Technikon Witwatersrand`s latest final year IT students have proven to be an innovative bunch, so much so that the institution was forced to reward two teams for their efforts in the final year project competition.
The technikon considers this quite an accomplishment, as it is the first time this has occurred in the seven-year history of the School of IT Project Day.
Pupils Taryn Schwartzel and Grant Scanes came up with "LF Comms", an information delivery system for rural communities that incorporates satellite, microwave and GSM technologies.
The team built the integrated solution with the help of sponsorship from Telemedia and MTN, as some of the equipment had to be imported from the UK.
The system aims to cheaply and easily deliver information to rural communities, by using an asymmetric communications model that uses the strengths of certain technologies while sidestepping their weaknesses. "Although several companies have tried this, to our knowledge we are the first to implement it, especially this cheaply," says lecturer Tom van Aardt.
Van Aardt says LF Comms proves why Scanes and Schwartzel are Orbicom Mandela bursary-holders, as they are breaking new ground in communications.
A new e-world
Students Carl Moore, Miguel Barros, Stewart MacKenzie and Kevin Sun Fat, collectively called Team EIN, came up with Avatar, a concept that is likely to appeal to gaming enthusiasts: a graphical online world that allows users to interact with each other and perform online transactions.
The team describes the product as a new genre: MOMIRC (Massive Online Multiplayer Interface Relay Chat). Utilising C++ and C#, together with the graphics capabilities of OpenGL, the team built a graphics engine, network engine and e-commerce interface from the ground up. Users join through a traditional Web-based Internet server, after which they download the client software. This client incorporates the networked 3D engine, together with secure online shopping.
Through tweaking and testing, Avatar runs at far higher frame rates than other 3D PC games. "But it`s more than just a game," team members are quick to point out. "The chat and commerce functions provide a new dimension never seen before."
The game will allow participants to assume personal online identities and interact with the online world and other players.
Pinnacle of achievement
The technikon`s Project Day, sponsored by Absa, CompTIA, GradTech, Intersoft and Picsie Books, sees students attempting to deliver commercially viable industry solutions.
"The systems - some commissioned by clients in industry and other unique concepts initiated by the students - are developed by students working together in groups of two to four," says Van Aardt.
"The IT Project Day is seen as the pinnacle of their academic and practical achievement and is intended to simulate the working environment as closely as possible."
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