    However, I can offer you some suggestions: perhaps a battleship game, tic-tac-toe, or checkers game (with a built in AI); a new type of game of your creation and innovation; or maybe something to improve the ease of something you do commonly (for example, I made functions that get the least common multiple, greatest common factor, and prime factorization as well as functions to find prime numbers in a certain range). There are many things you could do, from little activities and functions to large projects.

    Here is a site I found on a quick search; hopefully it may inspire you.

    Hopefully this helps!
    Thank you for the site suggestion. I really liked it.

Similar Threads

  1. Running out of ideas...
    By Cat in forum What's Wrong With My Code?
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: March 12th, 2011, 11:21 AM
  2. Need Ideas For OOP(Java) Mini Project
    By rizwansheikh in forum Object Oriented Programming
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: December 13th, 2010, 01:47 PM
  3. Any ideas for begginer?
    By SwEeTAcTioN in forum Java Theory & Questions
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: October 27th, 2009, 03:28 AM
  4. Small Project Ideas
    By Freaky Chris in forum Project Collaboration
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: August 12th, 2009, 12:49 PM
  5. New give thanks feature
    By JavaPF in forum The Cafe
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: April 11th, 2009, 11:14 AM