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Design Briefs for Cambridge University Computer Laboratory Group Design Projects 2021

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 2024

Notes on: What makes a good project?

In 2024, we expect there will be 138 students, so 23 project teams of 6. We aim to advertise at least 25 design briefs, to allow for necessary cancellations.

Confirmed design briefs for 2024

1. Acoustic Land Management
2. Braille Predictive Text
3. Climate Foresight
4. Component Quest
5. Copilot for Business
6. Creative Writing Coach
7. Disability Bias Explorer
8. DoS D-Stress
9. Engaging Everyone
10. Envisioning Nairobi
11. Heterodox Economic Modeller
12. Influencing Health
13. Investment Provenance
14. Memories Retold
15. Optimising Music Notation
16. P2P Social Network
17. Ramping Up Sustainable Crops
18. Real-pedia
19. Supply Chain Resilience
20. Talking Music
21. Taste: Movies x Books x Music
22. Testing for Humans
23. Visiting the Forest Stream
24. Wearable Sleep Coach
25. World Craft

Confirmed clients for 2024 (partial list)

• ClimateInColour
• Cam-AI
• NIAB
• Embecosm
• Lee Wilson
• Microsoft Research

Other design briefs considered for 2024

1. The Big Chill
2. Future Health and Fitness
3. AfroInsight
4. Leadership Transition Simulator
5. Environmental Value Added
6. Just Maps
7. Non-WEIRD Data Science

Future preparation - design briefs for 2025

Projects to consider in 2025

• Living Salad Bar
• Dignified Distributed Work
• The Carbon Eye
• ResponsibleAncestry.com
• Guitar tab2hand

Potential clients for 2025

• Anthony Harris
• Rivos Systems
• JAID
• AMD
• Raspberry Pi Foundation
• Katy Jordan, EdTech Hub
• Adham Ashton-Butt, British Trust for Ornithology
• Adam Devenish, RSPB
• Maximilian Ge

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

• 2024 list of design briefs
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtu.be/zeCRJYL3suw?si=9TxvJ62LGnVbKHGN

2023

• 2023 list of design briefs
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtu.be/WcITCNXbEzM?si=HVz1Ag9u2OgkCXbJ

2022

• 2022 list of design briefs
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtu.be/9xs5f6csNiQ?si=pPKhBpp6cJCGnc2c
• 2022 - final list of clients

2021

• 2021 list of design briefs
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube): https://youtu.be/Wf7zOcZCRTo?si=wCaGdDI9NsChLE58
• 2021 - final list of clients

2020

• Student briefing booklet 2020: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1920.pdf
• 2020 list of design briefs
• Playlist of video presentations (YouTube):
• 2020 - final list of clients

2019

• Student briefing booklet 2019: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1819.pdf
• 2019 list of design briefs
• 2019 - final list of clients

2018

• Student briefing booklet 2018: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1718.pdf
• 2018 list of design briefs
• 2018 - final list of clients

2017

• Student briefing booklet 2017: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/group-projects/StudentBriefing_1617.pdf
• 2017 list of design briefs
• 2017 - final list of clients

2016

• 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

2015

• 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

2014

• 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

2013

• 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