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Design Briefs for Cambridge University Computer Laboratory Group Design Projects 2025

This page currently lists design briefs under development. Any feedback or suggestions are welcome, to group-project@cl.cam.ac.uk

All content on this site has draft status, subject to confirmation by both group project coordinators and project clients. There is no guarantee that these projects will be offered to students, either in the form described here, or at all.

Intellectual property

Notes on Intellectual property

Client briefing

Information on Logistics for Clients

Information for students, and course history: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects

Information for Directors of Studies

Information for the Coordinators

Management timetable for 2023

Master timetable for the course: https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/teaching/part-ib/group-projects/important-dates

Work in progress - design briefs for 2025

Notes on: What makes a good project?

In 2025, we expect there will be 124 students, so 21 project teams (19 teams of 6 and 2 teams of 5). We aim to advertise at least 23 design briefs, to allow for necessary cancellations.

Confirmed design briefs for 2025

Final 2025 list

1. Agent of Things
2. Atmospheric Metaverse
3. BS-meter
4. Care Phone
5. Chat-twin
6. Checkpoint Alternatives
7. ChessPuzzy
8. Code Explain AI Assistant
9. Computing Physical Calculus
10. Conversational Patient History
11. CUDA Support for ClangIR
12. Delivery Radar
13. Driverless Humans
14. Grasping Concept Spaces
15. Navigating Evolving Music
16. Paper Simulator
17. Personalised EULA Visualisation
18. PromptPatrol
19. Robot Science Ambassador
20. Soft Music Notation
21. Speech Error Detection and Correction
22. Talk Interactive
23. Training Investigative Interviewers
24. Visual Analytics for Hardware Design
25. Zeitgeist Map

Projects under discussion

1. Sustainable Electronic Recycling
2. Semantic Refactoring

Design briefs suggested to several potential clients

1. The Carbon Eye
2. ResponsibleAncestry.com
3. Guitar tab2hand
4. Who Pays for Roads?

Design briefs considered in 2024 that might be developed

1. Dignified Distributed Work
2. The Big Chill
3. Future Health and Fitness
4. AfroInsight
5. Leadership Transition Simulator
6. Environmental Value Added
7. Just Maps
8. Non-WEIRD Data Science
9. Living Salad Bar

Potential clients for 2025

• Alder Hey Children's Hospital
• Frontier
• Embecosm
• SEAT
• Anthony Harris
• Rivos Systems
• AMD
• Raspberry Pi Foundation
• Katy Jordan, EdTech Hub
• Adham Ashton-Butt, British Trust for Ornithology
• Adam Devenish, RSPB
• Maximilian Ge
• Matthew Postgate

Future preparation - design briefs for 2026

• Who Pays for Roads?
• Software Inconsistency Resolver

Incubator and network contacts

• Centre for Global Equality
• Barn4
• Ideaspace
• Emma Salgard Cunha - humanities at Cambridge Enterprise
• Nicola Buckley - policy fellows at CSaP

Other client discussions (last updated 2023)

• SMARTRI Indonesia
• Mark Gotham
• Daniel Hall
• London Stock Exchange Group
• Neil Walker
• Milk and More
• Jane Street
• Fair Finance
• The Fusion Works
• Frontier
• Amazon
• Dovetailed
• JP Morgan
• Centre for Policy Futures
• Gardin
• ICCCAD
• Antobot
• Morgan Stanley
• Curriculum for Life
• RSPB
• BigPay
• British Trust for Ornithology
• University Information Services

Development notes carried forward from 2021

• Frontier - second project
• NIAB - second project
• Informetis - topic discussed
• Giving Voice to Digital Democracies - topic suggested, no response
• ARM - contact identified, but no topic

Other clients from 2021

• MathWorks

• Boeing
• TechWolf
• DX Analytics
• Umbrella Analytics
• Lyzeum Ltd
• Broadcom - all contact emails now bounce

Previous ideas that have not been used

• Calendar Dialogue - Amazon
• Auto-Emoji
• Archaeological databases
• The Headless Bicycle
• Emo Face
• Character Locomotion Middleware - Frontier
• Automatic accessibility assessor - Frontier
• City generation - Frontier

Potential clients that did not proceed, but could be considered in future

• 2022: Autodesk
• 2021: FetoLife, Oodle, NHS Digital, Jump Trading, Microsoft Africa Research Institute
• 2020: Argon Design, Gearset, Thales, Sainsbury Laboratory
• 2019: Smart Cambridge, Mindi, Fauna and Flora International, Fusepump, Investre,
• 2018: Sparx, Cambridge Consultants, Capita, Nominet Trust, University Information Services, Sport England
• 2017: BT, Palantir, Elm Partners, Lucid / Cycorp, Microsoft Research
• 2016: Care Quality Commission, King Digital Entertainment, The Fusion Works
• 2015: Thales, Steve Wade, Cambridge Humanitarian Centre
• 2014: Broadcom, last.fm, Rangespan, John McMillan, Atheon, OpenMarket, Google, Repindex
• 2013: Neul.com, Steve Smith, CU Management Information Systems Division, Palantir Technologies, Privacy International

Archived records of previous years

• 2024 list of design briefs and playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeCRJYL3suw&list=PLstyePOvf2d3jOfc6j8cG7CmmVD6LyMe_
• 2023 list of design briefs and playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcITCNXbEzM&list=PLstyePOvf2d2ZvC92BQkpR6WiaiROytev
• 2022 list of design briefs, 2022 - final list of clients and playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xs5f6csNiQ&list=PLstyePOvf2d3oPJOBgNoeA-aPA7lhUIGS
• 2021 list of design briefs, 2021 - final list of clients and playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7zOcZCRTo&list=PLstyePOvf2d2o9O_K3GEY3wAtbqkkYjPm
• 2020 list of design briefs, 2020 - final list of clients (presentations disrupted by Covid-19 - no video). Student briefing booklet 2020: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1920.pdf
• 2019 list of design briefs, 2019 - final list of clients, briefing booklet http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1819.pdf, playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstyePOvf2d39LYQ3YBcdWUdREimYF8e4&si=RHH_jzctWiQchuH8

• Student briefing booklet 2018: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1718.pdf
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstyePOvf2d0H15TwI6kEZb38ucaUDshQ&si=fS8uf8Db3PjqguBf
• 2018 list of design briefs
• 2018 - final list of clients

• Student briefing booklet 2017: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1617.pdf
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstyePOvf2d0fbeximiXyWR2gB5KjjjE6&si=dQHg-NFFqSafdtek
• 2017 list of design briefs
• 2017 - final list of clients

• Student briefing booklet 2016: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1516.pdf
• Video of presentations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxcEQE4FigU&list=PLstyePOvf2d2QbiVFI4naska1n4G0fhSW
• 2016 list of design briefs
• 2016 - final list of clients

• Student briefing booklet 2015: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1415.pdf
• Video of presentations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstyePOvf2d0cPplAB3DxHoaJC6hTYomP
• 2015 list of design briefs
• 2015 - final list of clients

• Student briefing booklet 2014: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1314.pdf
• Video of presentations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstyePOvf2d2A3vWW4DkEGIAUIm4T0fg6
• 2014 - final list of design briefs
• 2014 - final list of clients

• Student briefing booklet 2013: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1213.pdf
• Video of presentations: http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/1435486
• 2013 - final list of design briefs
• 2013 - final list of clients

Selected design briefs from earlier years

• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2006

Projects that have been offered, but not assigned to groups

The usual reason for cancelling a project is that the topic has not attracted sufficient interest from students. It's worth keeping an eye on these, as some topics, or ways of phrasing them, seem less attractive. But fashions change!

• 2019: Flyathlon (2019 version), Robot Death Watch, Visual Pick and Place
• 2018: Citizen Speed Safety, Every Car in Cambridge
• 2017: Energy with Social Conscience, Science for AD2500, Surgery in the Cloud
• 2016: Pocket Brain Surgeon, Reducing food waste with IoT, The Busking Bus-Stop, Safer Chicken from Farm to Fork
• 2015: Reinfection Monitor, Online Identity for the Base of the Pyramid, Audio Websites on Smartphones
• 2014: Locally Augmented Retail, Set Builder, Employability Coach, Dance Practice Assistant, History Scraper
• 2013: Touch screen prototyping at school, Measuring glass-to-glass video-conference latency, The Poet Laureate's web thresholds, Countryside web server, Science exhibit interaction adviser, Personal status server