Brief Introduction to Buffer
Recently, we concluded the inaugural edition of our project series ‘Buffer’, which was based on Data Structures and Algorithms. Students participated in teams of 2–4 people and worked on either application or research based projects. More details can be found here.
All the projects’ code can be found here.
Overview of the Projects
Project 1
Attendance System
Team Members Samruddhi Salunkhe, Shruti Patil, Mayuri Patil, Sakshi Ingole, and Vaibhavi Gaikwad worked on creating a system to facilitate recording of student attendance.
The application was built using Java and used Java Foundation Classes’ Swing Control GUI elements.
In building their application, they made use of Binary Search Tree and Heap data structures. With Shruti and Mayuri remarking that the application of these data structures helped enrich their understanding and allowed them to explore these concepts even further.
The application’s authentication mechanism allows 2 modes of access, student and teacher. The teacher mode is allowed the functionality of generating unique codes and even viewing of the defaulters list. The student mode allows students to record their attendance using the special code generated.
The team went out of their way by incorporating Java Swing Control making their application very user friendly. You can see their application in action here.
Project 2
Student Result Management System
This duo, consisting of Mahima Makakwade and Akshata Bondarde, developed an application to automate the student result management system.
Their hope for the application was for it to simplify and speed up the result preparation process. To achieve this they have developed a Java application, involving the usage of the HashMap data structure.
Their application allows access of records to both students and administrators. Records can be modified using operations such as insert, delete, and update. As an additional feature, their application can display the list of failed students.
Not only did they learn to implement data structures, but as they said, they also learned about teamwork and showcasing their work. You can find the demonstration of the application here.
Project 3
Library Management System
Team Members Manasi Kasande, Aarya Deshmukh, Akanksha Kulkarni and Sejal Jagtap worked built this application to demonstrate a library management system.
Programmed purely in C++, they have demonstrated a thorough understanding of file handling by reading and writing data to files, and of data structures, through their use of hashmaps to search for books. They have even taken care to ensure that the security of the app’s user is not compromised by storing their passwords using SHA-256, a cryptographic hash function.
The app has been designed keeping the key users in mind; librarian, teachers and students. Accordingly, features to sign up/login, view and modify the book catalogue, issue and return books and calculate fines have been included.
Despite dealing with multiple source files, they were able to put together an error-free application. A demonstration of their application can be found here.
Project 4
Cafeteria Management System
The team, consisting of Pratiksha Lokhande, Mahima Malakwade and Dipashri Naole, built this application to manage all aspects of a cafeteria.
Using doubly linked lists as the fundamental data structure, the entire application has been coded in C++. Some of the features include stock and customer management, keeping track of orders and accounting. Functions to implement and avail discounts have also been added.
A great attention to detail has been given to the UI to make it extremely readable and user friendly. Teamwork and project management skills was a key takeaway by the team members from this experience. A video showcasing their application can be found here.
Project 5
Tiffin Ordering System
Team Members Anaya, Vallari, Vaishnavi and Aditi worked on this application, which covered multiple verticals, including frontend and backend.
Their tech stack included — HTML, CSS and JavaScript for the frontend application, MySQL for the backend database, and Java for the core logic. They also made use of Tomcat Apache and Mars Eclipse.
Some of the features for the application include, login, dashboard, editing of menu and order, and maintaining database of customers and providers. The features are intuitive and user-friendly, and we’re especially pleased that they also implemented a Feedback Screen!
Without previous academic experience in these fields, they were able to make an end-to-end working application on their own. You can find the demonstration of their application here.
Project 6
A Comparative Performance Analysis of Popular Algorithms in Languages you’ve Studied
Team Members Gargi, Priyal, Akshat and Mansi worked on this extensive research-based project.
The Objective was to analyse and compare between C , C++ and Python implementations of different sorting methods performed on different intel core processors (i3, i5 and i7) taking different inputs at a time.
They produced a very well-researched summary of their work. Being the only team which submitted a research-based project, their project has helped set a precedent for future submissions along the same lines.
One of the team members, Akshat, says that she learnt about how even the most minute details can bring about such differences in the results. This testimonial reflects the philosophy of Performance of Algorithms very well, and we’re pleased this team was able to witness it for themselves.
Testimonials
We care a lot about constructive feedback, thus we asked all the teams certain questions to understand their takeaway from this activity. The following were some of the students’ comments.
Working on this project was an amazing experience for me. It taught me a lot about teamwork and really helped me to understand algorithms more deeply
— Priyal
Organise more such series frequently so that we keep learning like this very knowledgeable experience
—Gargi
I learnt that stepping outside the academics is much more fun than I thought. Working on the topic that you are interested brings out your true passion
— Mansi Sharma
It was a great experience, especially considering the fact that the team members could not meet in person
— Akanksha
I really liked the fact that you made us use GitHub. Debugging a large program — it takes a lot of time !
— Mansi Kasande
Buffer helped me enrich my data structure knowledge and helped me to apply data structure in real life application
— Shruti
With this feedback, we remain confident that through such project series, we can accomplish the goal of redirecting students’ interests towards their fundamentals — Data Structures and Algorithms!
We would like to thank all the students for participating wholeheartedly, and to all the organisers for arranging this series with so much commitment.
Until next time!
— Written by Chaitanyasuma, Neha Tirumalasetti, and Aaliyah Ahmed, from Team Loop
