CS39440/CC39440 Project suggestions

As a teaching aid and as a tool for composers of folk dance, a 2D animation of the movement of the dancers across the floor with clear association with the beat and phrase of the music would be very helpful. The folk dances concerned (Welsh, English Morris, possibly Scottish country dance) involve a moderately well defined set of "figures" which each involve a number of the dancers (often just partners) who describe a shape on the floor relative to each other.

A number of tools might be considered for the task: Java FX, Silverlight and Adobe Flash are possibilities. A dance scripting language will be needed which reflects the structure of the dances and the figures. That could be in any format, though XML is an obvious possibility. "Fixed" animation of specific dances is not the objective.

This project is likely to involve familiarisation with some new technologies. Support with dance material will be available so previous experience there is not required (though it might make it more fun if you are a dancer).

The next generation of web forms (Ref.) is now well developed. This centres around XForms. Browser support and plugins are appearing (List) and in the shorter term (or perhaps the longer) alternatives such as Orbeon Forms transform XForms server-side and deliver standard HTML/CSS/JavaScript to browsers.

A web page containing an XForm returns XML to the server (rather than name/value pairs as HTML forms do), which can then be processed server-side by any of the many XML support technologies. A form can also be initialised by an XML document. This permits "round trips" for editing XML documents.

The application could be the student's choice or I have the following suggestions:

1. a module description database;
2. a bibliographic database;
3. a "small ads" submission mechanism for a newspaper;
4. a registration system for conferences or membership application.