At current, the SHADOW system is still very much under construction.  While the basic concepts and run time engine components are more or less finalized and a compiler for the textual programming language SHADOW-Script has been around for about five months now, there are still plenty of opportunities to expand the infrastructure of the system as well as to explore the features and limitations of the new paradigm.  Many of these "opportunities" can be translated into tasks suitable for senior or Master's project credit.  Other (smaller) tasks may be suitable for class final project work for Dr. Jacob's Advanced User Interface Software course.  The exact scope, credit potential, and time demands of each task is open to discussion with one's adviser, Rob Jacob, and/or myself to ensure that the level of effort expected is both reasonable for the student with the time constraints of a semester and sufficiently complex to warrant degree credit.

The types of projects available can be divided into two general categories which, for lack of better terms, we will describe as Infrastructure and Exploration.  Infrastructure tasks involve the creation of tools to streamline or simplify the development of applications within the SHADOW System and includes jobs like creating a visual editor for the SHADOW-Talk graphical programming language, a library manager, help system, etc.  Due to the size of some of these tasks, team projects are also available.  A detailed listing of some of our current project needs is available here.

Exploration projects, on the other hand, are less structured (with respect to our immediate needs) and present the student with a chance to experiment with a new programming language while creating graphical applications, 3-D widgets, and other elements which test the capabilities of the SHADOW System.  People looking for a class project are more likely to find a "small" project here than in the Infrastructure category but Exploration projects, being what they are, may easily scale upwards in complexity to satisfy the criteria for a Master's Project.  Suggestions for sample Exploration projects are available here.

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