We assume that technologies will improve our lives, work and quality of life. For many people such benefits are undoubtedly true. However, does this apply to everyone? A House of Lords report in 2023 proposed that the "digital divide is undermining efforts to improve UK productivity, economic growth and socio-economic inclusion" and that groups likely to be most effected included the elderly, with 31 per cent of people aged over 65 not using the internet at home, compared with only 4 per cent of those aged 35-44 (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5803/ldselect/ldcomm/219/21902.htm ).  

A useful project would be to explore options for research in this area. Perhaps formulate a survey strategy, questionnaire, workshop, or proposed data sources that might be used for subsequent exploration. Proposals would need to be informed by background research and considerate of research rigour and ethics. 

A number of DBT (prototype) project ideas exist within the following...

When a flood warning is issued in your area, how do you know whether your exact location is safe?

The UK Met Office provides free access to their web API: DataPoint which gives general weather forecast, including extreme weather event warnings.  The UK Environment Agency provides free access to their real-time flood monitoring API, which gives detailed data from its flood monitoring stations.  Both sources also give historical data, which could potentially be used in conjunction with the Environment Agency flood maps to estimate level of risk for any given location.

How feasible is it to estimate the likelihood of flooding at a specific location within mainland UK at any given time?  How accurate might that estimate be?  What apps already exist that provide some or all of these features?

If you discover that flooding or getting cut-off by flooding at your exact location is imminent, how do you know where to escape to?

It may be possible to invert the above search to find areas within a given region that are least likely to be affected by flooding.

How do you work out the best means and route of escape to a specific safe location?

A number of open source route planning web APIs are freely available to use.  Open route service is one interesting example, as it provides a host of features including elevation information, which could be used as a crude input to a real-time(ish) flood map estimate.  In a flood emergency, there is likely to be an increase in road traffic on (potential) routes out of flood zones.  Moreover, the drivers are likely to be in heightened states, which may increase risk of traffic incidents.  When planning a motor-vehicle escape route, it makes sense to also consider real-time traffic data.  A number of freely available traffic web APIs are available, including TomTom.  The traffic and flood data could possibly be combined to produce a list of places to avoid as input to the route planner.

How feasible is it to estimate the nearest safe locations when flooding is imminent?  How feasible is it to estimate the best escape route?  What apps already exist that provide some or all of these features? 

Background: Energy production is clearly in the public eye at the moment. While there are short-term issues, clearly a long-term vision needs to be developed to reduce dependency on oil and gas. This project will look at one or more possible future energy sources, from a technical perspective.

Wind and hydro power are now well-established as alternative energy sources. Solar-PV has had a limited success in contributing to a serious energy budget. Recent research is focussing on wave and tidal energy sources, this makes sense since the oceans are so vast and powerful. This project will specifically focus on wave and / or tidal energy.

Aims: (i) To research and understand models of wave/tidal energy production. (ii) To develop a simulator of the chosen model, to allow exploration of the model’s features. (iii) To subject the chosen model to a quantitative (scientific) analysis.

Objectives: I would expect a discussion of current alternative energy sources and to relate wave/tidal to these. The rest are for you to decide but these must be linked to your simulator, and primary data collection.

Secondary Data: Data from research papers on wave/tidal energy installations and their results. The US ‘National Renewable Research Laboratory’ (NREL) has a number of useful projects which you should know about.

Primary Data: Measurements from your model, how much energy it develops from specific wave/tidal data (from your Lit. Review).

Ethical Approval: Straightforward. Does not involve people.

Background: Game and Simulation levels can get very large, it soon becomes laborious for the level designer to populate the level with assets, especially buildings in the Editor by hand. The process can be made hugely more efficient by creating buildings and towns procedurally, using code. This of course requires designing building elements (walls, floors) which seamlessly join together. Also, there must be a sufficient range of elements to create a number of different buildings, e.g., a block of apartments with different layouts and number of rooms.

Aims: (i) To develop a C++ framework to deploy with Unreal 4 or 5 to allow architects to rapidly design and create a building, an estate or even a city. (ii) To get an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of your framework using human participants.

Objectives: for you to decide but I would expect you to conduct a study of design principles for buildings, perhaps looking at floor-plans of buildings available from estate agents. Another ‘deliverable’ is full documentation allowing future level developers and researchers apply your framework (otherwise, what’s the point?)

Lit. Review: There are a number of journal articles available. Other valid source of information are Wikis. Blogs, GDCs and current (Unreal 4, Unreal 5) information about procedural buildings.

Secondary Data: Frameworks, algorithms and code developed by others.

Primary Data: Evaluation of your framework by yourself, using objective measures such as lines of code, code complexity, time saved by using a procedural approach

Research Questions: for you to decide but must be linked to your primary data collection.

Technology: Unreal-4 / 5

Ethical Approval: Straightforward since no human participants are involved.

Government agencies are increasingly making data available to the public and researchers. Examples include higher education data published by HESA, socio-economic data published by ONS, and health data published by NHS. Such data might provide a useful source for analysis, research and planning. A project could investigate what data is available in a certain field, and then explore how it might be used, for example by being prepared and interrogated using Python or R. Alternatively, a potential use could be decided, such as predicting the number of total hip and knee replacement operations needed in the next ten years, and then looking at how this might be predicted and what existing data might be used.

There has been a lot of research completed around memory loss, especially when associated with old age and certain diseases such as Alzheimers disease. Studies show that regularly using Applications which gamify the process of remembering can help to improve or slow down the ravages of such diseases.

This project involves the research into and creation of a cross platform game or memory training tool to support the user's ability to remember things.

Body language is closely related to posture - The way we move our bodies affects how others see us as well as our own moods and habits. In terms of scientific research, the two overlap quite a bit. This isn't too surprising, but how our posture and body language affect our thoughts is.

For instance, a study at Ohio State University in 2003 found that our opinions can be subconsciously influenced by our physical behaviour. Here are two fascinating examples:

1. When participants in the study nodded in agreements or shook their heads to signal disagreement, these actions affected their opinions without them realizing.
2. The same study also showed that when participants hugged themselves, they were sometimes able to reduce their physical pain.

This project will research into how technology can be used to improve a person's posture, this can be a straight research project, or also a project where an artefact is produced.

Getting students motivated within STEM subjects and beyond is essential to ensure that they perform well in their studies and become employable. Inside the changing world of higher education, university tutors and lecturers can struggle to motivate their students. Petty (1998) states that, “motivation is regarded by experienced and inexperienced teachers alike as a prerequisite for effective learning”. This certainly appears to be the case in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Students working within these disciplines are ingrained in technology within their everyday lives. Hence, these students could be expected to wish to see technology widely used within the classroom.

This project will explore what technologies would best support teaching staff to have the greatest impact to improve students experience and results. This project could be a research only project or could include the creation of a tool to meet the intended outcomes.

Universities are increasingly under pressure to monitor and track student attendance. This project has two potential outcomes for students, namely a research project into options available for this, or an interventional project where an end product is produced to meet a brief produced based on research undertaken.

Project Option 1 - Research

Research into the importance of student attendance monitoring and its implications, including primary research on both students and staff. Explore and critically evaluate the options currently available for technology solutions for monitoring and recording student attendance.

Project Option 2 - Design-Build-Test

Research into the importance of student attendance monitoring and its implications, including primary research on both students and staff. Develop an application, either mobile or web based which will enable efficient and effective monitoring and recording of student attendance. Examples of this could be a mobile phone application that teaching staff could use to scan bar codes on student ID cards or individual QR codes for each student, then record attendance for each session in a secure database.

Existing Examples

Recording and Monitoring Attendance

A Students Attendance System Using QR Code

Student attendance using QR code card

There are a large number of staff employed at a local employer, each of who have their own individual allocation of annual leave to take during the working year; which runs from 1st sept to 31st Aug annually.

Depending on the level at which a member of staff is employed they have between 28 and 36 days leave per year.

Currently the employer uses a paperbased system to record staff annual leave, where a member of staff is given an annual leave card in which they record which days they intend on taking off as annual leave, which is signed off by their line manager. Once this is done they hand their card to an administrator who enters the details onto a speadsheet and shared outlook calendar.

The company would like a technical solution to this where each member of staff can log into an electronic system to book their days off, which is then signed off electronically by their line manager, co-signed by the administrator and automatically recorded onto a system.

Your task it to research into the wide range of options for development of such a system, then DESIGN - BUILD - TEST your solution.